Our rooms in St. Regis are great; a little warm at times, but good. The weather has ranged from slightly chilly to warm and dry until today. It's raining and umbrellas are a necessity.
Saturday Greg, Marianne, David and I arrived and caught up on our sleep before taking an afternoon walking tour that included the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish steps and more. We had a wonderful meal at Hotel Eden that evening. Greg might have a heart attack when he sees the bill he picked up on that one!
Up early on Sunday morning for breakfast, we met our guide, Francesca and our driver, Alejandro to head for Tivoli. It's a larger city than I would have expected. We toured the Villas d'Este, a huge estate with hundreds of fountains hidden in tiers of garden hedges. David unfortunately didn't want to risk his knee going down and back up all the steps so he missed a lot of neat sites. Luckily Greg took lots of photographs. Around noon we headed back to the hotel to get a European style nap, share room service burgers and fries, then met Francesca for an afternoon tour.
For the afternoon, we toured the Borguese Gallery. We took a taxi to the Gallery and what a ride it was! Even our guide said the drive took years off of her life. The streets were crowded with pedestrians but our driver weaved in and out of the cars and people whipping the wheel this way and that, just avoiding collisions.
The Borguese Gallery was full of Bernini sculptures that were vividly life-like. It was fascinating to see them and hear the stories about his life. His father was a sculptor and he must have learned quickly as he was finishing museum quality work by his mid-teens. We were shown many paintings by Raphaello who is known for his magnificent use of light in an age of dark paintings. There was a special exhibit of works by Cranach that we viewed as well.
Our dinner Sunday night was delightful and delicious. The Rist. Tritone had authentic Roman food. We had lots of great wine with dishes such as parma ham and salami, calamari Roman-style, spaghetti carbonara, spaghetti bolognese, and liguini with crayfish (turned out to be lobster). Greg also ordered an entree that was shared by most of the table of veal balls. We think they were sections of the leg of the calf cooked in a savory light tomato based sauce. We joked that Marianne may end up with several 3-legged calves when she gets home.
This morning Martone and Debra arrived at the hotel. Debra didn't get much sleep so after a brief visit at breakfast, she and Martone were off to bed. Meantime, the other four of us went on a walk to the nearby Roman baths. We found one section that was closed, but walked on to find the section with the central hall open. To think this huge building with groin-vault ceilings and huge sandstone columns was originally built in the first century AD! As David said, those Romans sure knew how to build!
David and I are missing our kitties and Elvis. It's not the same without those little furry ones surrounding us as we sleep.
I'm in the process of posting over 300 photos Greg took from Saturday through Sunday. It's a longer process using the slow internet connection at St. Regis hotel.
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