SUNDAY, JUNE 30, 2013. Roaming Rome...

Sunday dawned as pretty a day as the day before and J Michael, who was itching to get more photos taken, took off to roam Rome especially the Pantheon. I stayed behind to give my poor knees a rest before we embarked on our mid afternoon Imperial Rome tour. All of our tours in Rome and Florence are through www.selectitaly.com at Dan and Angela's suggestion. They toured Italy a couple of years ago and loved the tours they took; the company got highest marks from Travel and Leisure magazine too. So, we are anxious to start these and see how they compare with all the excursions we took while on Sea Princess. It's a high bar, in some case ...in others, well, if they dumped us in the middle of Rome and gave us a compass and a good luck rabbit foot, it would come close to the guides we couldn't understand or who droned on and on and on and on and....

So off JM went. While I was catching up on email and blogging, I heard a loud voice coming through the open shutters...it was Papa Francesco again addressing the crowds in Saint Peter's Square at noon! What a surprise. It was inspiring to hear again the enthusiasm in his voice and the happy energetic inflections as he spoke. As awesome was the crowd's response. "Papa Francesco, Papa Francesco!!!" Over and over and over again.

We headed off later to meet the guide for our tour of the Colosseum, Palatine Hill, and the Forum. After a few false starts, we did find Mario and 11 other happy campers and headed off to wander some more old, crumbly buildings. It was a very hot afternoon, as usual, with many, many steps, as usual, but I managed to keep up with the troops.

Our group was primarily Americans from Indiana, and Texas, among other states. Mario did a good job, but the early part was confusing because Select Italy wasn't mentioned, something called Gardtour was the logo...it must be contracted out to do tours in some places. It was a very beautiful combination of sights and sounds and we heard him say that Rome is better than Florence, because Rome and Assisi are built in the hills they are always breezy and pleasant, while Florence is in a valley and is always hot. Great! We head to the hot valley in three days!

We ended up in another huge and beautiful piazza, (I think it was called Piazza Florentine) and I sat on a marble step to listen to an older gentleman play classical guitar, while JM wandered back to our starting point to get a better photo of the Colosseum. I just saw it and walked it and didn't need to do it again. So I settled myself with beautiful music, a lovely breeze, a cast of characters parading in front of me and a secure feeling of all's right with my world. I applauded after every selection, sometimes the only applaud-er. When JM returned we listened to another beautiful selection, applauded, I fished out a five euro note and deposited it into the guitarist's case and he promptly said "no". I said, "Yes, and grazie, your music was lovely", and he handed me one of his CD's. I graciously accepted it with more thanks and we headed on our way back across town.

We stopped for dinner at another outdoor cafe, followed by dessert gelato...what else? And tomorrow, we leave for Assisi and Part Two of our Italy Adventure.

Here are a few pictures of our first Italy guided tour and the beautiful piazza.