Rome

Rome is an amazing city. It seemed to me that every corner yielded a new treasure of some sort- be it a massive great catherdral or grand building with pillars, some Roman remains, or just something lovely to look at. I think my favourite bit of the trip was the first day in the sunshine on Palatine Hill, just looking at the remains of the grand houses that once stood there and realising just how clever the Romans really were. There are so many impressive things they achieved that were lost for such a long time after the empire was toppled. Amazing. And thoroughly awe-inspiring.

We seemed to walk and walk too, which was good. My back is somewhat better than it used to be (thanks I'm sure to the exercise we've been doing irregularly since last September) but I still need to sit down and recover every so often. I tried not to complain too much, but there were moments when I was in some pain. I survived though.

I survived all the art too. It's been noted in the past that I'm a bit of a philistine when it comes to art, mainly I suppose because I've never really tried really looking at it. We saw a huge amount of it on this trip from the collections in the Vatican musuem (and the wonders of the Sistine Chapel) to more modern stuff at the Picasso musuem and the exhibition of the work of Bruno Munari at the Museo dell' Ara Pacis (which I loved). It's difficult to explain why some works appeal to you more than others...more talented people than I have tried to explain that one, but every so often we saw a painting or whatever that just worked for me. It's good, esepcially as I've been so dismissive of it in the past and confined my appeciation of the arts to books and theatre and TV and film. I think I've probably missed out, but I'm catching up slowly.

Steve has put up some of the many, many great photos we took while we there on his blog, so I won't do the same, but they're worth a look I think.