We flew back into Rome from St Petersburg, arriving at about 1:30pm. Our transfer was waiting for us and we drove into the heart of Rome to our apartment. Madi and Jye had arrived at 10:30 that morning and were waiting for us outside the apartment when we arrived. It was so exciting to see them after 4.5 months travelling. We checked into our apartment, which had a view over the Column of Marcus Aurelius. This column was built in 193 AD and is a 30 metre colum...

We flew into Rome from Ireland and transferred to an AirBNB right next to the Trevi Fountain. The apartment was huge, with two bedrooms, one with a king bed and the other with 2 king singles for Alex and Tona. It had a massive kitchen/lounge area and we were amazed at how large it was for central Rome. We found a supermarket nearby and stocked up on supplies so that we could have a few meals in the apartment with the girls and put together a welcome pack with ...

I need to start this entry by back-tracking a bit. In a previous blog I told of how I tried to trick Dennis into calling our tour guide Alberto, when his real name was Massimo. Unfortunately, this didn't work, but a couple of days later we were travelling on the train to our truffle experience when Linda asked me what the name of the guide for the day was. At first I said Alberto, but Dennis shouted me down for not coming up with something original. So I said, ...

The last four days in Rome have been a blast. We have had so much fun walking around and discovering parts of Rome we never knew existed. It has been so special, being lucky enough to do it all with friends. After our mandatory coffee at our local café (where Dennis and Linda continued their tradition of having a pastry every day after breakfast), we finally introduced Dennis and Linda to our favourite local deli, Volpetti. We spent almost an hour in there, b...

Today we had a fantastic day in a tiny village called Palombara Sabina. We were joined by Dennis, Linda, Irene, Alan and Irene's brother and his wife Alf and Goodrun and we went to make pasta with an Italian Nonna. After a train ride out into the country, we were picked up by 3 cars and driven to Palombara Sabina. The village is a quaint little place perched on the top of a hill in the Italian countryside. We had a short tour of this village along the cobblest...