Remembering Rome...

We have been back a few days and it has been hard to find time to absorb how wonderful the trip was. My sister is a fantastic person anyway, but was so lovely with the girls. It was good see their relationship with their aunt grow. I thought I would put some pictures up and add comments rather than write in detail.

She is doing a drawing residency at The British School at Rome. Mentioned here before.

She has a studio/room with brilliant lighting and here are the girls in it, on the computer and reading.

We ate a meal with the artists and academics after touring the school. Silver service, a little formal and with a tiny hint of Hogwarts! A challenge was made between Barbie, another Australian artist, and Antonio, staff member, to a game of table-tennis in the common room after dinner. Em played with Barbie to warm her up, but Antonio won, and then played and beat Em! It was a lot of fun.

Apart from siblings, Rome has many old and ancient buildings. The girls and I went to the Colosseum.

We visited the Forum, Pantheon, the Vatican City and saw the Sistine Chapel. We also went to markets, one selling cashmere, leather, vintage clothes and tat....everyone bought something there. Another was a pretty cool flea market with old Jimmy Choo bags, other designer gear, nic naks, clothes and jewellry. The shopping is lovely because everything is not the same as the high street here...and it is nice not to be one of the mob.

The food was fabulous. It was artichoke season

We ate paninis,

pizza

guinea fowl, pork, steaks, antipasti and pasta and of course

gelato

The coffee was superb and pretty too at times!

The other things we loved were the trees and these will be on the next post.