Meeting day

We set off about 10 a.m. after the usual play in the garden sitting on towels and picking up leaves and stones then staggered up the stairs with stroller and stuff.

Heading down the street, I could hear chanting and as we got to the corner a street demonstration (students???) came into view - not sure what it was about but there were plenty of police.

We headed up to the Giardino degli Aranci (Garden of Oranges) but from a different direction this time - some interesting back streets: up via di San Anselmo and via dei Decii, still navigating narrow footpaths full of potholes, inconveniently parked cars and streets signs planted without thought right in the middle of the path - they are certainly not thinking strollers here.

Lovely buildings as we move into the pretty Piazza Tempio di Diana with its luxurious palazzi, along via Marcella to the church of Santa Sabina next to the Orange Garden and perched high on the Aventino hill overlooking the River Tiber.

It is a lovely church: very quiet and it has a long nave with 24 marble columns used from the original Temple of Juno.

It started to rain a little as we reached the garden so on went all the wet-weather paraphernalia but it stopped again a little time after.

We walked back down to the Rose Gardens (the Roseto) again - Sophie has not dropped off to sleep today despite the walking. Kathryn is in a different room today but she is not there and I get redirected to another floor losing my way in the process. Not fun with a crying baby.







We are in the Queen Juliana Room amongst the Canada, Belgium, India and Pakistan rooms (the last two appropriately distanced). The meetings dragged on until after 2 p.m. and I am completely "over" the FAO building as is Sophie.

I even tried to buy us some coffees but first I have to navigate from floor 3 to 4 in building B, then to another building (C, D, E - A?) to find the cafeteria Kathryn thought was there - but I couldn't find it in the maze of corridors with no signs; then back to building B (which I aimed for in earnest before I risked being permanently lost in the FAO) and up to floor 8 but the cafe was closed (again!) and then down into the bowels of the FAO where I found the cafeteria I located the other day - but no take-away coffee. I gave up in despair and disgust. "Let's get outa here" I said on my return.

We did. And we found a place to have coffee in the outside world. And the day had cleared up and was really quite pleasant.

We dumped our stuff at our place and went for a long walk to Trastevere, one of the neighbourhoods Kathryn has lived in previously. It is very attractive but also very touristy. We enjoyed our walk along the River Tiber to get there and the evening was nice.

There was a yummy-looking shop with baked cookies, etc. which was too good to pass by without buying something.

We continued ambling through Trastevere, but the restaurants Kathryn wanted to go to didn't open until 7:30 p.m. - and Sophie wasn't going to last that long so we then walked to Testaccio, another neighbourhood Kathryn has lived in but the restaurants here didn't open until 8 p.m. 

We nearly gave up as we were ALL getting tired so we went back to the restaurant we went to last night and which had been a great success. We were greeted like family by the owner and HIS family, even to the extent that when we walked in he flourished before us a toy we had left behind!

We had a quick meal - lovely lamb and roast potatoes again and carciofi for Kathryn and grilled zucchini for me. We made haste home as Sophie was very tired but she had enjoyed herself at the restaurant (yet again!) sampling bits of food.