Hotel Milton Roma, Via Emanuele Filiberto 155, 00185 Rome
20:00 Rome Fiumicino Airport
22:05 Manchester Airport
Premier Inn, Runger Lane North
DAY 5 Today, you will return to the airport at the appropriate time for your flight home. Your tour manager will advise you of your departure time from the hotel.
Day 135 1 Samuel 3-6; Psalms 97
I was awake and out of bed before Janet, but didn’t use the bathroom till after she had done so (perhaps between 08:15 and 08:36; see below).… Copied photos taken later yesterday using
Janet’s camera and one taken this morning to the WD Elements HDD (07:47). Compiled two movies from the material “filmed” yesterday (saved 08:14–08:15 and 08:36–08:59).
Janet and I almost had the breakfast room to ourselves, because we went down to it relatively late.
Janet did the packing.
Thursday 15 May 2014 — 09:06:18
View from our hotel window overlooking Viale Manzoni and its junction with Via Emanuele Filiberto
At 11.45am we left the room and took our bags in the lift down to the lobby. When we handed the key-card over, the clerk wanted to charge us for water from the mini-bar but accepted our word that we hadn’t taken any. Our luggage was stowed with the others’ in the breakfast room.
Janet wrote: “Then off we went. Warm, sunny, breezy. I wanted to find a bar facing the Colosseum and have a drink — or two — for the sheer hell of it because I knew it would be very expensive. And it was! We looked at all the holiday photos” [for I took my bag, with the
Asus tablet/netbook in it, with me]. Our route there is documented photographically, below.
Thursday 15 May 2014 — 12:01:50
Basilica of San Clemente from the corner of Piazza di San Clemente and Via di San Giovanni in Laterano
Thursday 15 May 2014 — 12:03:10
In Via di San Giovanni in Laterano, passing the Basilica of San Clemente
Thursday 15 May 2014 — 12:04:34
In Via di San Giovanni in Laterano, passing the Basilica of San Clemente
Thursday 15 May 2014 — 12:08:42
Ludus Magnus, the gladiatorial training school, seen from Via di San Giovanni in Laterano
I wanted to see Circus Maximus, so that’s where we went next.
Thursday 15 May 2014 — 13:32:12
Colosseum from Via Celio Vibenna — movie screen-capture
Thursday 15 May 2014 — 13:35:02
View towards the Roman Forum from Via Celio Vibenna
Thursday 15 May 2014 — 13:37:16
Very zoomed-in view from Via Celio Vibenna: (left to right:) Arch of Titus, Monument to Victor Emmanuel II, and Arch of Constantine
Thursday 15 May 2014 — 13:38:50
Palatine Hill, viewed from where Via Celio Vibenna joins Via di San Gregorio
Thursday 15 May 2014 — 13:41:44
Entrance to “Horti Palatini” (“Palatine Gardens”)
Thursday 15 May 2014 — 13:41:58
Ruined aqueduct on Via di San Gregorio
Thursday 15 May 2014 — 13:49:08
South-east end of Circus Maximus
“Not much to see [at Circo Massimo],” Janet wrote, “and there was restoration work on brick structures being undertaken. [John] realised he was desperate for a pee and decided he’d have a good
lunch[i] so we headed for ‘The Tractor’. It was absolutely chock-a-block, but we managed to find a table for two outside. I had two
Coke and [John] had ½-litre red wine ([only] €2.50!) and fettucine with ragu
sauce.[ii] Plus bread, of course.”
[i] Cf.yesterday, when I just had a drink at lunch-time. At home I don’t eat breakfast, but here I did, which normally meant that I wasn’t bothered whether I had lunch or skipped it. Today, though, we were flying out, and I didn’t know when I’d be eating again, so I decided to have lunch.
[ii] i.e. the same as or similar to what I’d had in the other place yesterday — except that the wine was better-quality here.
Thursday 15 May 2014 — 14:47:38
Lunch at Trattoria Pizzeria “Luzzi”
Thursday 15 May 2014 — 14:55:24
View from Trattoria Pizzeria “Luzzi” — movie screen-capture
After that we went and sat in the park, which we’d visited yesterday.
Thursday 15 May 2014 — 15:36:04
View from Parco del Colle Oppio — movie screen-capture
Then we had a leisurely stroll back to the hotel, feeling remarkably happy and completely relaxed.
Ca.5pm we boarded the coach for Fiumicino Airport. Lucy was still with us there initially and I gave her €30.
Janet was characteristically “touchy-feely” in her farewell to Lucy. The departure gate was “H”, but when we got there, there were about a dozen numbered subdivisions: “H1” to “H12” or more, which was a bit disconcerting. The boarding card and the TV-style monitor only said “H”. However, when I decided to find a loo I passed another monitor and saw that our flight now had a number following the “H”. Despite the very short distance to the aircraft, we had to crowd aboard, and stand waiting on, a shuttle bus. We were slightly late getting the go-ahead to take off, but nevertheless landed
ca.20 minutes early at Manchester.… We went upstairs, along-corridor, downstairs, along-corridor, upstairs, along-corridor, downstairs,
etc., all of which seemed pointless, till I saw the word “bridge” on a sign somewhere. We had to negotiate a “snake” of stanchions connected with retractable tape barriers to get to passport control — which didn’t just
seem pointless, it was. We were amazed to find our luggage already on the carousel when we got to it. We got a taxi, and this time I used the automated check-in at the hotel without help. We did need to see the receptionist to book the shuttle to the station tomorrow, though. By 10.45pm we were in bed; I went off to sleep quite
quickly….
