Category: Italy 2018

A day of catching up in Roma. We puddled around in the morning. Had a chat to Rosa which was great. I then set off to see if our coffee shop was open given that everything starts to close down in August. Sadly it wasn’t so I rang and told Chris who very sneakily said she’d meet me by the market area with the dress shop man. Very sneaky indeed!! As I waited for her I found 2 more dresses I liked and another which is a replica of the yellow one at home I like. So I bought 2 more dresses (45 Eu) and met Chris. We then did some more shopping and I told her about the yellow one…we found our way (unintentionally on my part but I do suspect Chris) back to the man and I was persuaded that another yellow one was sensible and definitely wouldn’t hurt!! That is 7 dresses I’ve purchased in Rome….can you believe it but they are great summer dresses and for an average of about 22 Eu each its hard to resist.

We did some food shopping, Chris had some other things to do so I came home to try on and wash my new purchases. Chris brought lunch home and I hung about a bit. But was able to rouse myself to go and see a Canaletto exhibition that was on at the Museo di Roma. That was a really nice thing to do. I love Canaletto…most of his paintings are in London and I’ve loved them there . So I spent time there enjoying the scenes of Venice and London.

The Museo has a Cafe that overlooks the Piazza Navona so I went and sat there and ordered myself a Spritz to watch the world go by. It is such a lovely place to sit and people watch. If I was truly honest I’d say I had 2 Spritz but I’m not entirely honest and that’s certainly not what I told Chris!!

Home I came. Very relaxing day. Now we are going to go to a little bar over the road for an aperativo. More after dinner.

The little bar was bopping tonight, there was us, an English couple, an American girl and the Italian owners and family. We were all engaged in animated conversation which was fun. Now back home, the chicken stuffed with sausage is cooked, Chris in the kitchen. We’ll eat and then sleep.

I’m contemplating what to do in the last week back in Rome, actually it’s only 5 days or so , but I don’t want to sit around Rome being lazy so I’m thinking of going down to Lecce. I’ve always wanted to go there so it might be a good opportunity.

More later. Love you all XXXXXX

Not much to report today…travel day, but fortunately no missed planes!!

We set off at 7ish this morning to walk the short walk to the bus to take us to the airport. Now I say short, and indeed it was, but try taking a super case on 4 wheels down a street that has to be steeper than any the average Aussie would see. All the muscle power was used to prevent it hurtling off without you and bouncing into the sea. Perhaps a slight exaggeration but you get the picture.

Anyway it was a smooth ride out to the airport. A chaotic, crowded airport experience but nothing too unusual. Spending our last pennies on tea and coffee. We went to a place that said free wifi but you had to spend 25 TL to get the WiFi so we had to scrounge our lira together to make the grade. Airports everywhere generally give you the shits!!

We are so nervous about missing planes now…even more neurotic than previously which is pretty bad… that we both get very tense. Anyway here we are back in Rome. I must say I have loved Turkey, as I do every time I go there but Rome does feel a lot like coming home. We indulged in a taxi home.

Now the washing machine is whirring, the wine is open and Chris has rushed off to get some vongole (clams) to whip up a pasta. Before we eat we’ll go downstairs to the little bar over the road for a pre-dinner drink. This life is very compatible!!

Thats all for now my lovelies.

XXXXX

Disaster Day!! All good this am…everything in place, close up the apartment, all anticipation heading off to Istanbul. Taxi booked, got to the airport in oodles of time…too much time to burn! Sat around, had a bite to eat and a glass of wine, watching the board for gate information.

Gate information goes up and we head off feeling very relaxed…only to find that there was a Turkish Airlines flight leaving a bit later and for some inexplicable reason we were watching that flight instead of the Pegasus flight we were booked on. We tried to bolt for that flight but it was too late and for the first time in my life I had missed a flight.

You cannot imagine how stressful that is. It was more than stressful, it was awful!!! Very tense all round as neither of us could understand how we’d done it!! They had taken our luggage off the flight so we picked that up and had no choice but to head back home and try to work out what to do next.

What to do next was a business in itself. I can tell you that missing a flight is a very expensive business. We have had to weigh up our options which included sucking it up and getting on a very expensive flight tomorrow; ditching the whole idea and staying in Italy; going in a day or so when the prices settled back down but severely curtailing our time in Istanbul; going to Trieste early and going to Turkey at the other end of the holiday which would have meant reorganisation of multiple variables and the inevitable loss of money in the process. There was much discussion and disagreement but we have finally decided to go tomorrow. The way I see it…. its like getting robbed, you have to just move on…although thats very hard…I’m still smarting from those girls taking all my money out of my purse at Montmartre!!!!

So we go tomorrow morning and life will continue. We will try to relax tonight and head off in the morning. We had a big discussion about buying wine in Istanbul and realised we hadn’t bought a corkscrew which is still an essential in this part of the world, no screw caps here!!…so if there is a silver lining it is that we can now pack the corkscrew!!!

So now rebooking taxi’s, rearranging hotel booking, rearranging airport pick-ups at both ends. Exhausting!! a bite to eat and we’ll both be ready to hit the hay.