The day took more out of us than expected. The heat, the walking and the excitement. We covered a lot of ground in the past three days and saw most of the sites we wanted to see.

We were going to do an evening tour but will save that for when we come back later in the week before our Greece leg. We reflected whether we had left anything out, and the only side trip is a tour of Sistene Chapel.

Tonight we are going to find a local ristorante/pizzeria, relax and just take in the atmosphere. We ended up at La Gallina Bianca where Yordie was delighted to find lasagna on the menu. Jen had Scialatelli con pomodoro fresco e nduja, an interesting type of pasta with a fresh tomato sauce and shrimp; Jo-Ann had a Brie pizza, and I had Fettucine con funghi porcini e tartufo nero (fettuccine with porcini and truffles). The porcini and truffles had sufficient texture you thought you were having meat. The wine certainly flowed and after listening to Newfie sayings such as “I’m so hungry my big gut is eating my little gut” and “When the spirits go in, the truth comes out,” we headed back to our hotel. Dinner for 4 with 2 bottles of wine was 26 euros each incl. a 20% service charge. Very enjoyable, and casual.

http://www.lagallinabiancaroma.com

Of course, the party didn’t end here. We bought some more wine and headed to the rooftop terrace to look at the beautiful moon. A bottle of wine 5 euros! We bought two. One for the terrace and one for the train tomorrow.

Jo-Ann brought music up to the terrace where we sang Dean Martin songs, drank wine and gazed at the moon. There was a group of men at the other end of the terrace. One fine gentleman, a Jordanian came over to offer us his salty nuts. We had a chuckle about that. It was a bag of salted pistachios, pumpkin seeds, almonds. We dug into them and enjoyed the snack except the chunk of sand I managed to chomp on. Yuck! Wine helped with that. It was a fine way to spend our last evening in Rome. Off to Florence ladies!

Arrivaderci Roma!