We were tired but happy to be home! We have a wealth of memories and so many stories we’ll laugh about for a long time. We’re all still friends! Thanks, Duftys , for being such good traveling companions. Thanks, Pfeffers , for coming over to join us for three weeks in Sicily. We hope Dave, you’ve recovered from having to look at “so many broken pots” in the archaeological museum. 🙂 It was a memorable two months that Al and I wouldn’t trade for anything!
We had big pretzels with two types of mustards and horseradish. Really good. Our next course was sausages, meatballs, sauerkraut and potato salad. It was a typical Bavarian meal.
We flew from Rome back to Malta. Our round trip ticket meant we had to go back to Malta to start home. We flew out of Rome at 9:00 pm and got to Malta at 10:30. We had a harrowing ride in a cab with a crazy driver to our small hotel. We checked in, had a drink in a small local bar and went to bed. Our plane flight left at 9:30.
In the morning we had a nice breakfast in the hotel and headed to the airport for our flight to Munich. We had a one night layover there. We got in at 11:30 and took an airport shuttle to the city.
We spent the afternoon and evening looking around the area of the big square in Munich – the Marienplatz. We had dinner in a classic German restaurant. Then wandered through the Hofbrauhaus. These musicians were playing there. It was a noisy, lively place that looked like a lot of fun, but we had to be up at 5:00am for our flight. So back to the hotel we went.
Here we are in one of our favorite areas of Rome – Trastevere. It is less expensive than other areas and has a lot of energy because there is a university in this area. There are so many cute cafes. Here we’re having one last gelato before we have to leave. Gelato is fabulous! It’s not as creamy as ice cream but the flavor is much more intense.
Now we have to say – Arrivederci Roma!
This was our last day in Rome. We decided to walk along the Tiber River.
In the Piazza Navona is a large fountain with four figures representing four rivers. The figure in this picture has his hand raised shielding his eyes from the building next to him. Rumor has it that Bernini did this because his biggest rival had designed the building and so the statue didn’t want to have to look at something so ugly. 🙂
When the architects were competing for the honor of designing this fountain, Bernini made a replica of his plan for the fountain in silver and gave it the person deciding on the architect.
We just happened to be walking by the Presidential Palace when the changing of the guard was taking place. There was a band and then all the military heartily sang what must have been the national anthem.
We went to the Palazzo Barberini to see the building and the art. The building was a splendid 1700th century palace. A pope – Pope Urban VIII had owned it at one time. There was beautiful art here too.
We didn’t just go to see art, we spent time nourishing ourselves at cute little cafes. We especially liked our waitress here. She was from Romania and took our picture.
We were lucky enough to be in Rome when a traveling exhibit of Frida Kahlo was there. She’s a very well known Mexican artist. We really enjoyed her work and reading about her life. She had an interesting, sad in some ways and unusual life.
We also went to a traveling exhibit from the Orsay Art Museum in Paris. It told about saving the beautiful old train station and turning it into one of the premier art museums in Paris. There were paintings by Monet, Renoir and more. We were so excited to see that exhibit too.
One of the important factors in keeping our costs down was using public transportation and we did – everywhere. We only took taxis to get to trains or airports when we had luggage. In Rome we bought a Roma Pass which gave us free entry to two sites and for three days we could use the bus, the trolley or the subway. We got our money’s worth! Here we are in the Metro (subway) waiting for our train.
Living and Coaching in Germany 