Roma

Arriving in Italy. It took us about 15 mins to have a cuppacino and a conversation with a random person to realize how how *ace* it is to be back in Italy.

The day started early. The alarm clock rang a 3am in Bury, Manchester. The cab to the airport was arriving at 4am, so it was action stations to get ready and run downstairs to prepare coffee and some breakfast. I thought to myself "no point letting those crumpets and Lancashire cheese going to waste" ... so that's exactly what we made.

We flew out of Manchester, broke the low clouds and watched a spectacular sun rise. Heading South we flew over the English Channel - looking back onto the limestone cliffs of Southern England and fwd to the Northern shores of France. Over France we flew, over the Alps checking out the valley town and the alpine villages way up in the mountains. Next up was Italy - flying down the West side into Rome.

It's all to easy. Europe is interconnected and convenient. We get off the plane, enjoy coffee, talk to the waitress then it's downstairs to the train which took us into Rome central. I enjoyed some Euro moments on the train ... a dutch lady a bunch of girls had got on the wrong train. I gave her my train map and tried to help. The Italian kid accross from me forgot to validate his ticket, so he loaned our pen and scibbled down the boarding time. Down the aisle came the ticket dude, we laughed and the pending frustration coming ... the ticket dude took my ticket, then his and gave him the meanest scowl (lol) .. we all laughed.

We arrived at the station, picked up a map from the super friendly information staff then walked in the rain to our hotel. M picked a great one. A B&B which isn't too far from the station. It's on the 5th floor of one of those grand buildings with a common stairway. There's this turn of the century elevator that the old folk who live in the building graciously use. The stairways have great old lamps. The B+B itself is very nice, super comfy with an awesome room, high ceilings, tiled bath room complete with a space-pod shower.

Dropping our bags off we went for lunch, tasty pizza's and some red wine - just delicious.

It had been a long day so we Siesta'd then heading out for a walk about Rome. We walked all over, checked out the Trevi fountain, fab buildings before settling in for a delighful outside dinner complete with fab Chianti. I ended up ordering a ravioli dinner, which turned out to have meat in it (meat is overated). The waiters gladly switched it out, explaining "How would you know? Your not Italian. No problemo". Nice dudes, had some laughs with them ... at the end they gave us a complimentary cermonial drink ... called "happiness" . A shot of peppermint schnapps vodka, sambuca which is lit on fire, slammed on the table, thrown back then you inhale the vapours. All jolly stuff.

Afterwards we roamed back checking the various marvels that are seemingly on every corner.

It's been a day 'connecting' with people. That's one of the best parts of travelling .. rolling into a town, meeting local people and having laughs with them. We've spotted some of our fave places to from last visit including a restaurant that introduced us to the Southern Italian "5 hour slow food movement". We're going to go back there in a week when we return.

One thing that has struck me on this visit is how much Rome is a local-yocal place. Once you get past the grandeur you spot the locals living, running there businesses and generally going about ther lifes.

Tommorow we take the train & boat to Amalfi....