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Published: October 3rd 2013
Our day started slowly, up with Lizzie and then deciding what we wanted to do. Deb left a little gem of herself here...Lizzie and I both woke up with scratchy throats and stuffy heads...Boo!!! Freddie's been walking with Lizzie to meet the school bus in the morning, and bringing Mr. Miles (the Papillion) along...he loves it...Mr. Prancy Pants (Miles not Fred). Freddie and I settled on visiting Circus Maximus, the Baths of Caracalla and then the Appian Way (if we still had some energy). We walked the mile plus to the local train station, passing several truck vendors set up selling clothes, shoes, scarfs, etc. They don't have the Dollar Store, they have the Euro Store....one stand had all items for 1€!
The new monthly metrobus cards worked like a charm at the metro station...what a relief! Circus Maximus wasn't much to look at, really had to use your imagination to get an idea of what it looked like in it's heyday. We turned right and headed to the Baths....Lisa your "Let's Go" map guide is the best...we use it constantly!
The Baths of Caracalla are truly impressive....they're a huge complex built in 212 A.D. and would accommodate thousands
of people at a time. Men bathed in the mornings, women in the afternoons and slaves in the evening. There was an olypmic sized pool, hot and cold baths and dressing rooms. Below is a link with more info...click on the photos of the baths to see short video clips of the different areas of the complex.
http://www.italyguides.it/us/roma/baths_of_caracalla.htm We decided to skip the Appian Way today and headed toward a metro station, looking for a place to get lunch along the way. We passed Porto Metronia, one of the ancient gates into the city of Rome and settled on a little place on Via Gallia called "Only Pizza", but that was a lie...they had calzone, Stromboli and some patties made with chopped chicken and rice that were breaded and deep fried....Freddie got one of those and it was really good. I had a piece of veggie pizza...something like spinach with parmesan between two layers of dough but the top piece had holes in it. Freddie got a calzone that had prosciutto and cheese...yummo! Had my first Peroni.
We walked to Piazza Tuscolo and bought a map that showed the metro, plus local trains and buses....now we had
Stone Pine aka Umbrella Pine
These are the trees that produce those oh so expensive Pine (pignoli) nuts used in pesto. Freddie calls them the Dr. Seuss treesthe full picture...awesome!!! Freddie led the way...a very very long way, to the Toscolana station where he was convinced we could get a local train that would connect with the FR3 train that would take us all the way home. The goal was to avoid the crowded metro and the Termini station. We walked along Via Etruria to Via Appia Nuova and then had to back track a few blocks to get to the road to the train station. By now, all the beautiful restored buildings were not in sight, instead we had graffiti everywhere and I was more than a little nervous. The station had multiple train tacks and no signs indicating which train was going where...just great!!! Fred decided to cross the tracks, in spite of the signs telling him not to, to get to the station and ask for help. While he was gone, a nice Italian man asked me, in English, if I needed information. I said yes but my husband had the map!!! He was able to give me good directions, we were at the correct set of tracks, just needed to go one station to the west and get off at Ostiense, where we
could get the FR3 to go home. Fred showed up just as our train came into the station....and the directions he got agreed with mine! Once we got seated we looked at our new map and found the Ostiense station was a short...get that...short walk...from the Baths at Caracalla!!!!! So we walked miles, miles out of our way to get a train to go home!!!! I told Freddie...this is why we're not going to Florence!!!
It felt good to sit and relax...taking the local train all the way home worked much better than taking the metro, then changing to a local train. Hopefully, armed with our new train map we won't make the same silly mistake again. Once at our home station, we stopped at the market, bought beer...because we needed it, and panna cotta flavored gelato because Lizzie and I have sore throats.
It was a quiet night at home...leftovers, beer and gelato...and T.V. Oh...just to let you know...Armed Services Network is down to one channel because of the government shutdown. So glad we also have service via Sky TV.
The weather has been perfect the past few days...cool evenings and warm days. Weekend weather forecast
is thunderstorms for Saturday, cloudy Sunday with scattered showers. Still haven't decided what we'll do.
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Cherie
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Love the blog! Rays vs Sox starts Friday!
Love the blog guys, feel like we can at least pretend we are with you! The Rays won the Wild Card, our series starts Friday, we are going Saturday!! Have fun and be safe!