A Solitary Ramble

So, a good night's sleep for both and we got up and out to the piazza for some breakfast. This is not news. This is getting to be as predictable as the sunrise. What was not particularly predictable was the brioche cioccolato that Nancy got consisting of what was basically a croissant with an ungodly amount of Nutella injected into it.

The white building in the middle is ours. The dark door more or less in the middle is also ours. Going up from the door level, the second window level, the two windows on the right are ours.

After yesterday's crush Nancy didn't feel like getting out so after killing most of the morning sitting on my butt I decided to hit the trail for a solitary ramble.

You have to enlarge this panoramic view as much as possible.

As the tourist hoards are really not to Nancy's taste I thought I'd do my own twist on the tourist trail. I took the Metro to Spagna, the station at the Spanish Steps.  Then, using wisdom accumulated over the years, I took the little known elevator in the station to the top of the Steps.  (Actually it takes you almost the way up; there's still a short staircase to be negotiated.) From that height you not only get a nice view of the piazza below but also the entirety of metropolitan Rome.

From there, rather than immediately go down the Steps I decided to walk over to the Villa Borghese. Nancy and I have tickets to this next Wednesday so I didn't plan to go in.

It's just that on the map the next Metro station, Flaminio, is closer but considering the topography around the Steps I wanted to see if getting to the top first made more sense. I still don't know but it's an easy level walk from Spagna.  I think next week I'll take Spagna to the Villa and Flaminio back just to see.  Anyway this time all I did was stick my nose into the associated gardens and walk back.

So, as you can see, I rejoined the masses chez les Steps. I've seen worse here so I guess tourist season really is winding down. The last photo above is the Column of the Immaculate Conception located at the next bit of piazza along the way.

My next stop was the Anglo-American Bookstore, one of my lodestars. Without getting too snarky (again) about my fellow touristi, any place with books is liable to be a quiet oasis.

At this point I again squashed in with my fellows and moved on to the Trevi Fountain. I took a certain amount of elbowing to actually get down to it with an unobstructed view but I took fullest advantage of it, standing there for a considerable amount of time just rejoicing in this art.

A quick splash in the face and I moved on.

A rather nice Annunciation. 

Next, due to a special request by one of the patrons and because, really, it must be seen, the Pantheon, the temple of all the gods, since sadly reduced to a single God a couple of millennia ago.

And then homeward, passing this Bernini elephant (thankfully restored after it was vandalized a year or so ago).

This involved dropping down the the confusing end of Corso Vittorio Emanuele II (okay, it's all confusing), zipping around Piazza Venezia, and on to Via dei Fori Imperiali, using the "back door" I noted earlier to get home.

I peeked for Nancy in the piazza and then looked for her in the apartment. As she was AWOL I left her a peevish note and stepped back to the piazza. I had just settled in when I saw her walking along crossing the piazza in front of me. I finally caught up with her to find her distracted; she had lost a cap on a tooth. So she went up to the apartment to drop off her goods. While I expected her back in the piazza she ran into Paola the landlady who spent a while with her and among other things got her in touch with a dentist.  She has an appointment on Monday.

So, I had dinner and went back to the apartment where Nancy had just wrapped things up. We went out again and Nancy had dinner. And dessert. Boy, was that good. Nancy had a panna cotta with raspberries. This was good and all but I had a cake with oranges and, check this out, pepperoncini. The cake and orangeness was ungodly good but the lingering heat of the otherwise indistinguishable pepperoncini was really a nice enhancement.

And so back.  It's nearly midnight and I'm tired after my long journey. I'm calling it a night.