Touring with Dayle and Mallory

Yesterday I met Dayle and Mallory at Termini, the train station. They had had a long flight from Salt Lake City by way of Detroit, but they were ready to go once they "checked in". Off we went-it was Sunday, so nothing much was open, but a friend had told me about Ristorante Scarpone, which is only .2 of a mile away! It was closing last night at 7:30 for their August holiday, so luckily we got there before then! It is the quintessential Italian restaurant favored by locals, and we were the only Americans there,which I always prefer! Our meals were good standard Italian fare.AND we ate outside under a vine-covered pergola! Afterwards we walked around the Villa Pamphili Park and came back to the apartment. A little more rest, and we took a bus back into the city to find a place for dinner. Now that the bus system is a known entity, it makes the whole city totally workable! The transportation system in Rome is not as user friendly as Paris or London or even Boston! The stops are all very well marked with lists of all the stops at each stop, but no where have I yet found a bus map that clearly details this.
This morning we went on the three hour tour of the Colosseum, Palatine,and the Roman Forum. Our guide Francesca was excellent, and the tour was very informative.
This was one of the times that I was glad I was on a tour, because we were able to get into each place without waiting in line. To see places like this with such an incredible history is more than amazing. We had lunch in the city,and we were all pretty HOT and tired, so we decided to come back home to regroup.
I did a wash; I'm glad to have that done, as the washing machine is different from what we are used to! A rest later, we took bus 44 into Piazza de Venezia to go to the Trevi Fountain and see the sunset on Spanish Steps.(While we waited for the bus-forever-some man with his daughter,son,and dog asked us if we needed help for the bus.It turned out he is from San Francisco; we were still there when they came back-much to our frustration-,and he told us how you can check where a particular bus is on your PDA, so Dayle now cn do this on her IPhone. Both sites were very crowded, but interesting to see. There was no way we could climb the Spanish Steps with all the tourists on them, but I'm glad I saw them! I have no idea what time you'd have to get there to climb the steps! On the way to those two sites, we passed by the Memorial to Vittoria Emmanuele, which I saw the other day. Now you can see how impressive it is! Tomorrow we have an afternoon tour of the Vatican.