Rome, Italy

Rome is a 24 hour a day, non-stop street carnival with graffiti everywhere, trash strew about, thousands of tourists, gelato shops on every block and palm trees. There are street vendors of many stripes: some have stalls, some lay their goods on the ground and wait for tourists to approach and some aggressively engage tourists as they walk and talk and shove trinkets into unsuspecting hands. 

The boys and I went to Rome over Easter weekend. The flight is about 3.5 hours from Helsinki but it is a world away from Finland. We walked around in shirt sleeves. We toured the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, the Pantheon and visited the Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain. We battled the crowds at the Vatican museum and saw the School of Athens by Raphael, the Sistine Chapel and the Greek sculpture of Laocoon and his sons dating from 26 AD. I was drawn to the mosaic tile floors which illustrated animals, people and geometric patterns with detail and shading. We saw masterpieces by Caravaggio and Michelangelo in neighborhood churches that were blissfully empty of tourists. We found a  little sandwich shop in Trastevere and Angus declared they made the best sandwich he has ever eaten. A successful trip!