We bought the tickets and used miles for upgrades back when I had Platinum status with Northwest Airlines. Unfortunately, we had to fly through Detroit and Paris to reach Rome, but at least we have business class seats except for the jog between Paris and Rome. Our flight from Chicago left on time, we got boarding passes for our last leg (Paris to Rome), and flew on to Paris.

n Paris, the gate representative offered my an upgrade to business class for the two hour flight to Rome. Unfortunately, the gate rep. in Detroit hadn’t seated Aviva and I together, so the fellow in Paris couldn’t upgrade both of us. I gave the ticket to Aviva and she got to spend the two hours in business class while I sat in coach in a window seat that didn’t recline.

We got to Rome on time, waited a while for our luggage and then found our lift to the city. It was rush hour, so it took about an hour to get to the hotel from the airport. We checked into our room at the Hotel Parlamento at Via della Convertite, 5; not as nice as the last time we stayed here, but its a room. We washed up a bit and then went out to have a quick bite of pizza and gelato a Spizzico, a fast food Italian place next to the hotel.

We walked over to the Trevi Fountain, taking pictures of some of the churches along the way (there seem to be more churches per capita in this part of Rome than anywhere else in the world).

The Trevi Fountain

There are lots of votive displays on street corners – look for them

There were lots of people hawking junk at the fountain – helicopter toys that had LEDs in the wings, hand noise makers, flowers – it was a cacaphonous, billowing crowd of people with little schools moving around the fountain’s periphery.

A church ceiling at night - I love my new camera!

After a while, we came back to our room to sleep.