Rome day 4

Dear family and friends,

here we are in Roma. This is the first morning that I have been organised enough to make any entries into our promised blog. Every evening thus far we have collapsed into an exhausted heap after walking and listening, looking, smelling and touching the many wonders of Rome for many hours.

We arrived on Sunday morning after a very reasonable flight during which the boys indulged in an orgy of electronic gaming and movie watching thanks to the delights of the Singapore airlines inflight entertainment  system. Eva was also very good, though slept not at all from Singapore to Rome and hence, neither did I most of the time.

Despite the new rulings, Singapore security decided that my knitting needles posed a security threat and confiscated them. I was sure that would be the last I would see of them, but, to my complete astonishment, there they were at the other end, ready for collection. Not that any knitting has happened since. too hot. too tired.

 Here you can see us eating our first Roman gelati and pizza.

We arrived to a hot and sticky morning and found ourselves one of many buses promising to transport us to the city centre. Ours deposited us in Piazza Cavour, not very far on foot from our apartment. None of the taxis were willing to transport us because we were 5 not the maximum limit of 4 passengers, but one of them kindly called us a cab, which after all that, turned out to hold only 4 passengers anyway. We crammed ourselves in a few minutes later found ourselves outside the imposing 3m high wooden doors of our apartment building. Sam fell asleep on the footpath outside (see photo above) whilst we waited for Vladimir to arrive to let us in. The apartment is beautiful. The view from the living room over St Peters keeps reminding me of the closing seen of 'A Room With A View'. The floors are lined with beautiful terracotta tiles and it is very tastefully furnished with comfortable couches, beds, beautiful antiques and pictures. It is very comfortable. What's more it is directly opposite the fruit and produce market (see below) which we have been making very good use of. 

Meanwhile, the day is getting hotter and the children have been playing their DS games too long. Alex is talking to his friends on Skype. It is time to get out there and work our sore and blistered feet for another day. We now know to carry a spare set of clothes for Eva as the gelati take their toll on her t-shirts in a very short time. Unfortunately chocolate is her favourite. We have also discovered a gelato shop in the Piazza Navona that sells nutella flavoured gelato which is VERY popular. Some of our other favourite incidental finds have been the little (and big) fountains located all over the place. These offer wonderful opportunities to cool our hot faces, wash our dirty hands and refill our multiple drink bottles and wash off the latest gelato. They also offer great opportunity for fun. The boys rapidly discovered that when the main outlet is covered, the water shoots out a small hole in the top, supposedly as a drinking fountain, but also an excellent weapon (see above).

I will add more later .