Let’s go for a stroll

First of all, here is a few photos from the street-side window in our apartment.  These is the view of the apartment directly opposite of us….. I love the antennas and satellite dishes!!

If you look down the street to the right, you can see the grocery store that we use at the end of the street.  The stand directly below us is a Pizza Restaurant which we plan to try one night…..

Needless to say, this photo was taken early in the morning as there is no one out and about.

This morning David and Lyn took off on their own….mainly because I was pooped out from heavy duty walking and sight seeing for the last 10 days.  

Michael and I had a leisurely early morning and then decided to go out for a stroll.  The initial destination was the Hotel Miami which was where we stayed on our last trip to Rome in 1998, however we turned the wrong direction on Via Nazionale so just decided to see what we found.  Of course the first place that we stopped was at a small cafe where we sat on the sidewalk and drank coffee, tea and a wonderful pastry that had an apricot filling on top of a shortbread type cookie…….it was HUGE and wonderful!!

While we sat there, we enjoyed people watching, especially the fashions that the Italian people wear.  They always are stylish, regardless of the type of clothes they have on.  When really dressed up (like at a wedding), they look as if they have just left a Paris runway (men and women), but they even look good when they are in shorts and sandals!!!

As we continued further down Natzionale, we came upon two Church Cupolas ….both right together. 

As went rounded the corner, we saw that we were standing at the Piazza Foro Traiano, where Trajan’s Column was located….at LAST we found the real one!!!!

As we walked into the Piazza, we noticed tons of immaculately dressed people and tons of cameras, both digital ones and huge movie cameras.  Then, all of a sudden all of them processed into the church and, as we watched further,  a Rolls Royce drove up with a bride and her father and we watched as they made their way into the church. 

We are slowly seeing all different parts of the marriage day events.

We turned left at the Column and started walking down Via dei Fori Imperiali and, low and behold, the Roman Forum was on one side of the street and the Coliseum was at the end of the street!!!!  It would probably have been faster yesterday to have walked this route rather than walking to the Metro station and taking two different rides…..who knew???

We enjoyed taking photos of some of the ruins, both those “officially” inside the Forum and those on the other side of the street as well.

We are finding that some of the street art is getting weirder……

There was another one that looked like a medusa, but I couldn’t get a good photo of it…..it was really strange!!!!

We have now had lunch (left over Pesto), watched an episode of NCIS and are relaxing for a while.  We will probably go out for a short time later this afternoon, but only if we can find the energy!!!!