2004 Europe

Villa Pamphili, Rome



May 26 – We got an early start, 7AM, for the trip back to Rome. It’s a good thing because the traffic around Naples was a mess. We would stand absolutely still for several minutes and then creep along for a little and then stand still again. This went on for about an hour. Nothing big I could see just bad traffic. Otherwise the drive to Rome was very smooth. The Italians have excellent signage for the most part. The only weakness is that they do not label their roads by direction. Instead they use city names to indicate where you should turn. This is fine if you know the interim city names for the route. When I moved to CA in the ‘60s many of the freeway signs were exactly like that so it’s a system I understand. Fortunately, I love maps and usually know the names of all the cities I’m going through.



Rome, however, is a very different animal. The streets are not laid out in a grid but intersect at every possible angle. They change the name of many major streets every few blocks. This caused a big problem when we tried to find the rental agency to return our car. We were in the general area for almost an hour and were on the correct street several times but never in an area where it was called ‘via Cipro’, the street’s name in the area of the agency. I stopped several times to ask directions and the locals would always give me the sad news that it was just over there but there’s no direct way to get there. You have to go by way of Albuquerque apparently. Finally I was convinced that I was in the right area and we asked a man who had just parked his car where via Cipro was and he pointed back to the street we had just crossed. Once again I could not go directly back there and had to snake around several corners to turn onto the street we wanted. It was then that I noticed it was a street we’d been on before but, trusting our director, we continued on until suddenly, viola!!, the name changed to Cipro. I noticed later that it only has that name for two blocks. We got to the agency at 12:40pm, just prior to it closing for siesta. It would not have reopened until 4pm so that made us very happy. This adventure was a little disappointing because I had had such success navigating all over Italy including the trip out of Rome to the Autostrata that it bummed me out a bit to have a problem at the end.



We arrived at the Hotel Villa Pamphili (above) at about 1:30pm and were able to check into our room and have lunch. Lunch was a very nice buffet but I think the 26 Euro per person price was a little steep. That’s almost $33 and it was not nearly at the level of the Hotel del Coronado. Thereafter we ordered ala Carte and had nice lunches for less than 12 Euro.



A few minutes after we arrived in our room, Joe Calwell, the European history professor from Saddleback called to let us know that we were meeting on the patio at 8pm for a group get-together. He and Michel (Me-shell’), our Belgian coach driver, were just leaving for the airport to pick up the rest of the group. They had been traveling since 2pm yesterday. Double yikes!! We lounged around the room a bit and then went down to the patio. There are 32 intrepid explorers in the group and they appear to be quite a mix. The youngest member is a 14 year old girl traveling with her mother and the oldest appears to be pretty close between a man, Jim, from San Diego and a couple from Laguna Woods. They each appear to be 80+.



After meeting everyone it was up to bed as we have an early call tomorrow to try to beat the crowds to St. Peter’s and the Sistine Chapel.

(c) 2004 Rod Longenberger