Plane Tired!

LONG HOURS ... InterNOT ... LEAKS ... REST

6:30am Rome time, Thursday morning, and after a long lie (though broken sleep) I'm up and ready for the first real day of exploring. The Internet has been tenuous through the the trip so far; unavailable from out terminal in Melbourne, and too slow to load anything for the majority of our time in Dubai. Here at our hotel in Rome, it drops off continually, and I am having to have my second go at a blog post  because the one I wrote upon arrival disappeared! Not that I am defining our trip by my connectivity, but I am a self-confessed social media freak, and I do, therefore, miss it!

Our plane journey was uneventful though very long. Total travel time was in excess of 30 hours, about 21 of those in the air. Watched 4 movies and did manage some sleep, but both Mum and I were super glad to touch down in Rome yesterday at about 1:45pm, 30 mins later than scheduled. This could have been one reason why it was difficult to find our transfer company, the other could be that I was looking for FOTHERGILL  on a board, not LYNN  squeezed in between two other names. Anyway, we had an unofficial tour of parts of Rome we might not see again on the hour long trip to our hotel. 

On arrival, we were told that there had been a storm overnight, and our room had been flooded. There were no more available rooms so we were transferred to a neighbouring hotel, which was apparently a step up, so all good. (Except many for the fact the room was configured to one large bed, as opposed to twins... Love my Mum,  maybe not that much... And despite a promise to remedy, we did end up sleeping quite successfully in our own spaces!)

After a most welcome shower, we meandered a nearby street for the most perfect start to our Italian experience, sitting outside on a temperate evening eating porcini fettuccine (me) and aubergine parmagiana (Ma), waited on by typically enthusiastic Italians, before returning for a much anticipated horizontal sleep.

Today we are doing a prebooked Vatican tour, something easy for the first day. 

Only got iPad photos today... In time I will download some from the camera to share. For now, Arrevederci, we're off the breakfast.

PS a quick addition for Mums camera, of me and the waiter hehe. I have just remembered that I can't upload RAW files from my camera to the iPad so will have to stick to snapshots on here :)