Via Roma

Our last wake up call for a while. We packed, went down for breakfast and said good bye to the Divani Palace Acropolis. A smooth taxi ride to the airport. We were early, a lot of sitting around and watching the poor trapped sparrow in the terminal.

12 pm, a 2 hour Alitalia flight to Rome, we arrived at 1pm. Being all within the EU we did not even have to show passports when we arrived. We were approached by a well dressed man who took us in his lovely Mercedes. We were worried it was a scam but on researching we probably spent just a few extra euro to arrive in style in a pseudo cab.

We greeted by our air BNBs hosts mother (to Barb’s disappointment after seeing his profile photo). We could barely both fit in the tiny lift with our suitcases but managed. The place is fabulous, so spacious. Large balcony and to unpack into drawers and cupboards is sublime.

We went for a wander around the neighbourhood, very nice. Lots of restaurants, hairdressers and various other shops. Eventually we found the 24 hour supermarket for supplies. When we got back to our place we had a little Aperol spritz party with some Italian ( and olives bought in Greece) delicacies. We also set up the Netflix. It was so nice to really relax this way after the hectic pace of the tour.

We watched a few episodes of The Crown season 3, which we had planned to watch. Then we headed out to dinner. We found a lovely family run restaurant just down the street. It had pictures of them with famous people on the wall but they were all Europeans so except for Andy Thomas the Australian astronaut, we did not recognise any of them. We shared all our dinner. On the menu was carbonara pasta – each tiny piece of bacon had exquisite flavour, and meatballs in tomato sauce. Great home cooked food. Feeling like celebrating, we also had. The trio dessert- panacotta, mousse and tiramisu. We also got a vanilla ice cream with liqueur. What ever it was that was poured over it was rocket fuel and not overly pleasant.