When in Rome - Day 3

This is the third day but the second part of this particular piece of the puzzle that is, my life. Part one covered days one and two, hence the slightly confusing preamble. For those of you who are Google Maps Timeline fans please behold our first image:

I did not get up and bang out 7000 steps as I had done the previous day, I'm a massive fan of steps. The band, I know they don't play instruments, and walking. PB is something like 70k steps in a day, it's when we did a marathon distance walk for Alzheimer's Research. On day 2, I'd managed 20 thousand, well above my daily 10k quota, and I didn't want to push my luck. I have various joint issues that can and will flare up with little warning. Sometimes with lots of warning, that I fail to heed.

Breakfast of oats, milk, fruit, nuts, with the idea of keeping the pasta, pastry, and gelato torrent at bay. The vague plan was, let's stay out of the red hot centre, and skirt around the edges, there's a green space near us lets hit that and get some coffee etc. It's a hot steepish walk past lots of academies of various ilks:

Any guesses on Danimarca, Neerlandese, Romania, Belgica, and Egitto? They are of course Denmark, Netherlands, Romania, Belgium, and Egypt. It's a nice green space, lots of tall trees, especially pleasant in the shade. We settle here for a coffee: shaded, hoping for a good coffee, I don't remember them so must've been fine. I opt for a shakerato and a espresso, I think. We briefly discuss what I've ordered, I don't know tbh, I just fancied something iced instead of red hot. Hence getting two drinks, also secretly hoping for one with a bit more liquid, as I'm awful at staying hydrated. There are little birds hopping around the place.

I don't remember this absolutely showstopping monstrosity but that's probably because it's two thirds foam?

We finish up and wonder where the toilets are, and are told public one's are across the path, how convenient. I walk into the gents, past a lady, who I assume is there for security/questions, possibly facilities management. She smiles as I walk past, I use the facilities, wash my hands, and head back out. It was now that I realise everyone else had been asked to pay! We muse as to why I was let off the fee: pity, fear, boredom? Only the lady who nodded me in know for sure. We walk on, water feature, trees

Angela enjoying the shade

Good tree texture

Thicc tree is thicc

It's now that we take a wrong turn and have to double back, the statues along our wrong turn have been decapitated. It's peculiar, we discuss whether vandalism, activism, or they're cleaning and or replacing the heads as they were worn out. It's been several hours since breakfast and we're discussing lunch spots. Trevi Fountain pops up, we're not so far from the Trevi Fountain, admittedly Google tells us it's 20-30 minutes. So off we go. It is blazingly hot, shade from walls, trees etc is much appreciated. I think this is when Sofia told me of the bus her and her food spouse Witty got on. Was it a hop on hop off, possibly, as one drove past.

Angela getting a photo with the city walls in the background, one of my all time fave things is a photo of a photo being taken. This reached the next dimension when my friend Dan took a photo, of Stu taking a photo, of me photographing some rocks.

We're all getting a little tired and it's time to find a suitable place to sit down, alas we are approaching to hustle and bustle machine that is the Trevi Fountain. We find a table, sit down and a flamboyant Italian man comes to take our order. Beer is expensive, he tries to upsell Alistair and Lukyn, they're not having it. We get some drinks and food appears, he explains its free. Flat breads, sandwiches, hot dog's in bread.

 

As the sun transitions across the sky, I can feel my arm possibly being burnt. I am a quite dark skinned brown man, wearing factor 30. Earlier in the trip near the Vatican Angela had explained that she sometimes get's sunburnt through a parasol! We did notice other folks are being given sweet treats, which I'm totes jonesing for, but I think that's part of the trap. "If we keep drinking, will they continue to bring us freebies..." I think we only had the one round of drinks before gathering ourselves for the final push to the total human traffic situation.

It turns out we were minutes away, just round the corner, we hadn't quite appreciated, or I hadn't quite appreciated, how close. Or how busy.

As busy as it was, it was pretty spectacular, but busy.

This doesn't do the crowd justice, apparently lots of proposals here.

We escape the hoard and find ourselves not sure where to go. I spot some lovely purple flowers growing from someone's balcony or roof.

Did we go on a beer run today, to try and find a particular Peroni?

We wander around, walk past Napoleon's former residence? and maybe or maybe not try to find a particular beer Alistair has been hunting/craving. Did I mention I am a frustrated beer enthusiast? I have some kind of kidney issue that means I have high levels if uric acid in my blood, that forms crystals in my joints, aka gout. But my numerous physical afflictions aside I think we split the party. The Lukyn and Alistair are off to get a drink possibly, everyone else is heading to the Airbnb.

Alter of the Fatherland?

Pretty cool right.

Possibly Napoleon's mother's place, I don't know but pretty nonetheless?

We walk past where we'd had lunch, we want to grab a few bits before getting on the bus. In the shop I feel a familiar panic, the panic of my stomach feels funny. Not funny like Kevin Bridges is funny, but funny like where's the nearest accessible bathroom, please and thank you. I think I'll be reet, I can hold it, once we exit the store I realise these are some dice that should not be rolled.

I tell Sofia and off a shoot to the nearest public restroom. I am motoring, making judgement calls about traffic, looking at locals who are also crossing the road willy nilly. Confidence that can only be accessed in the most dire, ear, of circumstances. It's a small glass kiosk, that serves as information for tourists and a toilet, possibly more? I pay a small fee and dash downstairs, the toilets are underground!

Upon entering the gents, I think I was the only one there, I notice all stalls have no toilet seats. I'm puzzled but I can do this. Took less than a minute, but I wait to make sure. Wash up, hand sanitise, and head out.

I would later ask the our lot about why there were no toilet seats, someone mentions the Asians squatting on them breaking them, I'm not so sure as I think you could still squat on a porcelain bowl if you wanted to. GPT gave me these reasons:

I coordinate with Sofia and Angela and we meet at a bust stop, waiting for a particular bus that'll take us a 10 minute walk from the AirBnB. Buses come and go, none are the one we're after. Our Airbnb hostess, Marina, did warn us that the buses in Rome are... unreliable. But she'd failed to book our airport transport, so what does she know... So we head to a slightly different stop and wait to see if we can catch a slightly different bus. After something like 30 minutes we lose the will leading to this scene.

Now that's what I call a high vis bag.

We get on a bus that takes us some of the way but it'll be a longer walk back to the Airbnb. Which is what we do, I keep track on my phone when we should be hopping off. Took about 10 minutes and then a 20 minute walk back, it is about 19:00 by the time we get through the door.

I think we had dinner at the Airbnb, but I'm drawing a blank.

We did however watch some TV, miss drinks with Lukyn and Alistair who headed out for a nightcap at Treebar? Looking at some of their food I think we defo missed out. Did they get free crisps? I did however make sure to document the interesting balance of wires that was required to watch TV with the Fire Stick plugged in.

And that's that, stay tuned for more, soon, possibly, just over 15k steps today.