Veni vidi vici

As you can tell from Sunday Snaps 117, I was in Rome this weekend. 


I blame Facebook.


It is entirely due to FB that Alison and I spent the best part of three glorious days in Rome. Doing as the Romans do, or at least Roman women aged 40+ with a predisposition for prosecco and shoe shopping.


It all started when FB changed its page layout and suddenly everyone had to have a banner picture.  I put off changing my FB page because although I can embrace change I do hate change for change's sake, but in the end I bit the bullet, which meant I had to find a pic for my banner.


I flicked through the various albums I had on FB (was feeling way too lazy to want to upload anything from somewhere else) and found a golden hued street shot of Rome taken in October 2011 and used that.


My friends were quick to comment on the pic, trying to guess where it was taken, which led to me and Al reminiscing (via FB) about how much we love Rome, we should go for a weekend, one of us suggested.  


And that was it.  Within a few days diaries had been checked, the spouses had been booked (dog walking and childcare duties needed to be taken care of) flights also booked and hotel was sorted.


On arrival at the hotel (on via del Babuino, spitting distance to Piazza del Popolo and a five minute stroll past lots of pretty shops to the Spanish Steps, with an excellent restaurant just around the corner) the charming guy on reception said "oh yes, Mrs Evans, the room..." and my heart sank.  


Had the room been double booked?  Had it proved impossible to change the large double bed into two singles...I needn't have worried.  We'd been upgraded and had the best room in the hotel, with a balcony looking out onto the main street*.


Unpacking was swiftly accomplished and we headed out to find some lunch.


We didn't get far.  Having headed along the street towards the piazza we came across two restaurants just at the edge of the piazza both with tables set outside under awnings.  We toasted our weekend with prosecco and split a pizza and a bowl of salad.


Sitting outside at restaurants and cafés provides the perfect entertainment, people watching.  It's even better when there's two of you, and even more fun when it's fueled by alcohol and you have a near constant stream of tourists parading past.  But eventually the lure of the Roman shops proved too great and we headed off.


Friday afternoon was not a big success on the shopping from, not that we returned to our hotel dejected, by no means.  I think we both viewed Friday as a scouting mission, we examined the contents of every shoe shop we came across very carefully, because Italian shoes are wonderful, the variety (especially when you live in sensible Germany) is awesome and they are also not expensive (unlike in Germany) and as we weren't tailed by men, who don't seem to appreciate the difference between one shoe and another, but were instead with our ideal shopping partners, there was no guilt.  No need to have to soothe a bored male left standing outside yet another boutique, twiddling his thumbs, instead there was just unadulterated glee as the quest for the perfect shoe ran and ran.


We got as far as Piazza Navona** when we had to give in to ice cream (what can I say...other than it was hot) and then wended our way back to our hotel for a little recuperation.  It's hard work, enjoying yourself!




*  which is why we think we got upgraded.  Our theory is that someone objected to the road noise and opted for a smaller room elsewhere in the hotel.  Crazy really, when you stay in a city road noise is to be expected.  
** I love Piazza Navona, although I don't think Al shares my love.  Yes it is a huge tourist trap and the restaurants and gelateria are going to be priced accordingly, but I love the constant action in the place.  There are the "serious" artists selling their wares and the blatant beggars, but there are also the street entertainers and of course the essential "bag men".  There's so much to watch.

Sunday Snaps 117

I'm in Rome for the weekend, this was our view last night.

It's a Washout?

Sunday was the river pageant for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and as we don't get the two extra bank holidays tagged onto the weekend we thought we'd celebrate on the Sunday in our own quiet little way here at home in Germany.

As you can see from Sunday's post, the house was appropriately dressed* and I had taken the precaution of warning all those not familiar with English garden party dress code** that the vast majority of the female guests would be wearing pretty dresses (I didn't bother with the menfolk, although two of the German guests had made more of an effort than the actual Commonwealth representatives - one had rather spiffy red braces on and the other a suit with a pale pink tie) this was not to intimidate them into making more of an effort, but rather that I didn't want them to feel out of place and under dressed.  One friend declared she didn't have any summer frocks (or maybe it was just that she didn't have any garden party appropriate?) and was taken in hand by another friend who decked her out in a perfect dress and added a hat and shoes - I gather the whole trying on of possible outfits was accompanied by the consumption of several bottles of wine, so many in fact that it's amazing the nail varnish was as perfectly applied as it was!  Another friend gleefully went shopping and turned up in a stunning dress covered in summer flowers.  It's amazing that people were so adherent to the dress code given that it was billed as a garden party and therefore it should be in the garden, but it wasn't.  We were housebound.


All week long I had checked the weather forecast for Sunday, checking different sites to find the forecast that most suited, to no avail.  What was possibly a 50% chance of showers at the beginning of the week became in actual fact constant rain.  It did not let up.  Not once.  Of course the guest list had been designed with the aim of being in the garden and the house.  The river pageant would be on the TV and people could watch it or not, flowing through the house.  Therefore I felt able to invite more people than the house might comfortably hold...Looking back it's amazing how many people the house can comfortably accommodate, I guess it helps that the ground floor is fairly open plan, it is also great to have a huge (liveable) cellar that the children could be packed off into*** to watch DVDs or play games.


We were all able to laugh at the weather, after all there's nothing you can do to alter it, commenting that it was perfect British weather for a very British celebration.  


A lot of my friends had asked if they could bring a contribution to the buffet table, and never one to turn down free food I suggested to most people that they bring cake (I asked another friend to make cucumber sandwiches because they are (or at least seem to me) typical English picnic/garden party food, despite the fact that I loathe them) consequently the table was heaving with cake, carrot cake with a rather gay pink and pale blue union jack frosting, a white chocolate cheesecake with a patriotic blueberry and raspberry topping, strawberry cake complete with a stenciled pistachio crown, advocat cake...then of course there were sausage rolls, cheese and pineapple on sticks, sausages on sticks, deviled eggs, chicken wings****.  


To drink we had Pimms, of course.  I have a lovely punch bowl, it holds 4.5 litres.  We emptied it twice, I think I've made quite a few converts to this very English tipple, although we didn't manage to convert quite so many to the joys of twiglets!  Consequently I now have no Pimms, and it's summer (in theory), here's hoping the visitors over next week from the UK think to stop in duty free on their way to the airbridge!  


For my German guests the drink situation was a little...confusing, or maybe disconcerting.  Germans take their cake with coffee, and to be fair the Brits would usually associate cake with tea or coffee.  However, this being a garden party (albeit an inside garden party) and moreover a party, alcohol was on offer, unless they happened to be driving or be under the legal age that is.  There was no mention of hot drinks at all...until a friend crept up to me in the kitchen and whispered to ask whether it was possible to have a cup of coffee to accompany her cake, and then when one smelt the coffee another asked - good job I only asked those locals that I know to be anglophiles eh?  Otherwise I'd have been stood making endless cups of coffee.





I think the afternoon went well, it would have been nice to have had the luxury of the garden as well, but you can't have everything can you?  Maybe next time!

* bunting is fun to put up and OK to take down (although I did have to leave it a day until it stopped raining long enough for the stuff to dry out) but a complete pig to fold up and put away, after all I might need it again so it needs to be salvageable.

** the Germans, who seem, on the whole, to be as incapable (to my eye) of dressing up (and I don't mean in a batman outfit) for a do as they are of having fun spontaneously.

*** 20+ children aged from 2 to 17 make a lot of noise (although not much mess surprisingly, it helps having a mobile and keen hoover called Logan) could really have done without a couple of the boys bringing their toy guns with them though and trying to conduct a running battle.

**** one of my friends was eating a chicken wing and clearly had his hand down a fraction too low, Logan snatched it from his hand and I would imagine swallowed it whole for fear of it being wrenched from his slathering jaws, fortunately Jason didn't lose any fingers, just his pride.

Sunday Snaps 116

The house is ready to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee, shame the German weather seems determined to rain on the parade!  After over a week of blue skies and sunshine, today it's wet and grey.  Good job I put all the bunting out yesterday when it was still sunny eh?