Piazza della Rotonda

The evening light is beautiful in Rome in autumn, a different blue from Australian evening skies. The Pantheon and Piazza della Rotonda are always magical at night -even with tourists buzzing around.

Scuderie del Quirinale: views of the rooftops of Rome

There is a fantastic exhibition about Augustus,  the founder of the Roman Empire, at the Scuderie del Quirinale which marks  2000 years since his death.   Taking photos was prohibited, which was a good because there were a lot of people and it meant that everyone just concentrated on looking at the exhibition rather than trying to get the best shot.
The walls along the stairway out of the Scuderie were glass and there were great views across the rooftops of Rome.

Il Giorno dell'Unità nazionale e Giornata delle Forze Armate

November 4 is Armed Forces day and National Unity day -the day that Italians remember the armed forces who have died in all wars and celebrate victory in WW1.
We didn't see many celebrations in Rome except for jets flying overhead with red white and green smoke  -I was too slow to take a photo. Apparently dignitaries traditionally lay wreaths at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Altare della Patria (Altar of the Fatherland) also known as the Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II

Later in the evening a military band playing in Piazza di San Lorenzo in Lucina. Their uniforms were very stylish and it was amazing how they could play lively music and stay very still. Our favourite piece was from Nabucco.

Refreshing our Roman memories

Rob went for a run early in the morning and took some photos at the end when it was light. Rome is particularly beautiful at dawn when it is very quiet.

The Spanish Steps

View from road up to the Pincio

Another from the road to the Pincio

Piazza del Poppolo from the Pincio

 Later on we just walked around looking at favourite places

The first glimpse of the Pantheon is always special

Before the tourist hordes descend -the souvenir sellers are already there

The Roman Forum from behind the Campidoglio

Another tourist took this for us -at leat we stopped to look at the Forum -there were heaps of people who had a photo taken and rushed off to the next place

Ciao Roma

It was raining when we left Venezia and there was the first real acqua alta of the season. We arrived in Rome by train and it was really hot -we were dressed for the cold and were glad to quickly change clothes once we had checked in to our hotel.  We are staying in Spagna very near to where we stayed last year.

The "statue busking" this year - it's not too hard to work out how it's done

A caffe at Tazza D'Oro :)

Arrivederci Venezia

We were a bit slack with taking photos on our last full day in Venice.
Rob went for a run early in the morning and took some more photos from  the Ponte della Libertà.  The fishing nets are quite interesting and are set in really shallow water.

Rob ran along the path on the bridge in the dark -there's no way that I would do it.

We went for a stroll in the morning had our last caffe and bigne con gianduia at PasticceriaTonolo and afterwards came across a market in Campo S Tomà -I browsed through the stalls and found some glass that I liked. Rob is not at all fussed with markets and was glad when I was finished :)

We had lunch with Rosaria and Livio, once again Rosaria cooked some great things -Baccala veneziana and tagliatelli con funghi porcini, both were fantastic.


We wandered around Venice for a bit and then reluctantly went back to the apartment and did the boring packing stuff. Our suitcases are at bursting point. It looks like we'll have to visit Poste Italiane before we go to Torino :(

The cruise ships are huge and there is quite a strong movement against them for so many reasons by the people of Venice.  Small traders don't make much money from them as the cruise passengers don't spend much money -many even bring picnic lunches from the boats. The waves created by the boats can't be doing Venice any good.