Roma, Roma, Roma!!

Wednesday June 4th was a  wonderful walking tour of Rome filled with Caravaggios, Churches, the Borghese Gardens (including a visit to the Pietro Canonica museum within) Italian beer
(not bad at all, from micro breweries) and good food from our favourite hole in the wall restaurant next to Gigli D'Oro.

In the Borghese gardens we stumbled upon the dress rehearsal for the 200th anniversary of the "Carabinieri, an Italian paramilitary police force considered a plum gig in Italy and open to both men and women. We saw several hundred men and women in full dress uniforms first preparing for and then executing a rehearsal for a military parade. They presented arms to what looked like their commanding officers.

There were more guns in one place then in all of Canada, or so it seemed to us.

On Thursday June 5th we awoke early, gulped down breakfast and headed off to meet Alex & Sal at the Capitoline museum for 10AM. We toured the museum (highlights were the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius and the Michelangelo temporary exhibit) until noon and then grabbed a pricey but yummy lunch of fried artichokes and arrabiata penne.

Of course we imbibed a tipple or two of white wine so after lunch Lisa and Christos opted on some down time at the hotel before heading out to meet Alex and Sally for Alex's 75th birthday dinner! Dinner was a marvelous affair with carpaccio, two different kinds of veal, copious wine, strawberries in cream and of course a fine cigar for Baba! We bid them safe travels home and stumbled back across town, engaging in a lively political discussion with two Ukrainian kids (their position was "Go Putin") before stumbling to a virtually deserted Piazza Navona. The Ukrainians in good cheer had of course offered us a gift on parting so we indulged and wandered about the Piazza analyzing as best we could the intracacies of the fine fountains therein.