morning all, well, it was mighty cold in Rome, the official temp yesterday was 12 but one of those signs outside a chemist said 6 and that felt about right; there was a bitter wind along the Tiber. So I'd go out prepared to meet Eskimos and then suddenly the sun would come out and I'd be having to rip layers off and put them in my bag. Anyway, we went round the forum and saw the spot where Caesar was cremated, visited several thousand churches, didn't bother queuing up with thousands of Japaense to put our hands in the Mouth of Truth, and visited some fab museums. OH had gone completely native by the end of it and was jumping queues and sneaking on to buses without paying. Lots of pasta and some gelati, but we finished with a steak at the T-Bone restaurant on Via Francesco Crispi, brother of the more famous Rice.
The hotel bed was terrible hard, though, and my hip is still aching. I asked if they had any soft mattresses and they just gave me a couple of bath towels to put on it, which didn't help much and anyway the chambermaid took them away again the next day. I think in future I will have to ask for hotels with soft beds and be prepared to pay extra :-(