Happy Birthday Italy June 2 2011

I slept until 7:45 this morning before the birds woke me. It was really nice to get the extra rest. I was in bed at 10:00 P\m last night so almost 9 hours, which for me is lot of sleep,

Today is Italy’s 150 birthday so it is a national holiday. Everything is closed and everyone was pouring into Rome for the celebrations. So when John and I boarded the 9:30 am train into Rome it was packed. Then as we stepped off the train in Rome it was 10:00 AM and the national aerobatic team of 10 jets flew over head. They were pouring the red, white and green smoke across the sky forming the nation flag. It was quite a site.

There was a huge flea market in front of the station so I found a bottle of SPF 50 sunscreen for 3 Euros which was great as it is close to 18 in the stores. I also found a really nice case for my camera for 5 Euros. My old case was for my old camera and it was just a little smaller so this case is just perfect.

We walked though a few parks and went into several national exhibits which had been set up to display Italy’s achievements in everything from agriculture to zoology. They were very well done and although we couldn’t understand very much of the recordings the displays were very interesting. At one point they had the two huge locomotives away up in this park. One modern and one restored steam engine from the late 30’s. It must have been quite a chore getting them way up into the park.

We had transit passes so we decided to take one of the street trolleys out of the main down town and have lunch in a non-tourist zone. So we found a nice quiet place away from downtown and had an few nice Panini.

After lunch John and I headed back to the camp site as we wanted to clean our bikes, do some e-mails, and have a quiet afternoon.

For the statistic hounds. The La Bella Italia tour which is from Palermo to Como is 28 stages and 3000 kms. We have now ridden15 stages and have covered 1688 kms with an elevation gain of 35,849 meters.

Looks like we are going to have an afternoon thunder storm so I have to head for cover. Pictures will not load -- Sorry I will try to add them later.

Terry