We were expecting to morph ourselves from a lovely southern Australian Indian summer of 23 degrees to a lovely sunny Roman spring of 23 degrees. But alas, Melbourne's Indian Summer departed the day before we did so our last day at home was cold, windy and wet. But Rome has delivered - it is sunny, sunny, sunny and we have the sunburn to prove it.
My blog for this trip is called The Form of Things. It will follow us from Rome to Malta, Sicily, southern Italy, Paris, more Paris and even more Paris, then on to south-west France, Bordeaux, Corsica, Sardinia, Barcelona, Mallorca, Andalusia in southern Spain, the Paradores of central Spain, San Sebastian in northern Spain and finally through the chateaux of the Loire valley to fly home from Paris.
We hope you'll join us for the ups and downs, ins and outs, twisted knees and blistered heels, great food, even greater architecture, art and history, loads of blue sky, islands, ferries and unrelenting sunshine. Just the way we like it!
We flew into Rome and spent our first day wandering around the streets in the very heart of the historical centre in a bit of a daze. Recovering after a good dinner and an even better sleep, we decided to rediscover the historic ruins of the Roman Forum and the Colosseum, both of which we first visited in 1998 on our honeymoon.
The walking is tough going for old legs and feet, but the sun was glorious - 23 degrees with a light breeze got us through about 5 hours pouring over the detail of ancient Roman imperialism and democracy. It is incredible to be walking across, sitting on, scrambling over and generally being amongst 2,500 years of history.
This is the house and temple of the Vestal Virgins, the female priestesses of Rome whose duty was to tend the perpetual flame of the hearth of mankind and to maintain their vow of chastity for 30 years. The grass area was originally an internal paved courtyard with three rectangular pools and a colonnade on each side. Statues of eight vestals can be see in the picture.
Having left the ruins of ancient Rome behind, we pottered around the streets of the Trevi district and stumbled across the beautifully restored Trevi fountain. When we were here two years ago, it was without water, completely covered with plastic and home to a team of restorations specialists. It now looks superb.
Obviously, other thought so too. I have never seen so many selfies being taken. We were happy to take normal photos and soak up the late afternoon sun.
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