We left Deruta in the early November morning after warm good-bys to Alessandro and Anna who had fed us better and more generously than anyone could possibly imagine. We had been at their farm for a week with a bunch of our friend and had spent the entire rain-soaked week day-tripping all over Umbria and lower Tuscany. But today as we were headed off and the sun was shining. Leslie, Mike and Jim headed for Florence, Jim and Betsy were on their way back to Nebraska, Diane and Lenny were off to Venice and we were driving to Rome for something less than two days and one night to finish off our almost 3-weeks in Italy. Leslie told us there was a grand passeggiata in Florence. Ditto for Rome. I think all of Northern Italy was so hemmed-in from two weeks of rain that they couldn't resist the beautiful Saturday evening stroll. And beautiful it was. Rome was just glorious, making us wish we had booked longer. Never mind I got pick-pocketed of my cash on the subway (on Sunday in a dense crowd on the way back to the hotel to retrieve bags and head to the airport… so thankfully, the cash had been spent down to just a bit). Never mind that the computer just turned off in the middle of downloading the latest batch of pictures. (It is now in repair with instructions: "I don't ever care if I see this computer again, but the data on the disk better come back intact! There are several hundred pictures from the three week that only exist on that disk).

As we drove into Rome's centro, it became obvious I was not going to find the Excelsior without help. I yelled to a pedestrian in perfect Italian for the direction to the Via Veneto. He responded in perfect English: "Go straight to the end and turn right and then ask again. --- No wait. --- Follow me. It's complicated!," jumping into his beat-up early model extra-mini Fiat. Weaving through intersections, never mindful of other cars or pedestrians he stopped after traversing a quarter of the city, got out and told me to take the second-right, go through the tunnel and you will be in Piazza Barberini at the foot of the Via Veneto, familiar territory. So much for haughty, indifferent Romans. Hope lives.

We arrived just before 2:00pm and headed for the Campidoglio Museuo because we had heard the café was special. Well. It has nothing to recommend it except the location. But, we all know where that ranks in the ratings. Tramanzini are dried out. The wine is lousy. Plastic plates. But who cares. Situated on the roof, on one side is the Forum on the other the domes of Rome. Stunning. Big umbrellas. Stylish people. Beautiful, sunny afternoon. Last week of November and too warm to leave your jacket on. Just lounge and muse.

Refreshed, we strolled to the Pantheon, stopping at the Gesù to gawk at the over-the-top Baroque opulence of St. Ignatius's tomb and then S.M. Sopra Minerva to see Michelangelo's risen Christ, Filippino Lippi's frescos, and Fra Angelico's and St. Catherine of Siena's tombs. The latter was the namesake of my childhood church. This church is such an amazing wealth of the Florentine Renaissance - and strangely all in a single Gothic church in Rome. Most distressing: someone put a god-awful - pun intended - bronze loin cloth over Christ's privates on Michelangelo's previously nude Christ. Bronze no less, on his luminous marble body. Really stupid! He stood nude for 400 years. Who could have thought Christ now needs modesty?