T Minus 2

Only two days left in Rome! I try not to panic. I got up early on Monday and decided to walk to Campo di Fiore to the street market. It was another beautiful day. The weather had cooled down quite a bit, so I thought it would be a great day to walk and shop.

I took this picture at the bottom of the Spanish Steps, right around the corner from my hotel. I think this is about the only time of day when you can actually see the steps. In the evening they're covered with people.

This scene cracked me up! Apparently the price for parking in a 'No Parking' zone is to have your vehicle buried in trash. I'm not sure how trash pick-up works here, but I noticed that early in the morning there were empty plastic trash bags left on the doors to many businesses. So maybe someone comes around and takes your full bag and leaves an empty? Certainly no garbage truck could fit down most of the streets.



The market was a lot smaller than I thought it would be, but had all kinds of great looking vegetables and meats and a couple stalls with fresh flowers. The best booth had bags of dried herbs and spices that smelled wonderful. Of course there was a limit to what I could drag home with me, so I had to leave it all behind. The one thing I did take away with me was the name of that wonderful tasty leaf that was in all of the salads: rughetta! Gotta get me some!!

I went off browsing through some of the shops and just taking in the local scenes. Here are a couple of miscellaneous street scenes I ran across.

This one is from the Piazza Navona. A lot less crowded in the morning than it was the first evening I passed through.

This fountain was pictured in my guide book and I just happened across it in one of the back streets. I recognized it immediately.

Originally, I had planned to return to the Vatican Musem on Tuesday, making it both the first and last place I visited in hope that the memory of it would not be diluted by everything else I experienced here. Finding myself in the neighborhood, however, I decided to go back now.

Here is one view down the Tiber as I cross Ponte Sant Angelo. The river itself is pretty ugly, but other than the hilltops, it's one of the few places where you can see any distance and the views are all amazing!

This view includes St Peters.

Here it is again from another angle.

Once at the museum, I went directly again to the Sistine Chapel. The museum and the chapel were much more crowded this time; maybe because it was Monday? This time around I found the picture gallery, which I had somehow missed on the first day. I also ran across this interestingly attired individual:

The last place I went was back to the Sculpture Rooms. What an incredible collection! The sun was dropping, so there was all kinds of great light coming through the windows this time. In this grouping, I kind of thought the second from the left looked like Pete Townsend and the third from the left like Joe Walsh.

This is one of my favorite pictures of the sculptures.

I spent more time shopping in the area of the Vatican before I headed back. By the time I got back to the room, my feet were like 2 pounds of hamburger in my sneakers (I think this was the day I clocked 25, 000 + steps). I showered and changed, but there was no way I was putting my shoes back on, so I headed out to dinner in my flip-flops. I was starving and had a marvelous dinner at Otello's (thanks, Bob, for the tip!) but it starting storming while I was there and my flip-flops are useless on wet surfaces, so I ended up walking home barefoot; up the Spanish Steps and down the cobbled street to my hotel. Hopefully, there was no one taking pictures of me! :-)