LOST AND FOUND IN ROME

I'm sitting atop the Spanish Steps with my large cold Peroni Birra just a few feet from the door of our B&B.
I'm writing about this night because it is one of those nights that you want to burn into your memory, store it deep down in the synapse of the brain for emergency retrieval some rainy day down the road when you feel your life has turned to shit. 

Having gotten lost on purpose and quite alone in the streets of Rome I found my way back via the Fiume Tevere. 

My journey began as a quest for a cold beer and a Whopper with cheese. I know, bad boy! I must be reprimanded for my transgressions, ahh but that is for another day. 

The Burger King in question is conveniently located next to the Fontana Di Trevi.

 I made my way to the amazing fountain and walked by the Burger King but decided to keep on walking for a bit instead. With map in hand I just started walking, in all the wrong directions, just for the hell of it. 

This is something I have made a point in doing at every location of our amazing trip. 

Even with a map of Rome, much like Venice you will still have a difficult time navigating through the city and finding your way once you have lost your point of reference.

 I gave up on the map for the time being and charted my course through Rome using the setting sun. 

Seemed like the more I walked the more lost I became and the shadows cast by the old buildings and basilicas grew longer and longer and I got more and more turned around. 

That is until I found the river I had been meaning to find since I had arrived in Rome.

As I neared a bridge to cross I found myself in the middle of bicycle mayhem, some sort of biking rally and there were thousands of them rounding the corner of Pointe Umberto and the river.

It was total chaos and a wonderful surprise. It didn't seem to be a race of any kind, no one seemed to be in a hurry, they all looked like it was just some excuse to get together and have a big celebration.

I took this picture of some guy on his homemade double decker bike just sitting there holding onto the stop light, just because he could.

Looking down the river I spotted St Peters Basilica and the walls of the Vatican. Now with my visual GPS to navigate by, my coordinates on the map became child's play.

After taking in the festivities and taking several pictures I crossed the river and began my journey home walking along the Fiume Tevere.

Night was fast approaching and I knew the others would be wondering if I would ever return. 

After several minutes of walking I came to the Piazza Del Popolo that I had been curious about since I've been here and saw it on my map and it was worth the effort to find, even though I had already been there but didn't know it. 

There was an Egyptian obelisk and a fountain the middle. To the far side was a huge marble statue with a beautiful fountain incorporated. 

The Piazza Del Popolo was lit up and alive with people. After taking some more pictures I headed for high ground and more familiar streets. 

When I made my way up to Piazzale Napoleone and high ground,  I looked back over the direction I had just come from.

I discovered that I had been here on my first night in Rome, I just didn't know what I was looking at at the time and I had approached it from the other direction.

This time though it was night and the Piazza I had just crossed was glowing now and made for a nice picture with dusk firmly taking control of the sky and St Peter's Basilica as my back drop. 

I took this picture and I hope it makes for a nice print when I get home. 

When I finally tore myself away from this once in a lifetime visual I headed for my temporary home, (a fantastic Bed & Breakfast that sits atop the Spanish Steps) down a very dark and quite street.  

Then I heard the singing of a choir rising up from some church far below and some incalculable distance from me,  I paused there for a time just taking in the beautiful music as well as the Roman skyline. 

I couldn't have orchestrated a more fitting salute to cap off my little solitary stroll. 

If I were a man given to emotion I would have been very close to being overwhelmed with the perfection of the sights and sounds of my nights adventure. 

I finally retuned to sit atop the Spanish Steps with my cold beer sans Whopper with cheese and just relived the fresh memory and began this letter.

Suddenly I am brought back to reality with a sharp smack to the top of my head. At first I thought it was one of the illegal Bangladeshi street venders that have become a plague to this city by shoving various unwanted roses and toys in your face demanding Euros.
I had come close to dropping one of those jackasses the night before when he got in my sisters face and started calling her names for refusing the crap he was peddling 

I turned around to return the assault ten fold to the Bangladeshi and saw not an obnoxious rose peddler but my little sister who began chastising me for my disappearance, "where the hell have you been!?"

I gave her a brief synopses of my incredible evening knowing I could not put this lost and found moment into an adequate explanation. 

Yes I had been found and my little fantasy walk through this indescribable ancient city was over but I do have that memory locked securely in the vault. 

I guess discretion being the better part of valor, the prudent thing to do would have been to go to Fontana Di Trevi, grab that Whopper with cheese, hit the snack cart for that cold Peroni Birra and head straight back to the Spanish Steps using the familiar route.

But sometimes you just need to take the long way home.