We are foregoing our Travel Tip Tuesdays for the next two weeks and going ALL ROME ALL THE TIME!I think this will be my last post until I set foot in Rome, which if all goes as planned, will be around 8:30 am at the Fumicino Airport, Italian time. From there, it'll be a short express train ride and an even shorter metro ride away from our home base in Monti.
Don't worry, I'll be telling you all about our B&B a little later, complete with pictures of course, but I think it is fair to say, we are gonna love it!
Turns out we have a room on the 6th floor of a palazzo (yes people-that is about 60 steps) that overlooks a little square below, complete with a fountain! And shuttered windows that open out onto the piazza to let the fresh air in! *Note: this may be more impotant now that the weather forecast predicts temps in the 85 to 90 degree range- for MAY. Unseasonably HOT!
How can we not like it?
And gracing the square is a cute little cafe, which will become "our" cafe for the week and where we will take our colazione (breakfast) of a cornetti and cappuccini, everyday.
So, as I write this I got to thinking, what exactly am I looking forward to? What will be the first thing I do when i set foot back in the counrty I love with all my heart and have missed terribly over the last few years?
At this point, I think I am running on a combinaton of travel anxiety and pure exhilaration- it's hard for me to tell the difference.
I remember our first trip as the plane was starting to decend, it was a clear morning -we were able to look out our window to see the remarkable Italian landscape below- it was real then.
Well, this time I will stand in the airport with my ears wide open, listenting and enjoying the Itaian language being spoken all around me. This time- that will make it real.
I think the first order of business, even before trudging up those 60 steps to our temporary Italian home, will be to pop into our cafe, belly up to the bar with the locals, flash a big toothy grin at our Italian barista and belt out " Buongiorno, due cappuccini, per favore", in our best Italian, and savouring it ever so slowly, licking the thick foam from our upper lips, while listening to the Roman chatter in the background.
Unless of course it happens to be after mezzogiorno (noon), where ordering cappuccino would be terribly inappropriate- so un-Italian, if you will. In that case, it would have to be a quicker shot of espresso to get us through the rest of our first day in Rome!
Stay tuned……
And if you really want to stay tuned- you can follow along on Twitter, where I'll be updating much more than daily on the blog- in real time! I am @MyMelange.
What would you do the first second you landed in Italy? What would you look forward to most?