Rome, Italy. Wednesday/Saturday 16/19-September-2026.
- London, England. Thursday/Tuesday 27-August/01-September-2026.
- Frankfurt, Germany. Wednesday/Thursday 02/03-September-2026.
- Nuremberg, Germany. Thursday/Saturday 03/05-September-2026.
- Milan, Italy. Sunday/Tuesday 06/08-September-2026.
- Castelnuovo Berardenga, Tuscany. Wednesday/Thursday 09/10-September-2026.
- San Vincenti, Tuscany. Friday/Tuesday 11/15-September-2026.
- Roma, Italy. Wednesday/Saturday 16/19-September-2026.
Introduction.
The final stop on our grand tour: Rome for three nights including a parkrun, as part of our mission to tick off all the Italian parkruns.
Wednesday 16-September-2026.
A horribly early start with a 5:30 am alarm driven by the taxi sharing logistics. We went with the people bound for morning flights from Pisa. They were able to make a slight detour en-route and drop us at Sienna railway station. The flexibility of the Interrail pass meant we could catch a train just about to leave for Florence and amend our seat reservations on the Florence to Rome leg rather than hang around for hours at Sienna.
We got to the apartment early so went for lunch at the local pizza joint, 6zero1, for a very tasty salad.
That evening we decided to eat locally at Osteria Romana dal 1949 which had reasonable ratings. We went for a set menu with starter, pasta and main. The local Lazio speciality pasta cacio e pepe was supposed to be a tasting portion, but it was more like a full sized dish, too much! I thought I’d go out of my comfort zone and try the oxtail stew for the main. I figured it would be something like rabbit where you have to pick the meat off the bones. In this case the meat was chewy and full of gristly bits and so I left the majority of it. I won’t make that mistake again!
Thursday 17-September-2026.
The morning was a fascinating visit to Ostia Antica - the ancient port of Rome during the period of the Roman Empire.
It was very extensive, took hours and hours to explore and is still being excavated. It was so interesting we didn’t want to miss any of it. We had lunch in the café on-site and then a quick visit round the museum. On the way in we saw a team working on new excavation; on the way out we got a good view of some of what they had uncovered that day. Amazing to see amphorae in such good condition emerging from the sand.
We saw green parakeets. My bird app identified them as Monk Parakeets unlike London which has Ring-Necked Parakeets.
It was something something like 4 o’clock before we got back to the apartment for a late afternoon rest.
The evening meal was at Beva Vineria, a restaurant with a wide selection of over 1000 wines, many of which were offered by the glass to accompany your chosen dishes.
The starter was a selection of salami from the Cinta Senese: an ancient native Italian breed of pig from Tuscany that is black with a single white belt.
We cannot remember what we had for main courses but they were delicious as well.
Friday 18-September-2026.
The morning’s activity was a walk up to the Vatican City from Roma St. Pietro station following a disused papal railway line, the Passeggiata del Gelsomino. It was advertised as a hidden gem, in my view it was neither hidden nor a gem. It was a short walk, only half a kilometre. It did have a lovely view of Saint Peter’s but other than that was very disappointing.
It is also a triumph of poorly executed civil engineering. The path has neither camber nor slope and inadequate drainage so when the rains came down, we had to walk through puddles that stretched the entire width of the pathway at several points.
Here the tracks disappear under Vatican City.
We continue to walk around the Vatican City and then away from touristy areas to find ourselves a nice restaurant for lunch.
After lunch we went to see a major retrospective of Kandinsky.
En route we passed this stunning column. From Wikipedia:
“The Column of Marcus Aurelius is a Roman victory column located in Piazza Colonna, Rome, Italy. A Doric column adorned with a detailed spiral relief, it was built in honor of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius and modeled after Trajan's Column. Dedicated to the emperor and his military campaigns during the Barbarian Wars, the monument stands as a testament to his reign from 161 to 180 AD. The column's frieze, approximately 367 feet (112 meters) long, spirals upward 21 times, depicting the emperor’s campaigns against the Germanic and Sarmatian tribes.”
The Kandinsky exhibition was in the Palazzo Bonaparte and the majority of the pieces were on loan from the Pompidou Centre in France. We downloaded an audio guide to the 20 most important pieces in the exhibition which took about a hour and a half. Without that we might have been there for hours and hours.
The pictures were amazing and the exhibition showcased his stylistic evolution. Also fascinating to learn about his links to the Bauhaus and the various avant-garde movements of the time.
Back for a late afternoon rest and that evening a pinsa* back at 6zero1, the local pizza joint.
* Pinsa, also known as pinsa romana, is a flatbread generally marketed as an oval-shaped style of, or healthier alternative to, pizza. The name originated partly as a marketing strategy, coined by a Rome-based baking family as late as 2001. [Wikipedia]
Saturday 19-September-2026.
Roma Pineto 19/09/26 32:02 [39/75]
A lovely two lapper through varied scenery with not too many slopes and a view of St Peter’s.
Tourists made up more than half of the attendees with visitors from the Uk, Poland, Czech, Australia and New Zealand.
After a shower we headed off to the main train station for the final leg south to home in Cisternino.
Next stop: The End.
