Rob's Roamings 2023

2 days of watching sport all day is exhausting, especially in Roman heat, so we spent a few hours in the calm and peace of the Botanical Gardens in Rome.  Very beautiful and well kept with a fantastic variety of plants from all over the world, and with a great view over the city. We enjoyed our short Roman holiday. But I have a few thoughts about Italian people. Their idea of personal space is pretty much non existent. Several times, I was bumped into, or my direction of walk was not avoided by someone coming from the opposite direction.  The word "queue" probably doesn't exist in Italian.  And as for "park tidy" or safely- we saw scores of cars, vans and motorbikes left abandoned on pavements, across zebra crossings, sticking out into the road, you name it.  A lot of Roman locals talk very loudly too.  I'm afraid they're not my favourite people.  Perhaps on another visit , if I manage it properly, I'll get to see Rome in a different light. There'

Well, the reason why we've come to Rome is to watch some tennis - at the Rome Masters at Foro Italica.  A wonderful sports complex, which has 15 tennis courts, a swimming pool and Stadio Olympica, where Roma plays(which they did last night - the noise of football fans echoed over the whole park). On day 1 we had centre court tickets, and saw Stan Warwinka get through round 1.  Later on, we saw Andy Murray narrowly defeated by Flavio Fognini, who had, naturally, the support of the vast majority of the stadium.   Needless to say a group of Italian young men were very vocal in their support for Murray! One of the stadiums looks like an Olympic stadium from antiquity, with numerous marble statues surrounding it. A great setting for a tennis match.   On day 2, we stayed on the one outside court for a series of doubles matches, including those with Dan Evans, Rublev and Tiafoe in them.

A flight from Bristol and long taxi ride brought us to our very nice 4th floor apartment  .... 15 minutes walk from Foro Italica, the tennis complex for the Rome Masters tournament which starts tomorrow.  On our first day in Rome, we headed to the biggest tourist magnet of them all in Rome - the Colosseum.   We were amongst several hundred people all trying to get in at the same time.  Most of them were in organised groups with their guides.  We had individual tickets As we entered, it was absolute mayhem with tightly packed crowds with pushing and shoving, which made for a very unpleasant start to our visit.  However, after about 20 minutes, we realised that all tickets are let in at 30 minute intervals. The guided groups were on a mission to get round, so we found ourselves in a quieter gap between groups.  So if ever you come to the Colosseum, take my advice, and wait for the guided groups to race ahead. You'll have a bit more peace to take in this magnificent structure and hist