An American in Provence

On Saturday, we were both a little tired from all the sightseeing, and Alain still had pain in his foot, so we decided to take it easy and just go to a museum. We decided to go to the Capitoline Museum, overlooking the Roman Forum. It had mainly Roman statues and Renaissance art.We arrived at the museum around 10:30, bought our tickets (7€ each again). We did not however pay for the audioguide, which was another 5€. The exhibits were fairly well-explained in English. I was having terrible trouble with my right contact and had brought my glasses with me but not my contact lens solution. If I took them out, I would have to throw them away. (I have been having lots of problems with my eyes this year, but that is another blog post). I was peering at all of the exhibits with one eye only, and finally went to the bathroom. I managed to take out the contact, turn it inside out, and put it back in. Ahh! I can see now!!! Continued on to see the rest of the exhibit. Our ticket was good for re-entry up to four hours after the purchase time, so at 12:20 we decided to quick go out and grab something to eat, then come back in again. We wanted to see the other museum on the other side of the Piazza, for which we could use the same ticket. We went out and bought sandwiches and gelati again, then went back in and looked at the paintings. At around 2:30 we left the first museum, crossed over to the other side, and told that we could not get in this way, we had to enter from the underground passage from the first museum. What underground passage? We went back into the museum, went downstairs, and managed to find it. (not well indicated). More Roman statues. Some were amusingly covered in plastic wrap, to protect them from bird doo I guess. I wouldn’t want that job- “Your task for today is to remove the pigeon feather and poop covered plastic wrap from all the statues and put new plastic wrap on.” -- Gee thanks boss!

We saw one statue that both reminded us instantly of our brother-in-law Nicolas. Well, his face. I couldn’t testify for the rest of his naked body. I took a picture of it to show my sister-in-law. Can you imagine how strange that would be, to find a picture, painting, or statue of someone that looks exactly like you?After the museum, we walked over to the famous Trevi fountain. On the way, we had a cappucino (5€ each). We then had another gelati (the one at lunchtime was to make up for the one that we didn’t have on Friday). This place was the best in Rome in my opinion. It was very very good. And the fountain? Who cares when you have good ice cream?We ate dinner in Trastever again, this time in a place that was filled with wine bottles. This time we were more restrained and only had half a bottle.