SUNDAY JUNE 15TH: GENEVA TO HOME

Our last night in Europe is over … Our last day in Europe has arrived … Our original plan was to travel home over three days, overnighting in or around Genova (Genua) and Dijon; our revised plan turned out to be travelling home in two days, with a day in Geneva in between. Our task for today: travel more than 500 miles to get to Calais in time for our 6 o’clock-ish ferry home.

So no lie-in this morning; we were up at 08:00 and packing, then down for breakfast.

The waitress seemed surprised to have breakfast guests, and initially there were no croissants; but those arrived later. We wandered around the courtyard and ground floor of La Colombière a little, photographing things like the fountain in the yard, the empty dining room, and the huge jigsaws (something we enjoy doing ourselves) mounted on the walls.

Don had bought a “Venezia” T-shirt in Venice, and wanted to buy one of the La Colombière T-shirts that were on display, so we asked about them while settling the bill. The waitress looked doubtful, but when away to check; but it was Sunday morning, she couldn’t find any, and there was no-one around who might know. Instead, by way of consolation, she brought back a number of La Colombière souvenir pens and key rings, which she gave us for free, smiling her apologies. (But now, there's yet another thing we'll have to go back for!)

We loaded everything back into the car, got in, and checked the mileage: effectively, 2190 miles so far (in fact, the trip-metre had reset itself at 2,000 km). Unfortunately, we had no detailed map of Geneva, and made a guess as to the best way out of town. We’d got the rough direction right, but (it turned out) had headed too far west. The result was what could have been a pleasant drive in the countryside, but for two factors: we got tangled up in a bicycle race (so all traffic had to go dead slow), and were getting increasingly apprehensive that we were getting lost. Again? Oh well, we’re used to it. But this time, we had a long journey ahead with a ferry to catch.

Eventually we had the bright idea to consult the Rough Guide, and it had a small but excellent map of how to get into and out of the city. Having found the right road (the motorway past the airport that gave us so much trouble trying to get an airport hotel on Friday night!), it was motorways all the way. And we had to get a move on: the detour had added 20 miles and almost an hour to our trip (including getting tangled with the cyclists going and coming!).

Western Europe, at least, has a handy naming system for motorways: they’re all “A” routes (German Autostrasse, Italian Autostrada, French Autoroute). In France and Italy, a number of them levy tolls. We’d mostly avoided the toll roads on the outward journey, but our trip home through France would be quite expensive. And they have speed limits—sometimes 120 kph, sometimes 130 kph, sometimes (in wet weather) reduced to as little as 50 kph.

It was wet weather. But we were running late, and didn’t have time for niceties. Don put his foot down and we joined other motorists (admittedly a minority) who were doing 110 to 130 miles per hour instead of kilometres per hour. But those French motorways are excellent quality; a relatively cautious driver most of the tome, at no time did he feel concern over the conditions. Nor did Margaret; she didn’t realise quite how fast we were going, partly because the excellent roads made it seem slower, and partly because Don didn’t tell her till afterwards.


Net result: France went past in a blur; there are no photos along the way; we covered 511 miles in 7½ hours; we made the Ferry just in time; and our car had completed 2721 miles of holiday journey … We bade a sad farewell to Calais and Europe; and an hour and a half later, a fond how-d’ye-do to England and the Castle atop the White Cliffs of Dover (somewhat masked by the salt stains on the windows).

511 miles in 7½ hours; and only 77 miles from Dover to home in Acton. So why did it take almost two hours? No matter; we got home somewhat tired and very happy with our continental holiday, all 2955 miles of it (not counting any distances that we walked or used public transport!). All that remained was to unpack, finger the souvenirs, and put the magneti on the fridge: like so: …

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Our Europe fridge magnet collection!

SATURDAY JUNE 14TH: IN GENEVA

(Remember to click on the photos to see them full-sized!)

Geneva isn’t noted as a tourist destination. Its reputation is more on the solid, serious side: banks and financiers and jewellers and headquarters of international organisations.

Nonetheless, we’ve always found plenty to see and do in the most unpromising places, and we were absolutely certain that Geneva would be much the same.

Even so, we slept in this morning, having had a long exhausting day and late night yesterday (and it was the last chance of our holiday to have a lie-in). From our window (covered with wire mesh) we could see a bright, sunny day, and feel a cooling (not cold) breeze.

“Mike” of the previous evening had promised us petit déjeuner any time before midday, so we took him at his word. The waitress, though, seemed rather non-plussed at these foreigners demanding breakfast at 11 a.m. on a Saturday. Still, she rallied round, and we broke our fast splendidly before taking her advice and catching the #5 bus (about 12:00) to the Place Bel Air on an island in the Rhône called “L’Ile” (!), near where the river flows from Lake Geneva.

(Much as we’d enjoyed fencing with Italian, it was nice to be back in a country where we felt mid-way competent in the language. But Le Dictionnaire remained our constant companion …

We crossed to the south bank, taking numerous photos, and admiring the famous Jet d’Eau and the giant inflated soccer ball moored next to it (there were signs of Les Euros wherever you went in the city).

We were looking for a boat ticketing office; we thought a lake cruise, with dinner, would be just the thing! Before long we came to a Départ des Bateaux, where they were advertising cruises of various sorts, but it turned out that we were too late: all tickets for the dinner cruises had already been already sold. We decided we’d think about alternatives before we bought.

Something we like to do when visiting cities is take the open-top bus tour. We did this in Rome (yesterday and the day before), but “buses” as such are not a feature of Venice (so we did the gondola thing), and the open-top kind don’t seem to be a feature of Geneva. On the way to the Départ des Bâteaux, though, we passed a placard advertising “train” rides through the Vieille Ville, the Old City. Tickets were on sale at the Bâteaux ticket office, so we bought a couple and made our way back to the “train station” in the Place du Rhône, at the end of the Pont des Bergues.

The next “train” was standing at the “station”, but its departure was half an hour away, and there was a café and ice cream shop nearby; so while we were waiting, we had ice creams (chocolate for Margaret, hazelnut for Don; they were excellent) and watched the Euro 2008 crowds enjoying themselves. This passed the time pleasantly until it was time to board the “train” or lose our places; so we climbed aboard.

As the photo of the placard shows, the “train” runs past a fair number of sights (22 in fact), with a good English commentary, and much of the time it runs slowly enough that you can take photos. And we did, far too many to describe or even summarise, so here are just a few highlights.

The first part of the trip was through Bastion Park, which was once the botanical garden of Geneva’s first University. It was a sunny Saturday, and the park was full of people enjoying themselves at the giant chessboard, or throwing balls or Frisbees on the grass, or picnicking in the shade (and shelter if it rained) of the pavilions that had been erected for (presumably) that purpose. Here, too, was the Reformer’s Wall, more formally the Monument international de la Réformation, with bas-reliefs of the leaders of the Reformation movement (Calvin, Beza, Knox, and others).
The Vieille Ville is a small but wonderful maze of cobblestoned streets at various elevations, where we saw everyday Genevans relaxing at open-air restaurants in the city squares on a sunny Saturday afternoon (photo left). There was also the Barbier Mueller Museum, the Maison Tavel (Geneva’s oldest house), children on a seesaw atop the town wall (photo right), the austerity of St Peter’s Cathedral, restaurant-goers wining and dining in the shade of the trees on Rousseau’s Island …

Back at the Place du Rhône, we decided that we’d enjoyed the Vieille Ville tour so much, we’d also try the “International and Panoramic Tour”, which was by “mini-tram” rather than “mini-train”. How could we resist the offer to “Discover Geneva International and Overhanding the City and the Lake”? But again the next departure was a little way away, so we went back for more ice creams. The shop had a stunning array of flavours, about 16, we reckon, plus about eight flavours of sorbet, so this time Margaret tried the hazelnut while Don tried sorbet du citron vert (lime). While waiting, we watched youngsters playing mini-soccer (Euro 2008 fever!) in a street-side enclosure, and made use of the nearby Portaloos—an unexpected side-benefit of the city’s being full of sports-minded visitors (no hunting for loos)!

The “International and Panoramic” tour, in the event, was not noticeably international, though it did take in the Jardin(s) (des) Anglais (the name varies), so called because the paths within the gardens ramble all over the place! (That’s where, later on, we photographed the famous Floral Clock, biggest in the world, and a “living tribute to Switzerland's most venerated industry”).

Otherwise, perhaps the reference is to the views of Mont Salève, a favourite viewing-point the other side of the French border; except you can’t see it from the south side of the Rhône, which is where the “tram” went.

Nor was the tour notably panoramic for quite a while. It went past a number of interesting sights, but usually too fast for photos, and unlike the “train” tour, there were no stops for taking photos, except those caused by traffic. It was at such a stop that we took this picture of the elegant memorial to Elizabeth of Austria (“Sissi”), who was assassinated on the spot in 1898, and, further on, this statue of a naked man apparently making interesting advances towards a naked horse …


Despite its shortcomings, the tour was interesting and covered quite a lot of the city, including parts we recognised because they’d been on our bus route down from the hotel earlier on: the World Ecumenical Centre and the UNO headquarters (see the flags!); but mostly the “tram” still moved too fast for much in the way of photos. (This view of the city was snapped from the Quai Gustave Adore, not far from the America’s Cup village, during another “traffic stop”.)

The highlight, though, and the point at which the “panoramic” promise was fulfilled, was when we climbed up among the hills to the north-east of the city into Cologny, an exclusive suburb where only the very rich can afford to live. The road up was itself charming, a country lane weaving between fields and woods, where falcons soared above the trees and meadows. There were many large houses (mansions) just visible behind high walls, and high-powered sports cars passed us uphill or down.

At the top of the hill, the “tram” finally stopped so the passengers could get out for photos. There was a magnificent view over the lake, back to the city, and we took a full panorama of shots, of which this is only the left half: Not only was the view fabulous, there was also an historical marker: an inscribed boulder marking Byron’s meeting with Shelley when they stayed here in 1816. But we forgot to take a photograph of it because we were so distracted by the sight of a solar halo—and wheeling falcons. By the greatest good luck, we managed to get both phenomena in the one shot.

The tram took us back downhill and round to its “home base” at the Place du Rhône. We were still in the mood for a lake cruise, so we walked back round to the Départ des Bâteaux, pausing to buy some fridge magnets (no longer magneti in this French-speaking city) from a souvenir stall, and got tickets on the ordinary (no meals) 17:12 cruise round the “lower” lake (the Petit Lac).

We had some time to spend, so we took coffee and a beer at a bar in the Jardin Anglais. While waiting, we used the Rough Guide to Switzerland to help pick a restaurant for dinner. (And that’s also when we took the Floral Clock photo.)

Sadly, we didn’t record the name of the boat, but we did get a photo. We climbed aboard and initially went below decks; but you can’t see much there, and though it was cloudy, breezy and cool by now, it wasn’t raining, so we went above and found seats at the bow.

It would have been lovely if the sun had stayed out, but even without sunshine, it was a relaxing and enjoyable way to spend three quarters of an hour (as long as we ignored the annoying American accent on the commentary—not the accent itself, that was fine, but the failure to make any attempt to pronounce French words other than as funny-spelt American English). There was a lot to see around the lake shore, but also lots on and above the water: not only interesting boats and water-skiers, but also more circling falcons, and lots of swallows skimming low over the water.

The boat took us around the lower end of the lake, and across to the other (northern) side, which was very convenient in view of the restaurant we’d chosen for dinner: one that promised to fulfil our wish to end our European holiday with Swiss fondue. We got off at the Quai Mt Blanc, from where it was only a 10-minute walk to Au Petit Chalet in the rue de Berne (via touristiques shops where we bought Swiss chocolates for friends and family).

The restaurant was delightful: “Five years after my last visit—I went there every day—I went back today. The staff has not really changed, but the proprietor yes, very recently. The place is always charming. … I will return to this place, that's for sure, because I remember many good dishes. Above all, the menu is very interesting and varied.”

For entrée, we had escargots (Margaret; can’t go wrong) and vegetable soup (Don; quite delicious); for mains, we chose fondue avec champignons: if it weren’t so filling, we could have eaten twice as much. We chatted with the friendly waitress (limoncello, “elle est très bonne; elle est la liqueur des femmes”), and with the young English couple at the adjoining table: they were moving to Geneva in connection with her job with CERN, and he was going to house-father, so Don was able to describe his own experiences in that role.

Some time later, feeling very satisfied with a very full day, we walked back to the bus stop at Place Bel Air, mounted another #5 bus, and went back to La Colombière. We had intended to go down to the restaurant for some drinks and to meet “Mike” again (if he was on duty; he hadn’t been that morning), but also in the hope that the family (the Ragnellis) would come in again. La Colombiere is apparently noted for “Folklore musette”, which looks like something that would appeal to us …

But it was late, and we were tired after a very busy day, and we did have a near-600 mile journey the next day; and so to bed …

FRIDAY JUNE 13TH: ROME TO GENEVA

(Remember to click on the photos to see them full-sized.)

We immensely enjoyed our brief stay in Rome; which is a problem. It’s a problem we’ve had to get used to, ever since we came to the UK and started travelling about: we’ve been to a lot of places, seen a lot of things, enjoyed everything immensely, and realised that we’ve only scratched the surface of what there is to see and do … We’ll have to come back!

But today we had to turn our backs on Rome and head north. Rome to Calais is about 1,000 miles, or 1700 km, which is a bit much to do in one day or even two, so we’d planned to split it across three days. Just like on our way from Calais to Venice, we’d booked no accommodation for the return journey, and were leaving the exact details to chance (it worked on the way down, after all), but our vague plans were to stop overnight somewhere in the vicinity of Genova (north Italy) and Dijon (west central France) respectively. And to make it interesting, we elected to drive up Italy’s west coast, rather than take the “boring and expensive” Autostrade. The car had 1631.4 miles on the clock, and we expected it to be around 3,000 when we got to Calais, after detouring for some sightseeing en route. (Limbering up our French for a little more use, you see …).

Sadly, we forgot to take a photo of the hotel before we left (though we think we’d recommend it); but we did get this photo from our window, of the houses across the street.

We stuck with tradition by getting slightly lost out on our way out of Rome (we missed the GRA again!), but Margaret’s map-reading skills meant we easily recovered. Before we left the hotel, Don had walked down to the Bancomat to get some cash, but found that all his HSBC cards had been blocked (Friday 13?). It was quite a long walk there and back, so rather than trying again with Margaret’s cards, we set off with not much cash and found our way to the SS1, paralleling the coast northward and affording glimpses of the Mediterranean.

After about four hours’ driving, we passed Pisa and saw the Leaning Tower not too far away to our left, though we didn’t actually drive round to it (or stop for a photo, which is a pity) because of concerns for time. The SS1 isn’t the fastest of roads by any means, especially as it not infrequently becomes the High Street of some small town or other … The need for progress accounts for the sad lack of photos for this part of our trip, so if you’re at all puzzled by today’s photos so far, you’ll learn about them further on …

We had to stop for petrol at one point, and were able to conserve our cash by using Don’s Amex at the area di servizio. Just north of Pisa and Viareggio, though, we were passing (relatively slowly) through a little town, Lido di Camaiore, when Don spotted a bank with ATM (and Cambio if we needed it) just down a side street. Margaret used her card to draw cash, and we used her cellphone to ring HSBC and get Don’s cards reinstated. (They were being overprotective; having seen several overseas transactions in the preceding two weeks, they’d rung us at home, got no reply, and decided to stop the cards “just in case”. We felt a phone-call to HSBC coming on when we get home …)

Now we had cash (and not having been able to see much of the Mediterranean in any case, since the SS1 isn’t realty a coastal road), we navigated a route to the A12 (A for autostrada, i.e., a motorway) in order to pick up speed. Our original target for the night, you may recall, was Genova; but when we reached there about 18:00, couldn’t think why we’d stop (a big industrial city, it seemed to us, of whose attractions we knew nothing—though our view was probably coloured by the port area we were driving through), so we had a hurried consultation and decided to press on to Geneva instead (being half-way to Calais rather than a third of the way).

Margaret re-plotted the route , and without stopping we drove above Genova (there’s a spectacular flyover, the Sopraelevata) and kept heading northwards, with occasional backdrops of the Mediterranean on our left, and mountains on our right—plus increasingly spectacular mountains straight ahead (the Maritime Alps, perhaps?).

In Switzerland, we’d had to drive with our headlamps on all the time. In Italy, you don’t have to do that (though many people do), but you must use your headlamps on the Autostrade. This is because (as we’d already found), in the mountainous parts of Italy, the Autostrade go through many tunnels. This, we felt, might partially explain why it was Italian rather than Swiss engineers (gli insabbiati) who had done the amazing tunnelling for the Tongariro hydro-electric scheme in New Zealand in the 1960s and 1970s.

At all events, the road featured many tunnels leading up to the Mt Blanc Tunnel, at 11.6 km only 2/3 the length of the St Gotthard, but still a respectable distance to drive in the knowledge that there’re millions of tons of rock just above your heads … and knowing also that you were in the tunnel where 41 people died in the spectacular fire of 1999!

We entered the tunnel at Courmayeur (in Italy, despite its French name; languages get very mixed up in border regions!), and exited at (or at least, almost at) Chamonix, in France, oblivious of the customs booths at the one end and finding them apparently unmanned at the other. The convenience of international travel in the EU!

But before we drove in, a stretch and a loo-break seemed a good idea, so here at last we took some photos—well, you had to really, despite its being well advanced into twilight: there was a clear sky, a gibbous moon, and mountains with glaciers and streams … All today’s photos so far were taken here.

At the far end, Don would have liked to take a side-trip through Chamonix, which he visited once as a teenager, but it was around 9 p.m. and we still had an hour of travel before reaching Geneva. There was no more ceremony entering Switzerland than there had been entering France (which of course we did a long way underground, strictly speaking): although we’d had to stop to buy our annual motorway permit when entering Switzerland from Germany, here the booths seemed to be completely empty and we drove straight through (feeling rather smug, though, knowing that we were legal anyway until New Year!).

The Chamonix valley features quite a large number of glaciers, but the biggest (Don remembered from his visit, almost 50 years before) is the Mer de Glace, the Sea of Ice. We’re not sure what the glacier was that we glimpsed from the road after we’d left the tunnel exit plaza; probably not the Mer (not a lot like Turner’s celebrated painting), but spectacular enough to make us find somewhere to pull off the road for a dimly-lit photo.

Arriving in Geneva, we found we had only maps that showed us how to get round it, not into it; so we followed signs that directed us to the city centre. We stopped at an intersection, and asked a couple of police officers (male and female) where we might find a hotel; they directed us “that way”.

Sure enough, we found a hotel in the central city that seemed to have parking outside, so—although it looked rather expensive—Don went in to enquire. Just as he got inside, there was a portent: a burst of fireworks and distant but loud cheering. What was going on?

The receptionist said yes, they had a room, but it was hideously expensive (not her exact words). Were there other hotels of a cheaper sort? Yes, she said, we’d find cheaper hotels down towards the railway station, helpfully marking the route onto a give-away map of the city. But (she said) we might have trouble getting a room: the city was full that night because of Les Euros. The European Cup! And it was (we think) the only night that there was actually a game in Geneva!

As we drove away, heading for the station area, we saw large groups of people milling about in the streets, mostly looking quite celebratory, and many of them wearing soccer supporters’ hats and scarves. We drove around a number of streets and found a number of hotels, but none of them with parking. Following someone’s suggestion, we headed out towards the airport and tried to get to an airport hotel, but although we saw several, we found ourselves completely baffled by one-way systems and couldn’t get close to any of them.

Around 11:15 at night, after having driven miles since we left that first hotel (and feeling increasingly worried we’d have to spend the night in the car), we took a different turn, and there it was: La Colombière: hotel and restaurant, open (with diners), with off-road parking, and here. (The photo is from the next morning.)

Yes, the waiter who spoke with Don assured us, they had une chambre; une chamber pour deux; une chambre très belle! And he named a figure. “Oh,” (seeing Don’s face), “c’est trop chere? Moment …”—and after a little work with a pencil, he asked if a figure with 25% off would be satisfactory.

Don consulted Margaret (waiting in the car), and, at 11:30 p.m. (by now) it was! The waiter (who reminded us of our dear Welsh friend Mike, back in Wellington) showed us up to the room, which was under the roof and was, indeed belle, then we went back down and asked if it was too late to get a meal, since we’d just driven from Rome (“De Rome!?!?”) without one. The staff rallied round and (agreeing that pizza, their main dish, probably wasn’t what we’d want after almost two weeks in Italy) brought us a beautiful antipasto and two glasses of wine.

While we were dining, a family turned up—father, mother, two late-teen daughters, and a son—and sat at the next table. It was obvious that the staff knew them well, and treated them as old friends. In fact (as it turned out), they were the owner and his family, minus another daughter who was sort of with them, but only because she was actually on duty that night. They sat, drank, chatted (in oddly-accented French), and laughed a lot, until suddenly the papa (aha!—they’re Italian, not Swiss) produced a piano accordion and began to play intricate, rapid folk-tunes. We were enchanted! But it as now after midnight, and we were tired from a day’s unremitting journeying; it was time for bed.

THURSDAY JUNE 12TH: ST PETER’S

(Remember to click on the pictures to see them full-sized.)

A rainy day; we got up late-ish, and after breakfast, blogged in our room and saved photos from the camera. It was almost 13:00 by the time we left the hotel, went down to the tram stop, and got on the #8.

We got off at Isola Tiberina (where we got on last night) and took a second stroll through the Ghetto, this time taking a few photos. One thing that struck us was how here (as everywhere in Rome) ancient ruins sit cheek-by-jowl with “modern” buildings, though of course it’s often difficult to tell their real ages.

Going back to the riverside, we waited to rejoin our open-top bus tour. It was late; as we found out, there was heavy traffic congestion. Our destination for the day was the Vatican, where we decided we’d do the Sistine Chapel first (since it closed early, according to the guide books), then St Peter’s, and then complete the bus tour.

Crossing the river, the bus took us again along the via della Conciliazione, which leads like an arrow into the Vatican. We stopped for lunch (beef/cheese sandwiches and "due Coca Light, per favore") before passing through the piazza Pio XII and between the ends of the twin curved colonnades which marked the entry into our eighth country since we left England; the smallest nation state in the world: the Vatican City State.

The colonnades are near-circular, and embrace the piazza San Piedro, with the façade of St Peter’s at its end. Without special equipment (i.e., with our little 5 MP digital camera), it’s impossible to get an adequate photo of the piazza; but this gives some impression of the beautiful colonnaded arcade, surmounted by statues of saints and popes.

As we walked forward, we could see no signs or signposts to show what lay in which direction, but our map indicated that the Sistine Chapel was round to the right, behind the body of Saint Peters. And so we joined the l—o—n—g queue that seemed to stretch forward in that direction. It moved slowly, and we were glad the weather was neither rainy nor sunny.

But it was a long time before we passed security, and found ourselves irrevocably committed to St Peter’s, not the Sistine Chapel. Irrevocably because, as an attendant told us when we consulted him, the Sistine Chapel closes earlier than our guidebook indicated, and was further away than we could walk in the time available.

We were disappointed; if we could see only one of the two (and it was our last day in Rome) , we’d rather it was the Sistine Chapel. We’ve always wanted to see whether the floor really looks like the famous painting titled, “Floor of the Sistine Chapel”, in an old spoof art collection … The disappointment rather marred our appreciation of St Peter’s, which was further reduced by the dim lighting which meant that photography, while permitted for once, was almost impossible with our little camera with its weak flash. We thought that the only photograph we’d managed to take inside the cathedral that shows much detail was the Pieta, and that came out blurry (click on it to see); but it’s amazing what a little photo manipulation with a software package can achieve (though the results—see samples below—are rather grainy).

Nonetheless, it was moving to see this famous and beautiful icon “in the flesh”, as it were. Close to the entrance, it provided a temporary focus which we felt was rather lacking elsewhere in the cathedral. Sure, the architecture is stunning (see what Picasa2 made of our photo of the dome, which originally showed just a tiara of white blobs amidst a sea of black), and the artworks plentiful and of finest quality, but overall, in our rather depressed mood, we found St Peter’s was too vast, hollow, and ornate, or maybe we were all vasted- and ornated-out by this time.

So we were pleased to find the bronze statue of St Peter himself, the first Pope and the “rock” (Greek, Petros) on which the Church was founded. As we knew from our guidebooks, pilgrims have come for centuries to pay their respects by kissing the statue’s foot, though nowadays most touch it rather than kiss it. When we were there, the area round the statue was crowded with visitors, some hurrying on to see the next thing, some pausing to say a prayer, and others posing to have their photo taken. It's a way to find some personal meaning in a place where one might otherwise be overwhelmed by the scale and magnificence of it all.

Don had read of the exciting excavations that had led to the discovery, during World War II, of what had to be St Peter’s tomb in the catacombs below the Vatican. The bones found within it couldn’t be said for certain to be the Saint’s, but Don was thrilled nonetheless to see the new tomb, within the basilica itself, to which they were subsequently “translated” (to use the jargon).

Besides the architectural treasures, there were many beautiful artworks, including some stunning mosaics (like the one reproduced here, showing St Peter calling down God’s punishment on Ananias and Sapphira), made of tesserae so minute, we thought at first we were looking at paintings.

Outside again in the piazza, we bought the inevitable magneti, then rejoined the open-top bus to complete our tour. Once again the bus mostly moved too fast for satisfactory photography, at least past “the good bits”, though there was a lot of congestion which meant the bus had to stop in places where we could get some “character shots”. (You’ll probably have to click on the photo to make out what the sign says.)

The tour took us behind the foro Adriano which we saw from the front yesterday, and also rounded the Coliseum and, passing the Circo Massimo, gave Don a second chance at photographing the 2nd-Century BC Temple of Vesta (so-called; it was probably dedicated to Hercules, in fact), one of the two best-preserved pagan temples in Rome. (All he managed from the bus yesterday was a hurried snap of the trees at the back!)

We alighted at the corso Vittorio Emanuelle and walked back to the Largo di Torre Argentina (passing this statue of a literary gentleman with a seagull on his head—a bizarre subject for a statue, we thought), to look for somewhere we could take dinner outside, on the pavement; but the footpaths were crowded and noisy. We decided we’d try the viale Trastevere, across the river, but found that the trams were either broken down or on strike—at any rate, not available—and had been replaced by buses. The first was too packed out to get on, but there seemed to be lots of them and we were soon heading south (standing, because this one was packed too) and crossing the ponte Garibaldi into Trastevere (“the town ‘across the Tiber’”).

We got off at the second stop after the bridge, but then had to walk some way along a busy street until we found a restaurant called Il Teatro di Mangiafuoco. (It gets 924 Google hits, but they’re all in Italian, so you’ll have to use Google translator or Babelfish if you follow the link!). This proved to be an excellent choice: a good menu, good wine, good food (with an unusual and wonderful entrée combining pears and soft goat cheese in a pine-nut sauce: fagottini di formaggio e pere), and excellent friendly service. Perhaps it’s our determination to speak Italian as far as possible, which admittedly isn’t very far, that has brought out the best in people during our stay in Italy; or perhaps it’s just that Italians are naturally like that. At any rate, it brought a thoroughly agreeable end to a not-quite-satisfactory day. (It also restored our faith in Italian mixed grill, disguised under the name Braciata Mangiafuoco.)

The trams were running again by the time we finished dinner, so we got back to the hotel about 21:15, with a little time left to blob and blog.