Fri, Sept 12th
Our trip to Italy really began at 1:30am, when a
Continental agent called to tell us our 3pm flight from BWI had been
canceled, and could we go from Dulles at 1pm instead? Well, that would
have been a logistical disaster, but after some Web and phone work in the
wee hours, we eventually arranged to leave from National at 1:00 instead.
After a start like that, the 8-hr flight to Rome came as something of an
anticlimax.
Sat, Sept 13th
We arrived in Rome at 8am local time and got the express
train into town, and walked to our hotel at the Piazza San Silvestro, which was centrally placed
for the sights of central Rome. Once disencumbered of our luggage we
were free to roam (pun) to the famed Fountains of Trevi, and the Pantheon,
which is the best preserved of the ancient Roman buildings (AD 118), with
a surviving rotunda which is one of the largest masonry domes ever built.
After a bit of a nap we toured the Castel Saint'Angelo, which began life
as Hadrian's mausoleum and then served variously as a fortress, prison,
and papal residence. (Hmmm.) We had a lot of great food in Italy, and it
started out well at a little backstreet bistro called La Piccolo Arancia,
where we had great endive risotto and grouse with orange.
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on to Day 2...