Back To Darlington

Well, just when we thought it couldn't get any hotter, it did. Yesterday was 40 degrees in Rome and we just melted. Literally dripping all day - eeewww. Luckily, all around Rome there are public aqua duct springs which have artisan water running constantly. It is delicious - like Christchurch water - and icy cold. All you need to do is buy a bottle of water in the morning and then refill it all day from the public taps. We figured out that we refilled about a dozen times a day so were drinking 4 litres or so while we were out and about. The interesting thing is that we didn't need to use a loo all day so were obviously using or sweating all of that fluid!

In the morning, we dropped our laundry at the local laundrette service (they do it for you) and used the 2 hours before it was ready to visit the Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain. The fountain was gorgeous and huge! It makes you gasp when you first see it as it is in a piazza that is really quite small, so you just suddenly turn a corner and there it is almost taking up the whole space (the rest of the space is taken up by people). The other thing that makes it lovely is that, because it is in such a small clearing, the air is cooled by the water and there must be a fair amount of water hanging in the air. So not only is is fantastic to look at, it feels really refreshing to be standing in front of it. Besides the Sistine Chapel, I think that it is my favourite beautiful thing in Rome.

Then it was back to the hotel to pack and check out, but we left our bags there for the afternoon and went to the Colosseum then back through Palentine Hill and the Forum. We had a guide through the Colosseum so it was fascinating (and mostly horrible) hearing about how it all worked. They have reconstructed a little of the floor and seating at one end so that you can get a bit of an idea of how it would have looked. The photo that I have posted has this section in it.
We then decided to go early to the airport to go back to Darlington, so we could check in and then just chill out and have a beer and something to eat in the air conditioned airport. So began 3 hours of stress with our only real nightmare travel story so far. I will tell you all about it when we get home, suffice to say that we didn't know that there were 2 airports in Rome until we were at the wrong one...

Anyway, clearly there was a happy ending as here we are in Darlington in Gaynor and Harry's kitchen having breakfast before repacking and off to Barcelona about midday. Catch you from there!