Rome on foot......

This morning, we met up with Barb and Dave Conrad from Sidney and braved the Rome metro as far as the stop for the Piazza del Popolo. After touring the Piazza and it's adjacent church, we strolled down the Via Del Corso window shopping. We went up to see the Spanish steps (fr0m the bottom) as it was getting steamy hot and humid. lots of street vendors hawking bubble making machines, splatting gelatinous 'eggs', and pushing 'free' roses at the ladies (for one euro afterwards). Later we had lunch in an outdoor bistro in San Lorenzo in Lucia of real Italian Pizza and a 'club' sandwich cntaining egg.

We then continued down to the Trevi fountain and were greeted by thousands of other like-minded tourists angling for hte perfect photo. It was my turn to toss a coin into the Fountain, as Peggy had done it in 1970.

We viewed the Vittorio Emanuele monument, but opted out of climbing the 292 stairs to the top for a 360 Degree view of Rome. Instead we walked down Corso Vittorio Emanuele to the Piazza Navona with it's 4 fountains depicting four great rivers, the Nile, the Danube, the Ganges, and the Rio del Plata in Uruguay (?). We ended our walking tour at the Pantheon, another amazing feat of architecture built in 120AD containing 40 foot columns made of solid granite columns supporting a dome made of volcanic ash.

Out tour day ended with us grabbing a taxi (12 euros) back to near the Termini, as traffic was blocked due to some individual standing in front of a bus with a box on the ground and what looked to be some kind of detonating device held to his neck. We got away from there quickly and got back to he comfort of our air-conditioned hotel room. Later we went to Florian's for a delicious meal of Pizza/pasta/salad and washed it all down with some good Italian wine.

Vittoria 

Emannuelle
Monument

 Pantheon