Day 2 - Sat, April 20 - made it to Rome!

Our driver, Giuseppe, drove us in glorious sunshine to our hotel. The temperature is in the low 20s. Lovely after that depressing rain that hopefully we have left back home.

We are staying for the next 6 nights at the Hotel Roma Aurelia Antica. We checked in and worked on our aim for tomorrow - mass for Easter Sunday at St. Patrick's Church at 10:30 a.m. The mass will be in English and have a full choir. Front desk will order a taxi for us. The church is about 11 km away. We plan to explore Rome afterwards - it's just 1.5 km to the famous Trevi Fountain. We might try the Hop-On-Hop-Off Bus to get a feel for the old city.

Our next effort - a 3-hr nap. We were both knackered. The room is very nice - lovely sheets. Temperature control is still a mystery. Not much English stuff on TV - we could be watching a lot of Bloomberg News over the next 2.5 weeks. Hey - there's a bidet in the bathroom. Might give that a whirl/swirl to add to our life experiences!

Next step - dinner at 7:00 p.m. in the hotel restaurant. There are no shops or cafés anywhere near this hotel. It's pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Service at the restaurant was a bit haphazard. Food was good though - I had salmon and grilled vegetables. Doug did a carbo load with Spaghetti Carbonara. Had to pay for tap water. That just doesn't feel right. We skipped dessert - couldn't justify it after all the sitting around we had done in the preceding 24 hours.

We went for a short walk around the building after dinner. We ventured out onto the access road, but there are no sidewalks and there is barbed wire on the fences. We scurried back to the hotel compound only to see many, many police officers. Whew - they were checking in. There is a convention centre attached to this hotel, so we assume that they are here for a conference.

So, we are in for the night now after a side trip to the gift shop where we found good Italian chocolate. We earned it after that 10-minute walk. On the TV, we are watching the Copenhagen Symphony Orchestra playing Ravel. Music requires no translation. Lovely.

No pics for today's footprint. Only selfie we took was a dud...we'll take two tomorrow.

New adventures for tomorrow - Easter Sunday - the day our Lord rose from the dead. Alleluia!Read more