Roman Holiday

We've been away to Rome for a few days to celebrate Deborah's 30th Birthday. For those who are interested (and for our own record of the weekend), here are just a few photos (we took almost 230 of them!) of our trip.

The Colosseum was particularly spectacular and was only 10 mins walk from our hotel. On Tuesday, we also had the chance to go inside and see what's left of it. It's truly mind-boggling how old the ruins are in Rome!



We had plenty of warm weather and it was great to be out in short sleeves enjoying the sunshine and warmth. We caught the sun quite a bit too (although not demonstrated by the below photo, I hasten to add).


Here is Deb sat outside the Pantheon (You can't actually see the Pantheon as it was way too big to try and get into the frame so I've given you another pretty sight instead)


The Trevi Fountain - it was quite a feat to take this photo without accidentally getting someone else in it. It was unbearably crowded with tourists (although I suppose we were tourists too!)


Monday was also a public holiday in Italy and so the city was not only full of foreign tourists but loads of Italian visitors as well. There was also a special youth festival going on so the place was full of teens and twentysomethings - we were certainly feeling our age for the first time in a while! Everywhere was a lot less busy on Tuesday and Wednesday. Here is the view from the top of the Spanish Steps on Monday afternoon.


This is the lobby and breakfast room of our hotel


On Tuesday, we walked around the Roman Forum, Palatine Gardens and the Colosseum. It was really strange trying to picture what it must have been like around the time this was all built and to realise how long ago it was. I expect Paul would have walked along some of the streets we walked along. Also made me want to watch Gladiator again!


Takeout Pizza for lunch!


Deborah on the Spanish Steps in her new birthday cardigan and with a rapidly growing bump!


We stumbled across this suspicious incident. Deb tells me that Bulgari is famous for diamonds (I wouldn't have a clue). The Italian police seemed quite worked up about it and it seems too much of a coincidence that a van with a big pointy thing on the back would be doing a careless 3-point turn on a busy street outside a diamond shop... Mmmm...


This morning, we came across the Ferrari store. Here's Michael Schumacher's F2004 Ferrari (and me drooling). The Ferrari store had every bit of branded merchandise you could ever expect to find including Ferrari branded baby seats, trikes and scalextric sets. At 60 euros (£40) for a baseball cap, we resisted the temptation to buy anything. They were selling a steering wheel from the F2004 for 6,000 euros and part of the exhaust for 9,000 euros!


We missed Isaac a lot while we were away although were comforted by the fact that he would have hated it in Rome. Lots of boring buildings and very few toy shops. He was as good as gold for Grandma and Grandad and is very proud of his new Italia football shirt.


Well done for reading this far!