Rome Wednesday

Today we started off with Digestive Biscuits and an unripe peach. Not the best breakfast in the world, but we made it do.

Our first walk was down to the Octavian Gate and across in to Trastevere. We wanted to see St Francis’s stone pillow at the St Francis a Ripa church. But the pillow was upstairs, and upstairs was closed on Wednesdays. So sad to be us.

We walked down to Sta Maria in Trastevere and had an ice cream on the way. I had hazelnut, Doreen had a combination of cappuccino and chocolate. This took the edge off the sorry breakfast we had.

St Maria in Trastevere is a great old church with recycled roman pillars inside. They all have different capitals and bases. It also has some wonderful mosaics – one of which depicts the twelve apostles as sheep, and Jesus not as a shepherd, but as the head sheep. It is very cute.

Rome was very hot today. We would seek out the shady side of the street, but this did not always get us cool enough. We drank a lot of water from the street fountains.

After Sta Maria, we headed to St Peter’s. But Wednesday is when the Pope gives audiences. They must have just finished when we got there, because the big TV screen were still on, and the church was closed. This was about 12:20. We heard a rumor that they would open up again at 1:00, and a line as already forming. We did not want to wait.

We heard about a little church not far away that has a museum of items that have been touched by souls in purgatory. We wanted to see this, and walked over there. But it, too, was closed. But that killed enough time so we could go to The Lilli for lunch.

We first went to The Lilli in 2000 after buying a marble table from Aldo at Marmi Line. He told us about The Lilli and told us what to order. We have been back many times. This time we had Prosciutto and Melon to start, followed by the delicious Cacio e Pepe pasta. Not to be missed.

After lunch we went back to St Peter’s, stood in line for about 20 minutes and got into the splendors of that cathedral.