Rome is amazing and exhausting and gritty and beautiful all at once. We walk and walk for miles here too, from the Colosseum to the Palatine Hills, to the Trevi Fountain and the Vatican Museum and St Peter’s and everywhere in between. There are shops full of vestments and nun’s habits on sale; and gladiators of all shapes and sizes (fat ones, skinny ones), trying to extract euros from anyone who looks at them closely, much less takes a photo. There are ruins where Julius Caesar was murdered in 44BC - a city block of them just near a tram stop - now home to dozens and dozens of cats (some of Rome’s estimated 300,000 feral felines). There are the beggars outside the railway station, and the amazing riches of the Vatican. It’s overwhelming and fabulous, and we have to come back and do it justice!
So then there’s a long trip home via Hong Kong, with just a couple of hours sleep between getting up in Rome and going to bed in Brisbane some 50 hours later. Now we’ve been home a week, and I’m writing the final post. Thanks friends and family for your comments and calls – hope you’ve enjoyed reading it as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it!All our love, Leanne and Col.
