Advertisement
Published: January 19th 2023
No Gate Montreal
There was no gate available on arrival in Montreal so they transferred us in this people mover. Only one of its kind I've seen at any Canadian airportIt was harder than I thought to get into the routine of a blog again so it's taken me a while to pull this together. One of the downsides of taking a lot of photos - they are time consuming to review and edit! Better late than never, here's the first installment of Marilyn's 2022/23 travel adventures. I hope to catch up in the next couple of weeks...
While I was in Whitehorse, I got a phone message from Passport Canada, notifying me that my passport was finally available to pick-up after its summer drama (that’s a whole different story!). Yay – I could leave the country on September 22 as planned!
If the Yukon adventure in mid-September was a gentle reintroduction into travel, Italy was like getting dropped into a madhouse! I booked two trips in Italy to use COVID-delayed tour deposits – two weeks from Rome to Venice with Intrepid and then a week in Sicily with Explore. Not my usual type destinations but the planning was also dependent on knowing I had to be in Finland in late October and finding flights from Canada without breaking the bank!
I had not been in Rome since
1991, so I arrived a few days prior to the tour start date to meander around on my own. I was (unpleasantly) surprised by the number of other people that had the same idea, especially since it was late September. I guess most were fed up with COVID at this point, so there’s a lot of pent-up travel demand now that things have opened up again. Aside from wearing a mask on public transport (until the ban was lifted October 1), there was little evidence that COVID was even still a “thing” there.
I enjoyed the few days reacquainting myself with the main sights in Rome. My hotel was centrally located near the main train station so it was easy to walk or take the metro to where I wanted to go. One of the benefits(?) of COVID, and I found this during the three months I was away before Christmas, was that most attractions required pre-booking tickets for a specific arrival time. For the most part, that system worked well but it did mean I had to be a bit more thoughtful about planning each day in advance instead of just randomly dropping in somewhere, hoping I could
get entry.
I visited the Colosseum, St. Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican Museum / Sistine Chapel, as well as wandering through Piazza Navona, the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain, among others. My favourite visit was to the Borghese Gallery (
Galleria Borghese - Wikipedia), a superb collection of sculpture, paintings and mosaics. The villa’s rooms are pieces of art themselves. I’m a big fan of sculpture more so than paintings but the overall art collection and presentation at this gallery was fabulous. Highly recommend a visit should you be in Rome!
Here are links if you’re interested in reading more of the history of various Roman sites:
Colosseum - Wikipedia Roman Forum - Wikipedia Pantheon, Rome - Wikipedia St. Peter's Basilica - Wikipedia Sistine Chapel - Wikipedia Victor Emmanuel II Monument - Wikipedia Piazza Navona - Wikipedia Spanish Steps - Wikipedia Trevi Fountain - Wikipedia
Advertisement
Tot: 0.063s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 11; qc: 28; dbt: 0.027s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Martha Joan Whitfield
non-member comment
My time in Rome with Ian and Anna
Our hotel was very close to The Borghese and we had to book a time to go there, big difference from your trip we had to turn in our camera at the entrance so the only pictures I have from that gallery are postcards. Your pictures are fabulous and a great reminder of the great time I had in Rome. Thanks AJ