When in Rome ... divine gelatos

OK, so the photos somehow ended up on top and I'm not going to fiddle and change them around.  Too tired.  But this is the entrance area for our apartments above, and below is the "sugar bowl" in a cafe today

There are some places around that have a heap of padlocks attached to them.  At first it looks kinda strange, and I still haven't got the full story, but it's something to do with LOVE - quite a few of them are either engraved, or have initials or names on them and it's not hard to guess the significance eh?

One for my 'letterbox' files!

More great back alleyways

We thought this was quite amusing.  Our gelato stop this afternoon was in a place that advertised it made its own ice creams and gelatos, and they used real fruit and they had something special.  Anyway, it was gelato time for us so we tried it, and we all agreed that they were extra special and would now be the yardstick for future gelatos.  Then we came out to the piazza and noticed the name of the street where the gelato place was .....  hmmmm  ???

The traffic here is of course wonderfully chaotic, busy, crazy, fast, courteous, noisy and I think if I lived here it would be crazy to have a car.  But then I figured, after this line up, you'd need a lime green bike/moped or it would be like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack!

We had quite a different sort of day today.  Not because for the first time it was overcast instead of sunny, nor because it's the start of a long weekend here.  It was my turn to go looking, if not shopping, this morning.  I was trying to get to a bike shop that sold accessories, not necessarily BMW ones but ones that would fit a BMW bike.

I won't go into too many details, but after speaking with several people, some phone calls being made, internet searches and the phone book all consulted, we ended up with one particular place.  Mimo had offered to drive me there, which was really nice of him.  Roger came too because it seemed an interesting way to spend an hour or so.  So we set off, and arrived at a different shop to the one we'd narrowed our search down to.  It wasn't what we were looking for so we headed off to the original choice but it still wasn't what I'd envisaged.  Note to self:  need to return to Rome to try to find what I think they must have!  It was good however to see a different Rome, and to see it from a vehicle as well as having Mimo's company.  On the way home he detoured and took us to a great vantage point so we could see Rome spread out below.

Lunch was back at Pat & Mimo's place, this time with Alex (their other son) and Pat had said it was "just a buffet lunch".  I should have known because all meals at their place seem to be spectacular, and this was no exception.

After lunch Pat drove us to the Vatican and dropped us off.  It didn't take long to drive there, and it felt quite strange to be dropped off at St. Peter's square.  It's been many years since I've been there, and of course there was a lot going on in preparation for tomorrow's Papal address and service.  We spent the rest of the afternoon just wandering down alleyways, and gradually making our way back to the start of the 224 bus route so we could catch our bus home.

A quiet night in for Leanne and I, but the time still goes way too quickly.