Rome

All eyes are on the weather as we leave Lubriano and head for Bracciano and a sosta near to the lake of the same name

The motorhome parking is fine but the town is surprisingly a real dump with lots of litter and filthy streets. There's a change in the general atmos down here with the road condition in a much poorer state and the driving abilities of all much the same I'm afraid

The weather is set to be rainy for our train ride in to Rome next day, a full hour on a rather slow train. Still €8.00 each for an all day Rome roving ticket is excellent value

We arrive amidst the usual melee of tourists quite near to the Vatican so after coffee go roaming in St Peter's Square in the drizzle

Quite odd this, barriers up around the square with folks waiting to gain access to the huge open area

We'd come a long way to make this happen so did like some others and easily squeezed by some railings

Not much chance of me replicating this craze….

Bizarrely, and in the rain, there were many couples re-enacting their wedding day for their own photos

Two damp tourists…

Official Vatican postmark bus…

The rain eases and we set off walking 'in to town' ably assisted by our essential App, Maps.me which is a real godsend 

Looking back at the Castel Sant'Angelo and the nearest bridge to cross the Tevere river is closed to access (filming in progress)

Closed or restricted times turned out to be the theme of the day...

Snazzy parking

City centre scooter repair shop

The Pantheon, and the Barbarian Hordes 

The Trevi Fountain, technically closed to visitors for restoration but open just a week after our visit

At least we got to see through the screens

So these were redundant

Nina later gave them to an old lady begging near the Colosseum 

Obligatory 'Roma' scooter

En route to the Colloseum we pass the Forum of Augustus

'Tell me Centurion, why do they titter so when I mention my fwend in Wome, Biggus Diccuss'

So expectation are high at 3.40pm when we finally get to the Colosseum, the feature attraction of our visit really

Imagine the expressions on our faces when we were told it had closed 'for renovations' ten minutes earlier…

I had of course done the research on opening times noting on their website the fact that on that day it closes its doors at 5.30pm…

We were not best pleased

The Arch of Constantine

So the reality of tourism is on a damp, grey day we got to see a scaffolded iconic structure from outside

Hey Ho..

So we entered the metro..

And took one of these

To visit the Basilica San Paolo

And well worth the jaunt across the city it was

Simply stunning inside

Only here I think you can drive aggressively down the back streets between dining restaurant goers

Rome….

We knew it would be hectic and very difficult to see the more important sights in just one day, but we did what we could and walked a blistering 20km to boot

It really is a 3 night city break destination we feel as there's so much to see and do