Well the summer travels didn’t get off to the best start this year. With 12 flights planned over 49 days I knew there was probably gonna be some delays and changes but for the first flight to be cancelled on the day of departure?!!? Thanks China southern!

After a slightly panicked phone call and a couple of ridiculous suggestions (fly in 4 days?, no?!… ok fly in 2 hours… also no) husband managed to get us rebooked on a direct flight to Rome the next day. Thankfully there was no issues with the rebooking and we safely made it Rome all be it 12 hours later than planned.

As we entered our monastery accommodation directly from a street still celebrating Pride, Rome’s dynamic nature was instantly apparent. The contrast of atmospheres was palatable, but both comforting in their own way. The vibrancy and energy on the street gave us all the boost to find food and excitement of being in Rome, followed by the peace and calm of our accommodation was exactly what we needed after a long travel day.

Despite the jet lag we all managed to sleep in till 5:30 the next morning and the monastery calming magic even managed to keep my 3 loud boys quiet ish till breakfast at 7.

Rested and fed (after many croissants covered in Nutella) we headed out to explore the city of Rome.

We basically spent the entire day lost and accidentally stumbling on pretty much all the main attractions. Hearing the boys acclamations and seeing their astonished faces as we found gem after gem made it a truly enjoyable first day.

The boys were so taken with Rome’s architecture that both Middle man and boy blue managed to fill up their phone memories with photos within the first hour. Can’t blame them really when we found the Colosseum, forum, castle, mr beans car, Vatican, Spanish steps, trevi fountain, pantheon and so many plazas and fountains.

Getting lost a lot however meant that we did walk over 30,000 steps and by late afternoon had three flagging boys and 2 parents very ready for a sit down. We had been promising the boys all day we would get gelato, constantly passing tempting shops but now we were all ready for a rest and sit could we find a gellato shop? Eventually we found one but the prices at 20euros each quickly put us off so we pushed on and luckily found another one not much further on at a much more reasonable 4 euros each… and added bonus a beer for the husband and a very tasty iced coffee for me! The perfect end to our long walk.

Tomorrow we will enter a few sites!