I guess it must be something in the Italian water because we are well on our way to becoming vegan scarf makers called rainbow and leaf.. Because we are walking so much! Who needs public transport and bottled water, we are now practically professional hikers who fill up at the authentic water fountains. Either that or im slowly turning into simon minus the facial hair (for now). Aside from the direct shuttle today to the Vatican (which cut travelling time compared to last time by about 4 hours...) we have walked all over Rome today and seen some amazing sights! Do not fret, it was all taken slowly and we spent time enjoying each point! We didn't see the Vatican either today... It is true that it's free every last Sunday of the month but due to my math skills I cleverly realised on the way that there's another Sunday this month, so although disappointed we decided it's still worth the money.. But then upon getting there we found that it's actually closed on Sundays. So started off badly but at least we were in Rome easily with the shuttle bus! St peters was open though and we went inside and were awestruck by the entire thing! We then walked across the river to ciampo de fiori which is a pretty market and sat and read the paper there (minty chose the Sun so at least we are caught up on recent uk boob jobs and football goss). We then went across to piazza novona which had a beautiful fountain accompanied by music from street performers. After a sit soaking up the sunshine there (note my emphasis on the resting) we walked across to the pantheon which was beautiful! It looks so out of place as a huge black building surrounded by little orange houses. We stopped here and had some ice cream from a palour recommended by the guide book which was yummy and our first proper Italian ice cream! I had coffee and milk cream (?) and minty had pistachio and milk cream. In case you're interested. We then walked to Trevi which was packed! We managed to squeeze through to throw a coin over the shoulder, and after that walked to the spanish steps where we stopped to eat our packed lunch (rainbow and leaf style) whilst looking at the most incredible view! We also had a birds eye view of all the men selling fake bags simultaneously sprinting away with their sacks as a policeman was walking up the stairs. They hid for about 15 mins somewhere on the steps and then we saw them making a break for it. After this Italian version of The Bill we walked down the river towards Gianicolo. We walked down on the waterfront which was not only beautiful but practically empty and headed for Garibaldi, we thought we'd pay him a return visit! Giancolo is the ridge between trastevere and the Vatican city, it was a lot of steep walking but once we got there we had the most amazing view as you'll see in the photos. It was perfect! The street is called Via Garibaldi and there is a statue dedicated to him which is rather grand at the top. We sat on the grass and looked out across Rome and could pick out the pantheon, the museum (the white building in the first Rome photos) and the colluseum! The photos don't do it justice. We then trundles back to the shuttle which bought us back to the camp after a perfect day! Except for when we were talking about a particular pigeon and it immediately got run over. That was really awful. I blame minty because he said he was thinking about how he wanted to kick it.. But yeah a small unimportant anecdote for you there, which almost ruined my day. Hopefully the photos will show you how beautiful everything today was (didn't bother taking one of the pigeon). Will do them in order today so you can follow it with the blog! Again I promise my feet are fine and due to the 10 minute shuttle journey into the city any walking was entirely worth it! Be warned these photos will make you envious! :)