Nodge's Travels

Thursday 26th September - La Giustiniana to Vatican Having "cheated" yesterday, we didn't have a second thought about avoiding the first 7km of what looked like pretty unpleasant walking today. Of those having breakfast at the same time as us, it looked like only the Kiwi women were going to do the whole thing. Others were either using the train or getting a taxi to knock the first few kilometres. Who can blame them/us. we were all long enough in the tooth to know that walking along busy roads and through faceless suburbs is frankly, rubbish and only for the very masochistic. Knowing that our paths were unlikely to cross in tourist filled Rome we said our goodbyes to all those we'd met along the way. We scuttled the mile down to La Giustiniana station and were on the 9.15 train heading for Monte Mario. From there, we expected to get across to the Reserva  Naturale di Monte Mario within half an hour. This is a big parkland area on Monte Mario, a few kilometres to the n...

Wednesday 25th September - Campagnano di Roma to La Giustiniana After 3 nights of very homely B & B's, we didn't linger long over the mediocre breakfast fayre on offer at Hotel Benigni. Our primary focus was seeing if we could get some bus tickets for the 08.30 service to Formello, 7km down the road. With the help of Google Translate, we were sorted in no time, and at around 8.45 we boarded the bus. We were underway for our penultimate day. As usual, the weather forecast proved to be inaccurate, and there was no sign of the predicted rain. With consciences pricking severely (for about 10 seconds) we headed for Formello, along with our Woldemar and Barbara, the Germans who'd put us onto this scandalous shortcut!   Bloody cheats Twenty minutes later we disembarked into sunny Formello, and set our directional App running. The Gerrie's were keen to push on so I pointed them in the right direction. Bizarrely they went the opposite way, chatted to a local by the gateway t...