Campidoglio pt 2

Case Romane Del Celio

Underneath the Basilica of Ss Giovanni e Paolo in Clivo di Scauro, Celio is a Roman house complex dating from the 5th century AD.
Case Romane
The buildings have been carefully restored and have some painted rooms which are in good condition.  I hadn't heard about this site until we saw Prof Mary Beard's series "Meet the Romans".  It is really worth a visit. We had the place to ourselves and wandered around for ages. When we come back to Rome in a few weeks we'll do a tour so that we can learn a bit more about the place.
Thank you Mary Beard!

Lo shopping

Jules & Rob went to Cinecitta and went on a tour.  Jules was in his element and both he and Rob took  heaps of good photos.
Sarah, Paul & I spent ages shopping in Cola di Rienzo.
Will post photos later today.

Campidoglio and the Foro at dawn

Jules and I went to the Campidoglio before dawn to get photos of the sun rising over the forum. Rob stopped in while he was out running.

Campidoglio

Campidoglio -statues representing the Nile, Rome and the Tiber

Looking out over the Forum

Rob & Jules

Still learning to take photos in low light with our Fuji

This little bird had a great view

The dawn colours were beautiful

Roman road

"V" carved into paving stone -we saw about 8

Strolling around

We're taking it quietly for our first week in Rome giving everyone a chance to recover from the dreaded jetlag. There have been clear blue skies and it has been quite hot -yesterday all of us got a bit sunburnt despite our sunscreen.

Rob and Paul went for runs and then we went  to Campo de' Fiori for breakfast. We wandered around surrounding streets and then spent some time in Piazza Navona. Jules, Sarah and Paul went to an exhibition of the machines of Leonardo da Vinci.
Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition

It was at the Palazzo della Cancelleria, an amazing, beautiful Renaissance palace which was also a welcome cool break from the heat
Palazzo della Cancelleria

Jules had a great photojournalism op in Piazza Di Spagna as there was a demonstration by immigrants on the Spanish Steps.  Lots of chanting, drums & flares.  

We didn't go to the other main demo yesterday, an orderly group of old age pensioners at Piazza San Giovanni  They have good reason to demonstrate with the pension cuts they've had to endure. The demonstration was markedly different from the San Giovanni demos last year -no tear gas or batons this time :)

Roma

After the usual long flight we arrived safely and have settled in to our apartment.  Rome is as fantastic as always and it is great to have our family all here together. 

We've been walking around old haunts and eating great food, drinking great coffee and of course the obligatory gelati - been to Giolitti twice as well as another place :)
Giolitti 

 The weather is perfect -mid 20s.The cameras have been working overtime and I'll post some photos asap -there are already 100s to choose from.

Last night we had dinner at Taberna Recina in San Giovanni, our favourite restaurant in all of Rome. The food and wine are always amazing and all of the people working there are incredibly friendly and welcoming. A great place -I only managed a few photos, we were all too quick to try everything.

 Five Greedy Australians are much worse than the Two Greedy Italians, no time for photos :)

This pasta looks simple but it was one of the tastiest that I have had in a long time -pumpkin and gorgonzola, perfectly made.  I ate all of it :)

Rob has already done a few runs, the rest of us have just been strolling around taking it easy. 

Near our apartment in San Giovanni, autumn is late and all of the trees still have bright green leaves

Inside the Pantheon -bag contains pjs, we packed a bit too light :)

The Colosseum always looks amazing

We're all doing our best at speaking Italian and all managing to make ourselves understood. In general Italian people are really patient when you try to speak Italian and we're sure to be having lots of conversations in 'broken Italian' and 'broken English' :)

Yesterday we spent a rather disastrous time on one of those 'hop on hop off' open tour buses.  There were demonstrations -who knows over what- and the bus was stuck in traffic forever.  We got off as soon as we could having seen very little. 

We're having a great time and I'll post some photos asap.
Ciao a tutti

Roma here we come

We're very lucky to be heading off for another break in Italy.  Too lazy to fix up my blog so tagging on to the end of my last entry last year.  Hope we don't bore you.
ciao ciao