We could leave our bags in the reception area at our BnB in Rome, so had a good breakfast, finalised the packing then checked out before 10am. I had suggested we walk to the Borghese gardens via a few piazzas and a geocache.

The geocache search took us around a block as the reception was flakey . So we moved on to the Piazza della Republica and then Barberini with their lovely fountains. We walked up the side of the gardens to the side entrance and sat on a park bench with water and Pringles.

There were lots of people having a break in the gardens. We saw lots of bikes, including a variety of tandems. There was music in the air from the buskers and a number of food stalls.

We decided to walk back down through the gardens and exit at the bottom. On the way we went past the Metro exit to the Spanish Steps but decided to stay in the open air. While some parts of the gardens were lovely we also went over fairly bare ground then arrived at what didn't seem to be the bottom.

In the next 10 minutes we were given conflicting information about the way out. The GPS was also sending us in a direction that John felt was wrong. We were getting concerned although we still had heaps of time before we needed to get to the airport . Fortunately 2 young students heard me asking a couple about the exit and offered to escort us as they were on their way out. One person had told us we were near our original entrance, one that we were near the bottom but in the end we exited near the top on the other side at Piazza de Popolo. The positives were that we hadn’t seen this before and there was a Metro – which we decided to take although we had initially intended walking. We even had time for a light lunch before we collected our bags and we were at the station in time to take the train earlier than our originally planned one.

The only hassle was getting on the train. The Leonardo Express is a good service but the doorways are actually better on other services. The train from the port had double opening doors at platform level while the express has a single door with steps. So when there were people in the doorways helping we didn’t even think. The woman had helped with all the bags and then wanted to be paid . John and Irene had gone on ahead and I didn’t have any euros. Raewyn had a few coins but not enough to please our 'helper’. She was showing us 2 euro coins and Raewyn gave her about 40cents.

We talked about it when we sat down as Raewyn was a bit shaken by the woman’s anger. John had seen someone at a previous carriage offering help who appeared to be in a uniform so hadn’t thought any more about it. Also the woman was actually blocking the passage so it was harder for us to do it ourselves. The conductor then came by to check our tickets. Raewyn was holding our combined ticket for the 4 of us and we had seen her validate it so we just sat. We had just been commenting that we had never been checked although Irene had had a scramble to find her ticket when she dropped it on the way back from the port. Raewyn handed over (what she thought was) our ticket – the inspector said ‘Civitavecchia to Roma?’ and we all just looked before it clicked. She had handed over the wrong one. So she looked for the correct ticket – and looked – and looked. We were still not worried until she had been through both bags. The inspector indicated he would do the rest of the carriage and return and then it was three of us looking. It crossed our minds that the woman with the bags might have taken it for spite. Then Irene remembered that Raewyn had folded it into her passport so we needed to look for a smaller shape – and there it was. We waved to the inspector and smiled as he clicked the ticket.

We had made such a good job of using up our Euros that we had had to accept Raewyn’s offer to buy lunch and we also bought euros off her so we could have an icecreams while waiting for the plane. John and I didn’t have tickets so we tried a machine check in – and then had to wait for some time for the bag drop. Irene and Raewyn were in the usual queue and we were able to tell them our seats so they got seats a few rows ahead of us.

Of course, after all this the plane to London was delayed about 25 minutes. They said they had made up time but in fact we were even later by the time we got on the ground and were bussed to the terminal. Our bags were ready quickly and we had an easy run through immigration but it was still after 8pm so we decided to go for a taxi at 55 pounds – although the underground plus a street car would have been much cheaper. We dropped Raewyn off at her BnB and arrived at Margaret and Don’s and were kindly offered a pasta meal, before we made our way to bed.

We did meet an interesting couple on the plane. When I say met I really mean were amused/infuriated by. There was a man in an overcoat, scarf and hat who blocked the aisle very soon after we had sat down. The woman behind him seemed to be travelling with him. He had a wheeled carry on which would not fit into the seat rest in front of him. He then tried to put it in his overhead locker but failed. Another person offered to help but the problem was that it was too big. So he then decided to try the lockers over our heads and ‘moved the cheap rucksacks’ to try to get it in As they were our bags we were not amused, especially as mine contained some breakables and John’s some computer gear. He couldn’t get it to fit anyway so wandered down the back and returned a bit later without it.

When the food arrived (bread rolls) John watched him very slowly open his, inspect it in bits, fully open it, sniff then close it and give it to the woman behind him. Who ate it I think. When we arrived in London, Irene said he put on his overcoat, scarf and hat, took them off then put them on again. In the meantime he was complaining about the service to the stewardess. This was because we had landed a distance from the terminal and were bussed over. Of course, they unloaded the business class passengers first and they would not let people onto the runway until the bus had moved away and the new one arrived. He told her that he now usually went with Ryan Air who gave better service – while he stood there with 2 carry on pieces of luggage!!

On the way back in the bus he spent the whole time complaining to his neighbours about the disgraceful service from the National carrier. The woman who had been with him seemed to have been left behind for the next bus.