Last days away are always hard as you have to balance the time you have available to do something meaningful with an eye on the clock to ensure you leave enough time to make your flight. Today was one of those days although with a flight not due to leave until 17:20 we had plenty of time for one last bit of sightseeing.
Behind the hotel where we were staying was a park housing the Villa Borghese and this was one of the few areas we had yet to venture so this morning we went for a wander through it along with numerous runners making the most of the fine weather and traffic free roads.
Speaking of which the roads in Rome are a nightmare and certainly not designed for pedestrians. Pavements are few and far between and those that do exist are narrow. Of course the streets are teeming with tourists who have no idea where they are going and no sense that there might also be a car sharing the road. Despite this Roman drivers are highly tolerant. You very rarely hear the sound of a car horn. If it was me I’d have my hard firmly resting on the horn!
Stopping for a coffee in the Piazza del Popolo proved to be an expensive business with one bitter lemon costing the same as the pizza we had enjoyed yesterday lunchtime. To be fair that’s the only time during our visit that we felt we had been stung. The hotel proved to be especially good value as drinks were always accompanied by nibbles of some sort.
We elected to take a taxi to the airport as the cost was only a few Euros more than the trains and decidedly more comfortable, although our driver was clearly auditioning for the vacancy at Ferrari – a regular Michele Alboreto! At one point he took off from the motor way to join a narrow pitted track. I thought that we were being abducted but it turned out to be a shortcut!
We arrived at the airport in plenty of time which turned out to be a mistake as our plane was delayed by over an hour due to high winds in London. Not a good sign after a week of lovely, fine weather but at least we had a fun time and some late summer sun!
