Diana and Duncan come to stay

Diana and Duncan are friends from Oxford, who have spent the last 5 weeks or so riding Dunc’s motorbike from England to Italy, via Holland, Germany, Hungary, the Czech republic, Hungary, a shedload of other former communist states, Turkey, Greece and here. Next weekend they’ll be in Sardinia so Duncan can be best man at his mate’s wedding, but for now, they’re all mine!

I’m not sure who was more pleased to see the other. My joy at the prospect of sharing all this newness with familiar faces, was very nearly eclipsed by D&D’s delight at having several days in a place that feels like a proper home (albeit a very gaudily kitted out one!). Needless to say, there were beers, wine, more antipasto, more watermelon for breakfast (Duncan reckoned that even if you could get it to taste this good in England, you still couldn’t have watermelon for brekky in the UK – the weather just isn’t right).

Sunday we went for a long wander through the ‘central storico’ (historic centre), from Piazza Venezia and the Trevi fountain past the Spanish steps, the tomb of Augustus and the Piazza Navona. Duncan, who’s a history major, was as overawed as I am with the Pantheon… although he also enjoyed meeting the local fauna :-) And it was sweltering hot, so we had to adapt to our surroundings – there were dozens of people paddling in this fountain. And, of course, there’s always gelati!
Back to work for me today, but they’ve got Roma Passes and things they want to go see. It’s just SO lovely to have people to share this place with, and these crazy first weeks, where it’s all so new.

I can’t wait for Ants to arrive.