Italy with Kids - Rome!

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Our host gave us vouchers for breakfast at a local caffeteria. So our first job was to find it!. Cafeteria Cottini wasn't it, but when I went in and asked “Dove la Cafeteria Colonnado?” He took the vouchers and walked off to the back of the restaurant! Note to self: don't let people take things away! Thankfully he returned shortly and indicated that they would accept the vouchers: One croissant or doghnut each and a cappucino each. That would have been great if the kids wanted cappucinos! So we paid separately for sprites. As the cafe was basically a sweet pastries bakery, they each had sugar-encrusted doughnuts for brekkie. The coffee was fantastic!

Next a wander around to get bus tickets - finally tracked down the biglietto stand at the Termini train station, and got two Roma passes for E20 each, Visa. Kids under 14 travel free.
Bused to Campo De Fiori. Nice little market with some souvenir stalls and a lot of fruit and vege stalls. Didn't spend long there, then we walked to the river and across the Ponte Sisto. The Tiber is looking very green!. Liam and Joseph took turns with the camera so lots of unusual pictures!
Then back again and our first taste of gelati!



Into the Spada Gallery. The kids were really good in the gallery: we got them to pick out their favourite paintings in each of the four rooms. The perspective garden was as cool as the 'Rome with Kids' book suggested. At first look, I don't think Joseph understood what we was looking at, but the very friendly guide walked up the path for us and it looked like we was becoming a giant!

It sill being mid morning, we then made our way to the Piazza Navona. Unfortunately the main fountain was being repaired, and was covered in scaffolding, but the gelati store was open so we had another! Liam and Joseph going nuts with the camera again, loads of photos.



Then on to the Pantheon. We approached it from the north: Joseph had spent much of the day peering into the cracks in the cobblestones trying to find loose change, so I had to ask him to look up so he could see it.



We decided we should take a break at the Borghese Gardens, so caught a bus along to the Piazza del Popolo, and climbed the steps to the gardens. The park areas to the west had large areas under construction and fenced off, and sad to say were in very poor condition. We took the opportunity to ride on tandem motorised bikes for E20 total for an hour.



Later we had a bite of pizza and then made our way back to our room for a much needed rest.

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