Anyone for tennis?

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.






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A rail trip of a lifetime

Image
The Rocky Mountaineer rail trip from Banff to Vancouver was absolutely amazing. Almost every minute of the 2 day trip took our breath away. I really would encourage everyone to do it if they can. Not only was it extremely comfortable, with good seats, great food, unlimited free drinks all day and huge panoramic windows, the views of the changing landscape were fantastic. The on board guide was funny and very knowledgeable about all stages, and some great stories to tell. The weather had improved dramatically, so we left Banff in bright sunshine. Passing through the Rockies, after about an hour we went through the world famous two spiral tunnels to take us down to the river bed level, which we pretty much followed via three rivers and two lakes to Vancouver. Leaving the mountains behind we entered a semi arid area for our overnight stop at Kamloops.   Luggage was transferred directly to our hotel room, but they managed to lose my case for about an hour! Early next morning, we set off ag
Read more

Time to relax

Image
I'm taking full advantage of my first class interrail pass. I have this whole compartment to myself!    - an opportunity to chill out and take it easy before tomorrow's half marathon. I thoroughly recommend travel by train in Europe.  Trains always run on time, and are immaculately clean and comfortable. I'm currently on my way to Poland from Frankfurt(Oder).   I don't realise there were two Frankfurts in Germany.  The one I'm travelling from is the Other (Oder) one!
Read more

A walk and a climb...

Image
An early morning walk to Bow Falls in the cold (2 degrees!) air was great. Rocky Mountain scenery at its best. Not far away was the famous Banff Springs Hotel, which we went to have a look at. Deep pile carpets, huge rooms and opulent decor was what we experienced.  I can't imagine how much it costs to stay here. At mid day we headed up by local shuttle bus to Sulphur Mountain to get on the Banff Gondola lift. I was particularly looking forward to this;  my dear Mum and Dad had taken this trip when they came here on their trip of a lifetime in 1988, and talked fondly of how excited they were to have done it. Cold and misty weather meant that the views were to be severely limited.  We realised that our hopes of spectacular photos were dashed, when it started to snow half way up! Snow in June!!! Actually not as cold at the top as we expected, we managed a short walk along the tops amongst the pine trees.   We stayed for a snack lunch of soup and sausage rolls before descending and re
Read more