Day 2- In Rome

After a great night of sleep I was awake at about 5.30 am with the sun streaming in the window! Amazing considering back in Melbourne the sun doesn’t rise until well after 7.30 am am.

The night of sleep started at 8.30 am …. I am getting into the normal “ bike riders” sleeping hours with getting into bed early in the evening being the norm!

Breakfast this morning was on the rooftop dining area which is quite something both in the early morning and later with dinner as we experienced last evening. I have a photo of the view from the rooftop this morning below.

After breakfast we agreed to do a bike ride to visit some of the sights of Rome. Chris had risen early this morning and had kindly planned a route on cycle.travel which was great. Riding today had the added advantage of doing a “shake down” of the bikes after assembling them yesterday.

So off we went….

The weather was great with clear skies sand temperatures in the mid twenties.

The ride was about 20 kms with visits to the Colosseum, Roman Forum, Vatican City, St Peter’s Church, Villa Borghese and many other sights.

The ride was inclusive of swagman of the Roman parks which is something I did not remember in earlier trips here.

Around most of the more popular areas there were plenty of other tourists and the queues were quite long.

We stopped for coffee in one of the parks and had a pasta lunch near the hostel.

From a bike perspective, the shake down was quite successful and although I need to make a couple of adjustments, I am happy with the way I have assembled the bike.

The big issue is my connection on my Orange sim which is not allowing me to access the internet. Seems that Orange is not being helpful at this stage… anyway this is always a problem I have found. Telstra and the other telcos have no effective partnerships to enable seamless communication which is affordable on mobiles when travelling overseas.

The pictures of the day include many of the sights we visited.

The first is the map of the ride today

Then the view from the rooftop deck at breakfast

Victor Emanuel monument

Tiber river

View of Rome from the back of the Vatican City…. There was a few people there demonstrating against something which I couldn’t understand….

Selfie outside St Peter’s Basilica

Gardens at Villa Borghese… well manicured!

Front of Villa Borghese

Front view of our accommodation in Rome…. Very comfortable and convenient