An American in Provence

We got off and walked in the general direction of the Roman Forum. We had a wonderful time wandering around the forum. I wasn’t extremely impressed by the ruins, basically because there is pretty much the same thing here in Provence. It was amazing to think though “Julius Cesar walked right here”. It was crowded but not overwhelmingly so. For lunch, we walked over to the Campo di Fiori area, and had lunch where our host had recommended. The menus were always broken up into little sections, such as Antipasti, First Course, Second Course, salads, desserts, drinks. The prices for individual things were reasonable, so it lulls you into a false sense of security. “Oh, I can have this! It is only 7 €!” Yeah, but 7+6+7+8+5 per person can get expensive. The pasta was wonderful, but we had the wind knocked out of us when we received the bill- it was about 20€ more than we had expected. Alain had ordered a fish, and apparently they charge by weight. On the menu it was marked 3.50€ per 100g. Apparently that was one heavy fish. I don’t necessarily think it was 570 grams worth of fish, but oh well. Must watch out for that in the future. Or ask to see the proof when they weigh it.After lunch we walked to the Pantheon. This was a bit more crowded. It wasn’t at all as I had expected. I had read Dan Brown’s “Angels and Demons” and expected it to be different. How, I don’t know exactly, just different. Perhaps a bit bigger I guess. After that, we walked to the Piazza Navona, which had sort-of a carnival going on in the middle. The famous fountain of the Four Rivers was under restoration, which disappointed me. We were able to see some of it, because they had windows in the surrounding fence.Finally, we walked to the Castel Sant’Angelo. Alain hates asking people to take our picture, so I hardly ever get pictures of the two of us. We entered in the Castel (7€ each I believe it was). There were beautiful views from the terrace, and the other rooms were amazing as well. We were up there just as the sun was beginning to set. Alain began to have terrible pain in his achille’s tendon. We are not sure what caused it, whether it was the walking or his shoes or what, but he was in terrible pain for the rest of our trip.We walked back to the Trastevere area and played the nightly game of “Which Restaurant Roulette”. Basically, you join the hordes of other obvious tourists, walk from one restaurant’s menu board to another, and try to find one that appeals to you, is in your budget range, and still has space available. Eating outside was possible but not enticing, and most restaurants tried to cram in as many tables as possible. We finally found a pizza place. When I got my pizza, I was displeased to find out that Italians seem to like artichoke hearts on their pizzas. This seems to be standard fare, as it wasn’t mentioned in the ingredient list for the pizza I had chosen. We limped back to the B&B (I had pain too by now) and went to bed at around 10pm.