Day 14 - Driving from Tuscany to Rome

We ate our last breakfast at Art B & B and said goodbye to Elisa.   She
has gone above and beyond for us this entire week.  In fact, since we
still hadn't found a Mail Boxes, Etc. (postal and UPS won't mail
alcohol) to mail Kent's wine, she has arranged to have it picked up by
them on Monday morning.  She gave us a bottle of her favorite red wine
for our birthdays to take along to Rome.  It was from her friend's
winery.

It rained the entire 3 1/2- hour drive to Rome.  Unbelievably, the rain
stopped when we arrived.  We safely turned our rental car back in to
Hertz at the airport on the outskirts of Rome.  Using mostly charades,
we had a taxi pick us up right at Hertz and take us to "Sweet Dreams 2"
B & B in downtown Rome.

Our B & B is actually a second-story apartment on Via Nazionale, a busy
street between the Colosseum and Trevi Fountain.  The Victor Emmanuele
monument (also called the "wedding cake" because it's big, white, and
decorative) is very close to where we are staying.

We wandered out to see some sights before having dinner.  Luckily for
us, we happenstanced upon Lux in Arcana at the Capitoline Museum.  We
had tried to buy tickets online, but were denied since it is a special
week in all of Italy where many museums were either free or having
reduced prices.   We arrived two minutes before the ticket office
closed and found absolutely no line... a miracle in and of itself!   We
were given an hour to view the display.

We had heard about this event a few months ago.  The letters and
documents we saw were from the Vatican's Secret Archives and have just
been released to the public for the first time.  The papers included
letters to the Pope from Abraham Lincoln,  Confederate President
Jefferson Davis, Mary Queen of Scots (a.k.a. Bloody Mary), and Marie
Antoinette.  

We viewed a letter sent to the Vatican asking that the pope would annul
the marriage between King Henry VIII and his first wife.  He wanted to
marry his wife's helper, Anne Boleyn, instead.  The letter had been
signed and/or wax sealed by nearly 80 political figures.

It was also interesting to see a document that Galileo signed saying he
took back his theory that the earth was round and that the planets
revolved around the sun.  The Catholic Church would excommunicate him
if he didn't recant.  Later his theories would prove to be correct.

The Edict of Worms was on display, famous during the time of Martin
Luther's Reformation.  There was also papers on the Knights of Templar
and a document signed by  Napoleon Bonaparte.  We decided he had the
"little man" or "chihuahua syndrome" since his wax seal was almost four
times bigger than anyone else's on display!

We left the museum and stopped to look at the lit ruins of the Roman
Forum and Colosseum  on the way to dinner.  We ate at Enotecca Cavour
313, the only poor Rick Steve's recommendation our whole trip.  The
service was horrible;  we asked for our check four or five times...
 and that's just one example of how we were treated.  Thank the Lord we
had chosen a delicious wine, or we would have had to cause a scene
(like that would ever happen having been raised on "Minnesota nice"
etiquette)!

Now that we're in Rome, we're looking forward to doing what the Romans
do!