With the lingering soreness from some of yesterday's bad choices, we set out to do better today. We started properly with croissants and cappuccinos. We outsmarted the colloseum line by buying our tickets down the street. We listened to free downloaded audio guides (Rick Steves), and we made it back for siesta at a reasonable time. We stopped at a market for bread, cheese, tomatoes and arugula, and brought it home for delicious (and cheap!) lunch. Smooth sailing. After lunch we went back to the Pantheon, this time to go inside. We had a frozen coffee treat afterward at some famous Italian coffee place. We had hoped for a relaxing stroll through he forum at golden hour but the entrance was really hard to find and we just missed last entry. We did some free exploring today in random stunning churches (they'd be the main attraction somewhere else but hardly even make it on the map in Rome). One church had four statues representing faith, hope, charity and religion. We loved that the one representing hope used an anchor as a symbol.
When we eat in restaurants here, we are always seated about three inches from the next table...tonight we talked with our table neighbors who were a father and son from Holland. We're generally not very brave with strangers but it is fascinating to talk with people from other parts of the world.
All in all today was a great day. I heard Jessica day she wants to come back some day, which I take as a good sign. It can't hurt that everything we eat is delicious and she insists we have gelato every night. Thank goodness for all the walking!