After breakfast we set out to see the Pantheon.... We knew where it was on the map.... how hard could it be to get there???? We had purchased these 2-day bus passes called Open Rome, which makes a big loop around the city and stops at a dozen of the big attractions. It didn't stop at the Pantheon (of course), but it was reasonably near the first stop from us. So we set out to get the bus, which supposedly left from the bus station, which is a block from our hotel.
We walked to the bus station; we checked out all the tour buses (of which there were five or six), and couldn't find ours. I asked a policeman. He told me to go to the information booth. I asked there; the guy told me it was across the street. We went and asked there; the guy told us to go to the other side of the street.... we were beginning to think our Open Rome buses didn't exist, but then voila! There it was! David spotted it, and we hopped on.
It was a double decker bus, which we thought was really cool. And the first floor was completly full, so we headed up top. When we got up there, we found it had been raining, so the seats were wet. We decided to stay up there anyway, and David very gallantly sat in the first seat and squirmed around to dry it off for me, and then slid over. So he already had a wet butt, and we hadn't yet gone anywhere. But we had high spirits.
Finally we took off, and it was really windy and cold up there. (I hate to admit it mom, but you were right; I didn't bring warm enough clothes.) We got off at the first stop, as planned, and headed in the direction of the Pantheon. The streets were not on a grid like New York, David observed -- they sure weren't. We wandered and meandered, and stopped in a small church here and a pretty piazza there, and kept checking our map and doing small course corrections. Finally we came around a corner, and there poking out of a mess of shops and restaurants was the top of the Pantheon. It's so funny to see something that famous and historically significant right in the middle of a modern city.
David had been talking about the Pantheon for months, so it was a real treat for him to be there. We walked around for a long time, and he said it seemed unreal to be there.
From there we wanted to head for the Piazza Navona, and again wandered through the labyrinth of streets, following signs, following the map, following the crowds.... But instead, we emerged next to the Tiber River and across from the Castel St. Angelo. Okay, we rolled with it. We visited the castel. It was awesome.
By the time we left there, it was 6, and we were tired, so we decided to take our OpenRome bus back to the stop near our hotel, and go rest a bit before dinner. Again,the bottom was full; we went up, got nicely settled; the bus took off... and it started to rain again! We got to laughing because we were trying to cover ourselves up to keep warm and were cinched into our hoods and with your hands up our sleeves. But we didn't want to go downstairs, because the view was so awesome from the top. We thought it was pretty great that we went through the whole day under what some might consider not ideal conditions, with not a complaint between us.We took a quick nap at the hotel, and got a recommendation from the girl at the desk for a nice place to eat nearby, and had a wonderful LEISURLEY dinner, the way the Italians do. But by the time we finished our entrees, we could hardly keep our eyes open. So much for a wild Saturday night in Rome.
Going to bed now -- and they told us that the clocks are springing forward tonight. David thinks it's a scam that we lost TWO hours this way-one at home and one here!!! Somebody owes us an hour's sleep....
