We arrived in Rome, found the bus stop, found the bus and found the hotel without missing a beat, very satisfying. A nice hotel in a smart mews in the Flaminia district NE of the centre of Rome. The helpful, Italian receptionist welcomed us and asked for our passports for registration, she noticed Maidenhead marked as Marks place of birth and said “I know Maidenhead, there is a very good Italian shop there”. We knew straight away she meant the shop one street over from Marks childhood home which he has known nearly all his life! The receptionist said she had lived in Staines but all the Italians went to that shop. It’s a small world.

We’d noticed a couple of restaurants as we walked from the bus stop and, as it was getting late we picked the closest one and took a table outside. Still only feeling like one course I ordered a pasta dish with garlic, fried sweet chilies and olive oil (very unusual but lovely) and Mark ordered the burger which he thoroughly enjoyed. It had been a long day so we returned to the hotel and to bed.

The next day we headed into the center of Rome to see the sites, we last visited about 40 years ago and were happy to see the highlights of the ancient city again. The bus to the Forum encountered roadworks and set of on what appeared to be an entirely random route which only rejoined its planned journey at the last stop at a bus station which was where we needed to go. On the way there was much shouting and gesticulating from frustrated passengers being hijacked and taken in the wrong direction.

Once at the Forum we enjoyed looking at the excavated temples and piazzas with plenty of information boards explaining the history of the sites. We walked down to the colloseum and admired it from a distance deciding not to join the long queue waiting for tickets.

We walked to the Pantheon which we wanted to see, Mark was keen to see the tomb of Raphael. We did queue there for about 20 minutes only to discover tickets were ‘cash only’, so we decided to leave it. Another tourist heard us talking and, worried that we would miss the experience offered to pay for our tickets, it was very a very kind offer but we had the option to draw some cash and come back so we thanked him and headed off.  As we walked away we spotted a separate ‘card only’ queue which we noted for later.

We walked from the Pantheon to Piazza Navona with its wonderful fountain representing the oceans, and then explored the surrounding streets and alleyways which are famous for their cafes and restaurants. Mark fancied an ice cream and spotted a cafe claiming to offer 150 flavours so we stopped in there. Of the 150 flavours 5 were sugar free which is very unusual so we both had coffee and ice cream and called that lunch.

We looped back to the Pantheon and joined the very badly organized self service card payment queue which had two terminals offering entirely confusing instructions. Everybody was watching the people in front of them trying to buy tickets and offering instructions on how to answer the various, superfluous questions. It took much longer than it should have done but we did get tickets and enjoyed seeing the remarkable building again.

It was a hot day and we had walked a long way so we found a bus back to Flaminia  to cool off and recover.

That evening we tried another restaurant close to the hotel, a bar doing a variety of pizzas by the slice. They were long rectangular pizzas sold by weight so you could order as much or as little as you wanted. I ordered a cheese and ham variety without tomato, while I was being served a customer pointed out another pizza and told Mark it was a Roman speciality, very good and quite hard to find so Mark ordered that. The main toppings were pecorino cheese, oregano and hot honey, hard to imagine but delicious, after we finished we asked the staff what else was on it and they said ‘pig fat’ I’m not sure that was an accurate translation but I plan to investigate when I have a chance.

Tuesday was our last day in Italy, we weren’t due to leave Rome until 7pm so we had booked tickets for an open bus tour of the Vatican gardens and entry to the Vatican museum and the Sistine Chapel. The queuing system was chaotic with stewards shouting at people and creating lots of different lines. If only they had put up a few signs telling people where to wait it would have been simple. This has been a recurring theme of our trip, blundering about without any information but eventually achieving our objective. Admission to the Vatican happens every 30 minutes from 10am to 6pm, you think they would have got it organised and saved themselves the hassle

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The gardens were lovely, a real oasis in the centre of such a busy city. The bus dropped us off back at the visitor centre and again there was no information on where to go next. We worked out that you have to follow a route through the whole Vatican museum which finally leads to the chapel. There is no question it is a remarkable museum with an extensive collection of Egyptian and classical artefacts, tapestries, maps, ecclesiastical items and contemporary art (amongst other things) but it is a huge collection and far too much to take in especially as you shuffle through surrounded by tour groups following their guides. It took over an hour and a half to be corralled through.

Finally, and quite suddenly we were in the Sistine Chapel. It is astonishing to see, and it had been cleaned since our previous visit so the colours were much more vivid. There is only so much detail you can take in as you crane your neck to see, all the time risking cutting of the blood flow to your brain, but we spent as long as we could admiring the spectacle.

Finally, after lunch in the cafeteria it was time to head back to the hotel to collect our suitcase and return to Rome Termini station for our train to Civitavecchia and the overnight ferry to Barcelona.