Day 14 - Rome

Day 14

Today was a free day, so Maria and I slept in and then went for a bit of retail therapy.  Maria had found an area about 30 minutes walk from our hotel which was supposed to be a hive for some of the best boutique shops in Rome.  Confident that our navigation skills were on par with Ferdinand Magellan, Vasco Da Gama, and James Cook, we headed off. However, it wasn’t too long before we started to feel less like intrepid explorers and more like entrants in the 100 metres for people with absolutely no idea of direction at the very, very, very Special Olympics.  We found absolutely diddly squat in terms of boutique shops, but we did happen upon a huge fountain dedicated to Pope Paul V (according to Father Wim, things dedicated to him are “all over the place like a mad woman’s breakfast”), and about a thousand cafes.  

Before we knew what hit us, it was two and half hours later and we had walked (taking the longest route possible) to the Pantheon.  So we found ourselves the best street cafe in the square with a prime view of the Pantheon and sat there, relaxing, chatting, enjoying a drink and feasting on Buffalo Mozzarella and Prosciutto for a couple of hours.  

Then we walked up past the Trevi Fountain and found some boutique stores that we should’ve found about 4 hours ago.  

Catching a taxi proved near impossible as no one seemed to want to pick us up, so we found a hotel and asked the Concierge for help.  He was only too pleased to help and hailed us one right away.  I then committed a faux pas by overzealously giving him “five down low”, only to realise mid slap that he was subtly gesturing for me to grease his palm.  

We got home about mid afternoon, put our feet up, caught up on emails, messenger, WhatsApp etc, before heading downstairs to join some of our pilgrim friends for a pre-dinner drink.