La Storta to Rome

Packed and bags down by 8am. We were hoping the Bagsfree pickup man would find his daily payment today (a feature of arranging it ourselves): yesterday's did not look in the agreed spot in the agreed tag (which all the others did), so emails to and fro yesterday afternoon to sort it out.

Breakfast was empty, bar a man who asked if his 23 children had disturbed us at 2:30am (they hadn't). He was a teacher in Brusssels, and his school's cross-county team was on a 9am flight yesterday that was cancelled... so they arrived at 2:30. As we watched, sleepy teenagers wandered in, grabbed bags for things, and wandered off to a bus. We felt serene in comparison.

At first we had a busy road, with overflowing rubbish skips every 200m, but soon enough a lesser road, and then suddenly a national park. We had expected a city park, like Hyde park, or the Botanic Gardens, but this was a bush track through scrub and sometimes mud. Back to civilisation after a steep hill, then a traipse along increasingly more commercial and busier city roads, until another park. It was a hill (the highest of Rome’s seven) with views over Rome from one side, and 500m further on, views of St Peters. Down via the least comfortable road surface of the entire trip, a few jinks, and then a straight march to Leo's place, arriving shortly after 2pm.

Our B&B was a further 20 mins (12 if we knew the easiest way) in a ratty looking apartment building. We had been warned, and also read that the host and rooms were excellent. Both true. Checked in, showered, planned a trip to a laundromat, lazed about, spent an hour looking for a self-service laundromat because Google maps calls dry-cleaners here laundromats, found a place that would do things in 90 mins, not 24 hours, then went back to rest blisters/sore shins as it was only 10 mins away.

For dinner, we went to a restaurant around the corner. Bruschetta, carbonara, cheese and pepper pasta and a salad. All good.

37,852 steps, 29.8 km and 42 flights. Another easy day tomorrow.Read more