Italy

 I have just returned from a week in Italy where I spent most of the time in Urbino, pictured here. My friend Paola told me it is impossible to get lost in Urbino, you have only two choices to go in - up or down. She is right. This is the centre of Urbino and from here there are four roads in a cross, all of them go up. Urbino is up the mountains of Italy, and for most of the time it was cold and/or raining. So it was a complete contrast when we got to Rome on Friday.

 We arrived in the centre, having dropped our bags at the hotel, at around 12.30 and spent the rest of the day walking to see as much as we could in the short time we had. We squeezed in pizza and beer on the Spanish Steps,

 ice cream at the Trevi Fountain, a visit to the Parthenon, a walk around Piazza Novona where all the artists are busy at work (the Roman equivalent of Sacre Coeur), and a trip to the Vatican. After that our feet hurt so we returned to the hotel for our evening meal.

On Saturday we went to the Colosseum, the Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum. I didn't think there would be as much of that as there was, we spent hours walking around the Roman Forum, it went on forever. I liked Rome, I didn't think it would impress me as much as London or Paris but it really did.