The girls headed off bright & early for their day trip to Tuscany including Montepulciano, Montalcini & Pienze as Sandra & I had decided to do the Colosseum tour with a bit of a roam around Rome.

Sandra & I caught the metro to the Pantheon then walked to Palazzo Madama & Piazza Navora where we enjoyed another version of café latte ......after wandering a bit we decided to live like the locals & catch a bus to the Colosseum. Thanks to the 'generosity' & amusement of the local newsagent stand we bought our tickets & worked out what bus to catch. (She put the numbers into her calculator for us to read!!!)

Along the way we were counting the stop to make sure we alighted at the correct place. However we saw an amazing looking building & in our excited decided to get off without giving any thought to how much further away the Colosseum was........we walked around Piazza Campidogillo another church & old monastery (we think).

It was from there we spotted what we thought was the Colosseum so off we set only to realise it was a smaller round look alike, the real Colosseum was in the opposite direction.......

Our meeting time for tour was fast approaching & we were not 100% if we were heading the right way. But as has been the cases so far, we made it with enough time to grab a panini & coffee.

The Colosseum tour was fantastic, very interesting & very hot!!!! Our guide was very informative & knowledgeable the history & stories were fascinating.

Very glad paid the extra to do the lower levels tour, we were able to see the ‘works in progress’ going on underground as well as seeing a lot that the standard tours do not cover.

We walked through Palatino & up the hill through the Roman Forum.

After lots & lots of walking it time for a prosecco.....as usual. Caught the Metro back Roma termini then walked back towards the hotel but stopped along the way at another trattoria for more pasta & prosecco.

Was time to repack (again) & have an early night as Sandra & I had a very early start, the Vatican