
I had something a bit different in mind for today. A few months back I had spotted a photo on a Facebook of a place I know well posted by a friend with a rather cryptic comment. When I asked him about it he pointed me to a website and I was just amazed. I had just discovered the world of Geocaching. Those who know what I am talking about will be nodding knowingly. For those who don't lets just jay that it is a kind of global treasure hunt. Not that I get a lot of time for this sort of thing normally. I decided this might be a bit of a fun diversion while on our trip to Italy.
I searched the site for geocaches in Rome. There are quite a few, more than 900 in fact. By viewing the cage locations on the map I was able to narrow the choices down to the ones within an area I was most interested in spending the day. In actual fact, I had been thinking of going to The Spanish Steps today so that was a good place to start. And yes there is a cache right at the Spanish Steps. Two in fact. The first is a traditional cache, an object concealed somewhere. The second is a kind of task.
So armed with our general directions. We head out. Our first stop is to try and locate where the bus for the airport stops as we will be catching it tomorrow. There is apparently a stop in our area. We walk down to the train station and negotiate the long underground tunnels to reach the other side of the tracks then past an enormous long domed structure called Eataly. We'll come back to that. Around a corner, through a car park. By this stage we feel as though we have been walking for miles and haven't seen a bus stop so we make the decision that tomorrow we will simply take the metro to Termini where at least we know where the bus stop is.
By now we are hot and tired and as we turn to return to the metro station we take another look at Eataly. We have already had two experiences of Eataly. The first was the food on the fast train from Naples to Florence. It was horrible! Cold, packaged and expensive. The second was on our arrival at the Rome apartment on the first day when our host, Flami suggested Eataly as a place to eat. She had been vague with directions and we never did find it but after the train experience no-one was very keen in any case. It turned out that we had made it to the back of the building and had we simply turned a corner we would have been there.
So today we entered. Firstly, it was becoming a bit of routine, to take refuge from the heat in the air conditioned comfort within. But secondly, for me at least, out of curiosity. Wow, what a find. We had entered Foodie Heaven. Four floors of gourmet food and related products, everything from cookbooks to dinnerware, as well as two restaurants. Each floor has it's specialty. In one section the produce on sale is all manner of fresh pasta. In this section is also a pasta bar where every item on the menu is pasta related. In another section are all the different bread products and a place to buy freshly made panini with a wondrous assortment of fillings. There was a prosciutto and salami section, a fresh seafood section, a green produce section and of course wine. We had coffee and cool drinks in the downstairs cafeteria surrounded by an assortment of delectable sweet treats and coffee paraphernalia before continuing on our way to the Spanish Steps.
I searched the site for geocaches in Rome. There are quite a few, more than 900 in fact. By viewing the cage locations on the map I was able to narrow the choices down to the ones within an area I was most interested in spending the day. In actual fact, I had been thinking of going to The Spanish Steps today so that was a good place to start. And yes there is a cache right at the Spanish Steps. Two in fact. The first is a traditional cache, an object concealed somewhere. The second is a kind of task.
So armed with our general directions. We head out. Our first stop is to try and locate where the bus for the airport stops as we will be catching it tomorrow. There is apparently a stop in our area. We walk down to the train station and negotiate the long underground tunnels to reach the other side of the tracks then past an enormous long domed structure called Eataly. We'll come back to that. Around a corner, through a car park. By this stage we feel as though we have been walking for miles and haven't seen a bus stop so we make the decision that tomorrow we will simply take the metro to Termini where at least we know where the bus stop is.
By now we are hot and tired and as we turn to return to the metro station we take another look at Eataly. We have already had two experiences of Eataly. The first was the food on the fast train from Naples to Florence. It was horrible! Cold, packaged and expensive. The second was on our arrival at the Rome apartment on the first day when our host, Flami suggested Eataly as a place to eat. She had been vague with directions and we never did find it but after the train experience no-one was very keen in any case. It turned out that we had made it to the back of the building and had we simply turned a corner we would have been there.
So today we entered. Firstly, it was becoming a bit of routine, to take refuge from the heat in the air conditioned comfort within. But secondly, for me at least, out of curiosity. Wow, what a find. We had entered Foodie Heaven. Four floors of gourmet food and related products, everything from cookbooks to dinnerware, as well as two restaurants. Each floor has it's specialty. In one section the produce on sale is all manner of fresh pasta. In this section is also a pasta bar where every item on the menu is pasta related. In another section are all the different bread products and a place to buy freshly made panini with a wondrous assortment of fillings. There was a prosciutto and salami section, a fresh seafood section, a green produce section and of course wine. We had coffee and cool drinks in the downstairs cafeteria surrounded by an assortment of delectable sweet treats and coffee paraphernalia before continuing on our way to the Spanish Steps.