A Venture to Convent of St. Bonaventure

Slept in but made it out by 2pm ish. Got a sandwich with prosciutto, sundried tomato and mozzarella - very yum. Walked over to the colosseum area and enjoyed the spectacular views. Will go properly later but alas not today.

Did some wandering instead and somehow ended up at a random Franciscan church monastery on top of Palatine Hill. The sign said free tour so we hung around 5min for the 30min tour. It was fantastic.

A beautiful little church and very peaceful. The guide was great and Wade was surprised by how much of the Italian he could understand. Luckily the guide repeated it all in English so we learnt a lot.

Learnt the story of how the Colosseum was saved by St Leonardo, who built stones showing the crucifixion and then made the Colosseum into a holy martyr site (preventing people from destroying it by stealing all the stone for building other stuff).

The roof of the church was cool - painted to look 3D and hard to see at first. The side room where the monks got changed also had parts where half of the closets were real and half were just painted to appear real.

Final stop was a little garden with a nice view over part of Rome. Peaceful and surprisingly untouristy for being so close to the colosseum. A delightful time and an unexpected gem.

Wandered around and explored some more then home. Got some dinner - we were scared off by the previous night's bad recommendation, so we turned to Radi's detective skills. They did not disappoint. Delicious fresh and cheap pasta from one place and some fried, breaded anchovies from another. Soooo soooo good!

One final trip out for gelato and it was off to bed.Read more