Friday, November 4, 2011

Rome

When in Rome: drive on crowded streets, get on crowded buses, eat in crowded restaurants, visit crowded tourist sites.  Then go to your friends' home and relax and enjoy yourself in the peace and quiet that can come only from a private residence.
Yes, we drove on the streets of Rome.  We received many words of warning from well-meaning friends who had witnessed the madness.  But they'd never driven the streets of Craiova or Bucharest and while I have no interest in creating a competition between whose city streets are the most harrowing and where it requires the greatest amount of courage and/or insanity to get behind the wheel, let me just say that there was nothing in Rome that I hadn't seen on a Romanian road already.
Rome has scooters, Romania has wagons and potholes large enough to bury an average sized farm animal. I think that makes them even.
So...Vatican, fountains, restaurants filled with shouting waiters and shouting patrons (it is Italy after all) and all sorts of old and important stuff which we saw on a night tour with Sorin, Ioana and Paul (marathon walking that was) while the kids stayed back home with Sergio and Ioana's parents and they all watched soccer matches and played video games.  A perfect arrangement for us and them the although they missed getting gelato but I won't tell if you won't.


















Rome by day and Rome by night is lovely but this is where the magic really happens:
at home with friends.  Can't beat it.




3 comments:

Grandma said...

Lucian, did you get to see the Lamborghini or were you home playing video games?

Anonymous said...

I see the resemblance between the baths in Budapest and Roman architecture. Of course, I did get that Roman feeling while we were there, the photos of Rome just confirm it. Great shots, as usual.

Anonymous said...

What? No body kissed the pope's ring?