George Rebane

Our friends Tony and Paula arrived from Hong Kong in the middle of the night and were all set to go on the following morning.  We requested the hotel to set up a registered guide for us, and after a delightful and exhausting day, we all agreed that this is the way to do Rome.  Signora Francesca Tolomei (info@tolostours.com) arrived at 10am to pick us up.  She is the short lady in the middle in front of the Colosseum.  Francesca is an art history graduate who guides private tours professionally.  She speaks excellent English and has a depth of knowledge about the city and the history of the Roman Empire that astounds.  Sparkling personality, sense of humor, good looks, and the endurance of the Energizer Bunny.   We lucked out.

She first taxied us to the top of a high hill overlooking the city, following the classic advice of Thomas Jefferson the 18th century tourist – ‘First climb the highest hill overlooking the city and get the lay of the land as to where the important places are located.  Then go directly to the most important thing you want to see.’  The taxi took us to the Coliseum, and from then on it was all on foot.  I was a bit stunned by the scale of that stadium, photographs don’t do it justice – it is huge.  Francesca told us its history and destroyed a passel of myths about that historic structure.

I’m not going to go into all the details; it’s late, today was another big day, we had a splendid dinner, … you get the drill.  Anyway Francesca took us ‘everywhere’ and delivered a wonderful synopsis lecture at every imaginable point with no end to all the answers to our questions.  She quickly picked up the level of interest of each of us and fashioned her answers accordingly – after 12 years of doing this, she really is a pro.

At the end of the day we gave her hugs and several large bills, and staggered to our rooms for a little nappy-poo before a very light dinner.

Today it was cloudy and we did the St. Peters square two-step with a few thousand other tourists who waited in a very long line to go through the cathedral itself.  We were happy just to mingle, buy souvenirs, and then took a long walk by the Tiber and San Angelo castle back to our hotel.  The hotel is very centrally located to all the good shopping places which the ladies decided to ‘explore’.  Tony and I had some important materials recorded on the inside of our eyelids that we needed to review before dinner.  Tomorrow we drive to Rome’s port city of Civitavecchia to start our cruise on a ship whose 138,000 tons is guaranteed to consist of mostly cholesterol.