Hello all,

First, apologies for the badly formed web address that I emailed out twice yesterday. The correct address is: https://jimslaughter.net/travel/

When we last posted we were in London getting ready to take off for Rome. It's now Thursday February 29, and we are ensconced at our Rome lodgings at Le Quattro Dame. The location is really great, right in the heart of Rome and within easy walking distance of many tourist sights. Here's a photo of what we see on our balcony looking over Corso Vittorio Emanuele:

The flight to Rome was quite easy and uneventful. The flight was booked on British Airways, but when we got on to the plane we noticed that the plane and flight crew were Finnish. We theorize that they're probably isn't very much tourism going on in Finland this time of year so they sent the flight crews and planes south to accommodate some of the tourist traffic that is occurring in Southern Europe.

We arrived in Rome at about 5:30 p.m. Cath had arranged in advance for a driver to bring us into the city. We found our driver pretty easily at the baggage claim and the trip into town took about 40 minutes or so in moderate traffic.

On arriving at the address given for our hotel, Le Quattro Dame, it was not immediately apparent that there was a hotel at the address. No hotel lobby or bellman standing out front. It really looked like an apartment building, which it is. Our driver looked at the addresses on the mailboxes outside the lobby of the building and confirmed that on the second floor (3rd by American counting; in Italy the ground floor is zero) the occupant was shown as Le Quattre Dame. So we schlepped our pretty heavy baggage up half a flight of stairs to a very antique elevator which barely accommodated us and the baggage.

Arriving on the second floor there was a door that looked like an apartment from the 1930s.

We knocked on the door and a woman answered. She was accompanied by two of the largest Dachshunds I've ever seen. They immediately started sniffing our bags like a pair of DEA-trained German Shepherds. I think they identified the smell of cookies emanating from my shoulder bag. Soon one of them was chewing on the zipper of my bag. So I put a stop to that. (Our dog trainer Theresa would have been proud of me.) The Dachshunds seemed surprised at my intervention but withdrew obediently. It occurred to me that these two have probably been regularly plundering guests' luggage for years, thus accounting for their unusually large size.

The woman (Dory) showed us to our room which is really nice. Really big with 15 foot ceilings, parquet wood floors, and a nice balcony facing the street. There is a big bath with a great shower. Big comfy bed with nice linens. So, although I was a bit worried upon first arriving, we couldn't be happier with our accommodations.

After getting settled into our room and getting ourselves buffed up a bit, we decided to find a neighborhood restaurant for dinner. The problem was so many to choose from. There are probably 15 highly recommended small restaurants within a 10 minute walk from our lodgings. We settled on one that is literally around the corner from our inn: Enoteca Corso (Via de Jesu 88). Very tiny little spot, probably originally a wine store, with bottles of wine lining just about every wall.

We started with fresh Mozzarella cheese and tomatoes, then on to pasta. Cath had linguine with shrimp and clams, and I had bucattini amatricciata (pasta with tomato sauce, onion and guanciale (cured pork similar to bacon)). Both were really delicious. We got some sauteed chicory greens on the side (contorni) which slightly bitter and very delicious. Cath had a glass of Sicilian white wine made from grapes grown on Mt. Etna, which she really liked. Foreshadowing of a future destination on our trip.

After dinner we were planning to take a walk to a nearby gelateria (ice cream store) but when we emerged from the restaurant it was lightly raining and we decided to forgo the walk and gelato, thus immediately breaking our agreed rule of having gelato every day we are in Rome.

This is getting kind of long, so I think I will stop for now and pick up later to tell you about our day in Villa d'Este outside of Rome. Ciao!