Rome Day 3, mangled feet

While my feet bounced back from the Vatican carnage yesterday, Cathy's did not. She has four blisters on her feet which has made any kind of sustained walking...challenging. We tried to take it a bit easier today, but still, you can't exactly see Rome and not do some walking.

The morning saw us do the Colosseum. First of all, God bless Let's Go, which gave this useful tip - don't buy tickets for the Colosseum at the actual building because the lines are retarded. Instead, go down to the Paltino, buy a pass there to see that and the Colosseum. It costs about the same and you don't have to spend 30 minutes lined up to get in. Works for us.

The building is as spectacular as its reputation. And it is fortunately large enough that the huge crowds aren't too overwelming.

After that we decided to do a hop on/hop off bus tour of Rome. It gave Cathy's feet a rest and gave us an idea of some places we'll want to hit tomorrow (the pass is good for 48 hours). We were hoping to do more today, but Cathy's feet gave up the ghost around 4 pm, so we've been taking it easy, trying to get them the heal up a bit.

A few other random points.

1. There are a lot of Mini's and Smart Cars kicking around Rome. Which is nice. I've been checking them out to see what colour I eventually will get. Cathy's impressed with the Smart Car's parking ability, given the ridiculous parking situation in the city.
2. Had lunch at a nice, out of the way cafe. Cathy had fettucine alfredo with sausage. I had raveoli with spinich, ricotti cheese and enough butter to drain a cow. It was very good. We sat and ate while Romans ate their lunch, drank capuccino, smoked and yelled a lot. It was good.
3. Give the junk hawkers some props. There are lots of them by the Colosseum during the day, seeling fake aritfacts, statues of Jesus and crappy jewelery. I went there this evening to get some night shots of the building. The day crowd was gone. In it's place were people selling little cubes that light up with images of the Colosseum and tripods, just in case the massive numbers of photographers need one.
4. Was looking at an impromtu monument to workers who have died in Italy at the Colosseum when I started chatting to this Irish couple who had gotten married in Rome on Monday. Nice people - Martin and Annette. Annette also managed to get blessed by the pope, since he does that for new brides on Mondays. Who knew? You're apparently not supposed to photograph it, but Martin was happily showing off the pics on his camera phone, include one of the tomb of John Paul. Weirdness, but you got to love it.
5. By the way, the whole clean shaven thing is a hiddeous failed experiment that I've ended. Shaved the first day of vacation, scarred my wife and scared one of my best friends. So that's that. The goatee is growing back as we speak.

Last day in Rome tomorrow, then off to Florence on Friday.