Rome, Evening Tour - 8/04

Our first stop on our evening tour was Piazza Navona. This piazza has a famous Berini’s Four Rivers Fountain in front of a building in which Michelangelo was the architect. From there we went to the Pantheon where I got a picture of the outside of it while a group of us were sitting at a nearby café; that’s Robert in the red shirt taking a picture of some of our group.

Next we were off to the Trevi Fountain. This was built in 1762 by Nicola Salvi and it was built to celebrate the reopening of an ancient aqueduct that powers it. The fountain’s main character is “Ocean” a figure that represents water in all of its form. Water gushes from 24 different locations. Tradition has it that by tossing a coin over your will assure your return to Rome. After working our way through the crowd, we took pictures of each other throwing in our coins (here’s to my return!) then Craig took a picture of our evening tour group in front of the fountain. It was a fun site.

Our last official stop of the day was the Spanish Steps. This is a wide set of step with a curving walkway on both sides leading up to an obelisk at the top centered between two church bell towers. The evening we were there they were setting up for a concert so the place was jammed. According to the Rick Steve’s guide book, this is one of the icons of the city of Rome.

After seeing the Spanish Steps area, everyone regrouped and went their own way for dinner. Craig, Judy and I decided to have dinner together. We found a good-enough restaurant for dinner; the food was decent but the waiter pulled a fast one on us by doubling the price of our caprice salads. When we called him on it, he gave us the line that we got the “special” mozzarella. It was a line of bull but we let it ride this time; I would not, however, be taken again by the crocked waiters of Rome!

Our last sight for the evening was to go back to the Trevi Fountain to see it light up at night. It was beautiful and much less crowded. My night time picture is blurry since I didn’t have a tripod. Now that was a long day of sightseeing and it was still hot and very humid at 11:00 at night! I couldn’t wait to get back to the hotel to air conditioned comfort and a soft bed.