Last day of bus tour - back to Rome

Last day of the bus tour today. Basically driving back to Rome and staying the night there.

We called into see in-laid wood factory (something big over here). I eyed up this round table of walnut till I saw the price (free shipping!). We worked it all out with each chair about a $1000 and the table was $10,000, so $16,000 all up! No – it was too nice for us basically so didn’t get it. You would be too scared to eat on it, or scratch it – waste of time in our household.

Then it was Pompeii (again). Actually it was good cause we learnt and saw different things than last time so got the double dose I guess! It was raining before we arrived then stopped as we walked off the bus so very lucky. Not the kind of place you want to see in the rain!

Then the long drive to Rome (about 3 hours). Wasn’t so bad – I slept a lot of the way.

We passed  Monte Cassino (where the Maori Battalion had a major battle). It was way up the top of a huge hill above the town of Cassino. Would have been very hard for the soldiers trying to capture it. Even today the only access is up a zig-zag road on one side. Didn’t go near it, just saw it from the motorway.

That night in Rome was our final celebration dinner at a cool little restaurant opp. the Michelangelo bridge and castle. Both were all lit up as we arrived at dusk, so great photo opportunity. I was happy as I had wanted to walk over that bridge but we hadn’t actually done it!

During dinner we had lots of huge courses (see below),

by the end I was feeling sick!
 plus and opera singer and accordion to add to the atmosphere. A really lovely way to end the tour.

But wait, there is more! For those who wanted to (about 10 of us) our tour guide Gary took us to Trevi fountain at night! What a sight! Not as many tourists, plenty of room to sit and look at the fountain and contemplate ……. Gary said that between 4 -5 am they drain the fountain, basically vaccum clean up all the coins, refill the fountain again. The money goes to Italian red cross for the homeless in Rome, and an orphanage.  Not sure if you remember but you throw coins over your shoulder into the fountain and it is for good luck! I had a nice talk to Gary about how he should organise Insight Tours of NZ, and I said we have so much to show the world but then I looked up at this huge, amazing piece of carved marble and said ‘but we don’t have that”. He said that people come to Italy for the history and the art,  people come to NZ for the natural beauty. So true.

So that definitely was a lovely way to end the tour.

But wait, there’s still more! When we got back to our hotel, our lovely American friends and us went up to the garden bar and had only 1 Sambuka shot to end the day. We hope they will come and visit us, and we definitely want to visit them (an East Coast trip up the side of USA sounds nice!) Very sad to leave them actually, they were such nice people.

this is us trying a selfie in the mirrored lift!

Reflection of Bus Tour – great way to see places you haven’t been to before. I would definitely recommend this group (Insight Tours). Bus was so comfortable and lots of room, tour guide was so organised and patient (he called me Brendisimo (he explained it as my Brenda, lovely Brenda!)and went out of his way to help. The hotel were right in the middle of town so you were able to walk around if you had free time. A whole lot of Americans were a bit hard to deal with, but we made great friends and they were very interested in our country (tho. rather ignorant of it!) I never did my Trump/Hillary election vote as it was getting to be a rather touchy topic amongst them as the tour went on!