| Palermo | Taormina | Sorrento | Venice |
Rome September 17-18, 2004
| Well, the end of the trip is approaching. You can see the weather
is getting less pleasant, but the bus has welded into a group that is very
comfortable with each other. We all have our uniquenesses, and we can
even joke with each other about them, and nobody gets upset. We stay this night at the Sheraton Roma, not very convenient to downtown, but very convenient to the airport. A shuttle is available to both by the hotel, and taxi of course is always an option. |
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Insight booked a restaurant near the hotel for 3 tours (so 120 people more or less) and brought in entertainment (a "tenor" and 2 lyric sopranos singing Italian (of course) opera for us). Menu was fixed, but very good, good singing, but with 120 people in a room that is all stone and plaster, it was a bit noisy. |
| The end of the evening was the required visit to Trevi fountain. You're supposed to throw a coin over your right shoulder into the fountain and maybe you'll be allowed (by the Gods) to return to Rome. This photo doesn't show it, but the place was mobbed, so getting close enough to throw a coin over your shoulder and have it hit the fountain was somewhat problematic. But, as you can see, I was able to find a solid place to set the camera for this time delay picture. |  |
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Saturday morning we took the shuttle downtown, and decided to walk to
the Spanish steps. Well, that was (a) a bit farther than we thought
and (b) directly across the top and bottom of several of the hills Rome was
built on. But we got there, to find out that some big deal was going
to happen here, so you saw more theater lights than steps. We did find a very nice place for lunch about a block away, and we found a more level way to return. |
| In the afternoon, we took a Grey Lines tour of "Christian" Rome. On the right is the inside of Mary Maggiore Cathedral (which was about 7 steps from the bus depot, but they loaded us on the bus, took us around a fountain, then dropped us off on the other side of the cathedral). |  |
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Then we went to "the cathedral" of Rome (St. Peter's is not, it technically is not even part of Rome, but of the Vatican which is a separate country). |  |
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We took a cab home from the end of the tour. The good news is that
they hadn't dropped us back downtown, but on the south side of town (only 2
Metro stops from the hotel). The bad news was (of course) it was hard
to find an empty cab. But, as you can see, we did get back just in
time for sunset. We changed our clothes, took a cab back to a restaurant near our first hotel, and had an excellent dinner. It was a special night for Romans (everything was open all night), so traffic was a zoo, many roads were closed, constant helicopter oversight, but we weren't driving, so no big deal. |
| Palermo | Taormina | Sorrento | Venice |
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