Week 1 Calgary to Rome

Well four months of winter in Calgary have pretty well been enough for this year. On Tuesday morning we got up bright and early to head to the airport in Calgary to begin our two month European (Italy and Germany actually) trip.

We flew to Toronto where we met up with our friend Marian from Vancouver. Marian is joining us, for the first 3 weeks or so of our trip, in Rome.

We have added the first pics of the trip to our photo album.

Here we are taking off from Toronto...

... and arriving in Rome...

We had arranged for a car service to pick us up at the Rome airport. Bit of a mixup finding the driver but all worked out in the end and we had a great drive into the city to our apartment in the Pratti district near the Vatican. After waiting out an afternoon shower, we wandered around the neighbourhood to get a feel for the area. Very nice so far. Had an excellent late afternoon pizza which basically did us for the day and hit the sack a bit early since we were totally bagged after the long day of flying.

Thursday was a task day, so we headed off to get new SIM cards for our phones so we could have local service without paying huge roaming fees from our Canadian providers (aka Rogers). After that we took in the National Art Museum which had a great special display on artifacts recovered from the Tiber river when there was an excavation near the Villa Farnesina. The display featured reconstructed frescoes from various rooms in the villa. Fabulous....lots of pics in our album.

Leaving the museum we had a decent lunch at a nearby restaurant then wandered down Via Barberini to Piazza Barberini where we visited the Palazzo Barberini (go figure) which has beautiful grounds surrounding the palazzo.That was enough for one day. We headed on home after that stopping at a little sidewalk pizza/wine bar just outside our apartment for a nice cool Campari spritz.

Friday we had a pre-scheduled "Drawing in Rome" workshop which was an introductory 3 hour class into the use of Conte crayons. It was just the 3 of us plus the instructor. He took us to the top of the Castell S'Angelo where we had fabulous views all across Rome. Our class consisted of some very basic instruction then suggestions on what and how to use this new found (for us anyway) media. Our instructor warned us that "being even a newbie artist in Rome was like being a celebrity... everyone will want to watch you work". Wasn't that the truth. We constantly had folks looking over our shoulders and watching us "artists at work". We had lots of fun and learned at least a little in the short time we had for the class. Here's a collection of our renderings...

Earlier on Friday we went off and purchased ourselves monthly transit passes for April. Even though we are only going to be here until the 21st or so, it is far cheaper to buy a month pass than 3 weekly passes (30 euro vs 3*16=48 euro). To end the day, after the class, we wandered back towards our apartment and stopped at a sidewalk cafe on Via Pio where we had what can only be described as the world's strongest Campari spritz... wow... a very red drink in a very red place to sit and while away an hour or so anyway...

Saturday we made the first use of our transit passes and took a bus over to the AS Roma store in Piazza Colonna to purchase tickets to the AS Roma vs Juventus football match on Sunday night. We followed this with a mellow stroll up and down the streets around the Spanish Steps, a nice late lunch then a walk back across the Tiber to our apartment where we vegged out for the rest of the day.

All in all a great start to our trip. The only downside was that the knee injury Kris suffered (likely that darn yoga class) before we left home decided to act up, causing her to change her walk gait which in turn appears to have brought on a case of plantar fasciitis in her opposite foot. So there were a couple of times there where, as Kris puts it, "... I feel like I'm pretty much circling the drain...".... As we end the week, she does appear to be on the mend but only time will tell.

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On to Week 2

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