When in Rome

I had to use a Sheila-ism in the title. For those of you who don't know her well, she is prone to the bad joke and trite saying.

I've had to put a moritorium on the joke about having "halibut for the halibut" (for those Irish among you, the second is pronounced so that it sort of, awkwardly, sounds like "helluvit").

Perhaps you chuckled. Now imagine it for 12 years.

Yeah. I think you understand.

But seriously, we gave in to Italian excesses today. We woke up very late (missed the hotel breakfast because we slept in and got our time change all screwed up*), ensconced ourselves in tourist delights, enjoyed gelato not once, but twice and soaked in the Mediterranean sun.

Jackie will be happy to know that I was able to direct my small entourage to the exact spectacular superb gelatorium that I drug her to many times nearly fourteen years ago.** We heard about the place on one of those awesome walking tours. The directions were something like, go to the Pantheon, head away from it and go toward the street on the southwest side of the Piazza. Head west a couple of blocks and turn right. It's called Giolitti.

Of course there was no internet at the time and the place isn't on a map or even in the guidebooks. I had forgotten the name and, really, have no idea how I found it. I knew it was near either the Pantheon or Piazza Navona but I wasn't sure. Once we got to Navona, I knew we had to head back. The kids were exhausted but I promised I'd only look once. If I couldn't find it, we'd just head to a different gelato location.

It was no problem. I found it right away!

Beyond gelato, there is much to report! We tried to hit the major attractions as we are headed to St. Peter's tomorrow.

The Pantheon is just a short walk from Trevi, so we headed there after "breakfast" (pizza since we weren't out of our hotel until 11:30!). I think this is one of the most special temples in all of the city. It has been in continuous use throughout its history, since the 7th century. You can read up on it as I am blogging late (Sheila spent a bit of time on our very slow internet to book train tickets to Assisi and the coast so we can catch our ship to Greece to see Jeanne!). But I love the dome inside the temple. It features "sunken panels in five rings of 28. This evenly spaced layout was difficult to achieve and, it is presumed, had symbolic meaning, either numerical, geometric, or lunar." There is a hole in the top and when the sun shines in it projects a circle on the walls which can presumably be interpreted as a calendar.

After the Pantheon we were off to Piazza Navona to have a little look-see. There Maggie found a little necklace and I realized that we had overshot the gelato place.

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After gelato and, for me, a one-euro espresso (!), we cabbed it to the Colloseum, intending to preseve energy (and sanity). There, we headed inside (a luxury I could not afford 14 years ago). Johnny loves the little info-earpieces you can rent, so we headed in with him wondering "why would they call getting eaten by a lion entertainment???"

I'm off for now. Will update you tomorrow on Johnny's highly illegal and dangerous lazer that Sheila paid too much for.


*Our hotel doesn't have wifi so none of our devices updated automatically. Or, at least they did so in an inconsistent way. So now we've got devices with at least five different times: Central Standard before daylight savings, Central Standard after daylight savings, GMT and GMT + 1. I still don't know what the real time is.

**As said, Jackie and I stayed near Termini station so everything touristy was already a bit of a walk. We did "figure out" the metro and by "figure out" I mean, were able to hop on but not quite understand how or what to pay. By one of our last days with me dragging her across the city center to this specific gelato place (there is, after all, about six on every corner), she was ready to go home and leave me in Europe to fend for myself.