We started out early today, around 10:15 to the famous Campo Fiori, the open air market, which turned out to be much closer to the apartment than I expected. It is "where the Pope buys his asparagus" and the first clue we were in the vicinity of the Campo market were two nuns crossing the street with a suitcase full of produce. Excellent produce, all sorts of wonderful things to buy - we ended up with a 10 euro enormous hunk of cheese, 3 bags of cookies, pears, radishes, apples, grapes the size of golf balls, strawberries (which Gracie asked for), some trinkets, flowers (again, which Gracie asked for), a sample bottle of limochello, but no umbrella...as the weather was beautiful, but by the time we got home, it was sprinkling a little. The sprinkles stopped, we had some lunch in the apartment (salami sandwiches, cheese, fruit), Gracie had an egg (barely) and strawberries. At 2pm, we headed to the taxi stand for our Ancient Rome tour, and as we found our tour group, huddled in the Metro station below, the heavens opened up and it began to pour. Matthew joined us (soaking wet), from taping a TV interview with ETWN. We then purchased for 4.50 euro some very cheap umbrellas after the one I brought from home broke, then another of the new umbrellas immediately broke. Gracie was in a backpack on David's back in her yellow slicker, but it still got very wet, We ended up in the hallway of the colosseum, shielded from the rain, which then ended, for now. So by the time we toured this amazing, historical, unbelievable place, it was quite nice, in a really terrible place, in a place where people were fed to bears (rarely lions) alive, and your average gladitor had an 80 percent chance of not making through his first fight. So, it is just strange to be here as a tourist, keeping Gracie occupied with lollipops and she used the tour headset as her cell phone and then placed a very long call to someone during the tour. Our camera battery went dead at this point so Mathew has the pics from that point on. David snapped some on the Iphone which came out better than the camera we've been using. Afterward we went to Palatine hill, which was amazing - includes the house of Augustus, the views of ruins and we turned the corner, and uh oh - we saw the storm coming. (Should've known - there was a group of people from Oklahoma on the tour, plus the tour guide's boyfriend was from Oklahoma as well. ) The sky was black, and a cold wind started blowing. We only had a half hour of the tour left so when our guide asked if anyone wanted to leave, as she was about to move on, because the top of a hill was no place to be during this storm. I practically threw the headset at her and took off down the hill with Gracie, with David, Matthew, following There was no place to hide, we were in a bunch of ruins. Just as we hit the street, all heck broke loose, with signs blowing down and Gracie began to say she had hay hit her in the face and that it was raining, Mommy. We pushed on down the street and dove into the nearest cafe, where we dried off, ordered a snack for all of us and Mommy a well deserved beer. It poured for about an hour-- the rain, not the beer. We shared a cab and dropped off Matthew at his dinner meeting (soaking wet, in a suit, probably with muddy shoes too). We are now home. Gracie is watching her cartoons in Italian. (Same cartoons at home - one in English, then the next in Italian). I'm eating cheese, David is napping. Depending if Gracie remains awake, we are planning to go out to eat again, and top it off with more gelato. PS, We went out tonight to find Tre Archi, which by golly we had passed by the other day on the Via Del Cornari, but after walking up and down, could not find the dang place (there are no signs around here). So we ended up again at Alfredo Da Ada, where we were welcomed and then the owner returned a wind-up dinosaur which Gracie had left behind. We sat down, they fed us, but they were beginning to close so no cookies, but we did get alot of attention from the owner, and a friendly wave from Ada who was working in the kitchen. Gracie ate an entire plate of rigatoni and sauce. Gelato again and because the wind was blowing, Gracie and I were covered with ice cream (Crema) by the time we got home. Its much much colder, with around 52 degrees outside. So the warm clothes we brought will come in handy tomorrow. Tomorrow's agenda: St. Peter's (on our own). We plan on meeting Matthew again for dinner on Wednesday.
Buying produce at Campo
