Italy. Day three. Rome.

My wife, has never been to Rome. So, what to see in one day?

The Vatican? Trevi Fountain? Castel Sant'Angelo? The Forum? The Colosseum? Victor Emmanuel II Monument? . Travel in the metro? See the River Tiber? What about a visit to Piazza Navona. The Pantheon it's a lot. Well, We did the lot.

And walked between most of them. . It was a beautiful but warm day for this and knowing Rome well, it's not that difficult to walk between most of the places we did. But to do all was quite a challenge.

Many guides have been written about traveling and sightseeing in Rome.

I'll let you see for yourself

Rome Station

St Peters Basilica

Swiss Guard

Basilica interior

Castel Sant'Angelo

Piazza Navona

Film making in Piazza Navona

Trevi Fountain

Monument to Victor Emmanuel II

Pantheon

The Colosseum

We spent a few hours walking around the outside and then inside St Peters Basilica. Trying to remember and explain all the little lessons in history that the various statues of previous pope's give you. It was, as usual nowadays, very busy .

A tip for visiting Rome.

I don't know about now. But back in 2007. I came here on Christmas Eve. And found out a few secrets. One, there's nowhere to eat. Romans don't eat on this day, saving it all for either midnight or the next day. The other is that all civic amenities are free. This includes bus tours. But most of all. St Peters Basilica was empty. One of the usual student guides had hung around and offered his service for £10 . He proceeded to take us round and tell us the history of nearly everything inside and out about St Peters Basilica and square. He then pointed us towards the Sistine Chapel and through the Various corridors housing the Vatican museum and believe this or not. An empty, apart from one guard, Sistine Chapel.

We had it to ourselves for around an hour. I can't describe the experience well enough but having the various stages and meanings of the frescos of the ceiling and walls was, one of the most unforgettable experiences of my life. We were truly blessed and lucky to have this. There were tears.

Back to today.

Once we had enough of the crowd's we walked down the square towards Castel Sant'Angelo. Looking back at the sheer magnitude of the place. It's bigger than you can imagine. Walking through St Peters Square you would never know it's actually key shaped.

We had a walk around the Castel Sant'Angelo and walked a little down the river. Then onwards towards the Piazza Navona. There seemed to be a large gathering of people and we wanted in on whatever was happening.

There was a film crew working there and part of the Piazza was cordoned off. So we watched a few takes of this particular scene. It was a period piece which looked like the 70s maybe early 80s. Some amazing clothing and they had a line up of many various cars of the time.

Now this is exactly my thing. Italian cars from this period are few and far between here in the UK. Mainly due to the climate as they were made for Italian roads and warmer climates. And no salt on the road.

So there was a selection of Fiat 127's (My first ever car)

128's a 132 showed up. An Alfa Guilietta. A Simca. A Renault 5 and 16 and a Lancia Fulvia saloon.

I could have stayed all day and looked at the cars. But after a few takes of the same scene. We sped off on foot to the Trevi Fountain not far away.

That was packed with tourists. Italians trying to scam tourists to take photos. And more tourists. Mainly Chinese with selfie sticks.

So a quick coin over the shoulder. To make sure we come back to Rome. And off to the Pantheon. That done we walked onwards to the Victor Emmanuel monument and Forum.

The a stroll past Circus Maximus and onto the Collusium. Once that was done. We decided to get the metro back to the station and back to Frascati.

As it was now after 17.00 the metro was like a moving sardine can. But it was fun to do as we got the train back and relaxed after walking we calculated around 15km.

Eat, Sleep. Goodnight