Viva Rome!

We arrived after 26 hours flying wow. But Gillie had laid the path well and we were met by a young woman at the airport who popped us in a Mercedes and we were whisked across Rome to our wonderful apartment on the 3rd floor of an old building looking out over the tiled roof tops of Rome just one back from the River Tiber.  Unbelievable! Rome is more than I ever imagined. Maori have this concept of Mauri - how the essence of a person is left where they have touched.  This place has been occupied for 3 thousand years.  It is crammed with the feeling of the wonderous past.  Every building is a piece of art, every street looks like it is out of the movie Roman Holiday.  People have packed every courtyard and back alley with gorgeous courtyards with statuatory that you would be hard pressed to find in our museums.  The river has beautiful bridges.  To put it briefly I feel like a pig in muck.  The Italians are so cruisey and casual in an elegant way.

Arriving in Brisbane we were checked out by sniffer dogs - I had to take my glasses off so they could look into my eyes to make sure it was me.  Leaving we got checked over for explosive traces - the whole nine yards!  Rome the immigration cops were chatting to each other - did not even look at us and casually stamped our passports at random!  No one checked our cases.
We have been looking at pieces of art  by Bernini and Boromini as shown by Simon Shama on the BBC. This morning we ran around the 1.2 km of the Circus Maximus where Ben Hur and co raced their chariots! Gillie and I won.

We then tested our honesty by putting our hands in the Mouth of Truth (just like Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck) we did not have our hands bitten off so we must be true!

We are in Rome until sunday living the dolche vita.