04/28-29/2025 “We must keep moving!”
History has routinely shown us that the famous explorer’s are always heading from the European continent to the Americas and/or Asia, but we decided it was time to give them a taste of what it feels like to be “explored” from the Americas. Briskly setting off – and we mean “briskly” as we had to dash from Gate F27 in Terminal F to Gate C10 in terminal C at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport – we fast-walked in order to catch the second leg of our flight to Rome. We were soon headed out to “teach” the Italians what it means to be overtaken by strangers coming from a strange land. Little did we know that several thousands of Americans, and other countries, beat us to the punch! The flight was long and tedious and set us up to be especially exhausted our first day here, especially since the flight landed at 7 am local time. It failed in its mission, though, to stop us intrepid travelers as we hit the ground running.
After taking a pre-arranged shuttle from the airport to our Airbnb where our host graciously allowed us to drop off our luggage well before checkin time, we hit the pavement (or cobblestones to be precise). In one short day, we managed to: climb the Spanish Steps and see the inside of the beautiful church at its top, go see Trevi Fountain, go inside the Bascilica Papale di Santa Maria Maggiore (which was begun to be built in the year 432!!) and pray at the tomb of the freshly buried Pope Francis, and stand outside the Roman Colosseum – amassing a whopping 20,000 steps and about 8 miles. Olden times they got that far using horses, what a bunch of wimps. When we honeymooned in Italy 20 years ago, we did not have the benefit of things like having accurate GPS on our phones to guide us efficiently from site to site and Google Translate. Now, we are the wimps! Other special moments of today included seeing another waxed person in a clear casket (like the 400 year old corpse we saw in St. Peter’s twenty years ago!) and the best gelato shop named after our daughter, Elisa. Finally glad to be back to our home away from home (our Airbnb), we are now strategizing our next route to explore the great city of Rome. And – we have managed to stay awake until a reasonable hour so that we don’t wake up at 3 am after 8 hours of restive sleep!)
