cottleston news: Another beautiful day in Rome

This guy sold a gadget to do all kinds of silly stuff with veges

We went to the markets at Campo de Fiori this morning where we were conned into buying all kinds of crazy things by the hilarious sales pitches of the guys that work there. Once the first one sold us souvenir teatowels the rest of them had us lined up in their sights as gullible tourists and then they all queued up to sell us stuff. By the end we had sore tummies from laughing too much.

When you get tired of peeling carrots you can use it to shave your whiskers

The food in the market made us wish we lived here or at least had a kitchen to come back to at night, so many spices, and different kinds of fruit, veges, meat, cheese and pasta. We did get some fresh figs and candied kumquats to try - yum yum.

so much pasta, so little boiling water

so many different kinds of sundried tomatoes

lots of chillies and pumpkins. one of the free water spigots all over Rome

Then we headed off to find the Pantheon. It turns out we saw the side of it yesterday, so today we saw the front and then inside as well. It's pretty amazing to stand in a building where part of it was built 2000 years ago. I wonder if any of the things we build now will still be around in 2000 years?

The front of the Pantheon

Wow - this pillar is about 2050 years old

After a stop for gelato we managed to find our way to the Piazza Navona (check the spellinG) where we managed to avoid the temptation of the paint-by-numbers made in China oil paintings of Rome which people were enthusiastically selling as their own work. It's a lovely big open square and we enjoyed the fountains and the people posing as statues for photos. By this time we were ready for a break so we decided to head home but we are finding in Rome it is easy to get sidetracked :-)

fountain in the Piazza Navona

The invisble man wasn't doing a roaring trade

Mum makes a new friend

So we ended up at the national monument to Rome and watched the changing of the guard. We enjoyed their special marching and watching the step guard blow his whistle importantly at anyone who sat on the stairs leading to the monument.

No sitting on the stairs!

One thing about Rome that deserves a special mention is the traffic. Its fast and crazy! There are very few traffic lights but plenty of mad roundabouts (or squareabouts) with cars, motorbikes and buses going every which way. They don't stop for the pedestrian crossings so you must take a deep breath, gather your courage, give them all the hairy eyeball and just walk out onto the road. Then they either screech to a halt or swerve around you and keep driving. It certainly gets the adrenalin pumping and we laugh with relief every time we successfully cross the road.