We got to sleep in a little this morning, until 06:30 (!!), and then left for our long bus ride to Rome, about 6 hours driving time. We stopped at a roadside stop for lunch canteen style. Grant and I had a lovely salad with buffalo mozzarella and prosciutto.As we drove through Tuscany we watched “Under the Tuscan Sun”, one of my favourite DVDs. Looking out of the window made me feel like I was right in the movie! All around us were beautiful fields of sunflowers and olive groves.


We saw many hill-top villages, like this one:



Gerry gave us a pretty detailed history lesson, unfortunately my mind kept wandering because of the beautiful countryside and the continuing urge to pinch myself to make sure I am not dreaming and that I am in fact in Italy!
We’re staying in the hotel Aran Park on the outskirts of Rome. It’s a very nice hotel and, because the girls and I are sleeping 3 to a room on this tour, we have got an awesome 2 bedroom suite. We arrived, unpacked and immediately did some handwashing. We then showered and got ready for our optional excursion to the Trevi fountain and then on to a lovely restaurant.

My first view of the colosseum just blew me away, I don't know why. I didn't have any great expectations about this particular landmark, but it was really amazing to see it in real life.

As we drove into Rome the mother of all storms broke over the city. Lightening, lashings of rain, wind and even hail! Gerry got on the phone and organised for us to do the dinner first, as Trevi was definitely a no-go in the storm.

What a lovely meal at the Mangrovia restaurant! I rate it the best night of our holiday.


We had a starter of Prosciutto with melon and a Caprese salad. Then onto a first pasta course – penne with mushrooms, followed by another pasta course of Ravioli stuffed with spinach and ricotta with parmesan cheese. We then had a beef course with saute potatoes and finally gelato for dessert. All this was accompanied by live music, a delightful medley of flute, guitar and singing. The wine flowed throughout the meal and we ended off with a super sparkling wine. As the evening progressed we all got merrier, assisted by a superb maître d' who had a little ritual of kissing a lady at each table who was presented with their meal with much fanfare on a silver plate - Rox got to be the "lucky" one at our table. At the end of the meal each lady was presented with a rose.



The bus trip to Trevi fountains was fantastic, we were all singing “Volare….” together – quite hilarious. Gerry had his hands very full, poor chap!

Trevi was SO gorgeous all lit up. We walked down this little lane, turned a corner and there it was – beautiful! We all threw our coins into the fountain – first coin to return to Rome, second to make a wish and the third to marry an Italian.




Unfortunately my camera takes horrible photos at night, we tried with the flash, without the flash, Grant even tried using his daughters as tripods, but this is as good as it gets.... grrrrr.


We finally left to return to our hotel, quite exhausted. We had to take quite a detour as a couple of trees had come down, blocking the road. When we got to the hotel we made Gerry pose for a photo with all the ladies. He’s such a good sport!