More Roman Holiday

Boy, we’ve stuffed a lot into our less-than-a-week in Rome.

Next on our agenda was to bike along the old old old Appian Way. (Tessa was especially excited to have a big bike with hand brakes. Yes, let’s teach our 5-year-old to use hand brakes biking on a line of half-submerged rocks on a bicycle one size up. Worked out fine!) It took us a little bit to figure out how to bike over those things, which really was a line of half-submerged rocks. But so cool — in places you could see carriage ruts in the stones. Luckily for our bums, the road is now mostly small bumpy bricks.

The road is lined with ancient mausoleums and memorials

and lovely villas

and, look! Acqueducts!

Afterward, we got a special treat. No, not gelato. We’re not 100% pushovers all the time. These watermelon slices looked sooooo good. And they were the best after such a hot ride!!

We hit a couple of other biggies too.

The Pantheon, of course, was amazing. So surreal to stand in something built in the 2nd century, famed for being the biggest unsupported dome in the world. And Raphael is entombed there too.

At the Trevi Fountain we cooled off a bit by dipping in our hats. Other people were filling their water bottles — gross.

And the Spanish steps and so many piazzas and pilfered obelisks. We saw a street artist make a sand sculpture on the sidewalk, jammed out to a sax-playing panda and a drumming horse until they got evicted by the cops, and watched a lady make fresh pasta in a bowl made of flour.

Tomorrow we leave for the next leg of our adventure, but we still have the morning to do even more of Rome!