The travel log of Vic and Steve

I have been gluten free for over 10 years now and my reactions are more severe and debilitating than ever if I accidentally injest any. Barley continues to be the thing I am most allergic too with couscous and wheat next. So you can imagine my trepidation at the thought of travelling to the land of Pizza and Pasta. Gluten free is awesome in Italy. Their products are beautiful. In NZ we have an increasing range but nothing is close to what is offered in Italy. Pasta with the taste and texture of wheat based pasta. Pizza bases that you would never guess are gluten free. My favourite has been the Senza Glutine cones and gelato stores where everything is gluten free - why does ice cream need wheat anyway? There has been one incident where the waiter told me what I ordered was gluten free then after I started eating came and said "sorry that has bread in it, only a little bit" and walked off - their TripAdvisor review will be harsh, what if I was anaphylactic!

Final day in Roma! And my final day with Don! So sad.  Steve and I walked to meet Don closer to his end of the city today. Google said 34 minutes, Google exaggerated. The undulating ground, uneven stone paths and 3-5 minute wait at every traffic light meant closer to 45 minutes. We enjoyed another lovely basilica before eating breakfast across from the coliseum- pricey but met the requirement.  The queue for the coliseum was already crazy so we headed to the Roman Forum and Palantine Hill. Don remembered he is an EU citizen and under 25 to gain cheap entry - British passport first outing yay.  Really interesting seeing years of history and ruins that are thousands of years old. Loads of people but moving around was ok if we avoided the tour groups. Water stations were fabulous, every city should have free water like Rome does.  Before I forget. This photo is for you Mike. Remember the scaffolding 25 years ago. Looks like they have a continuous scaffold maintenance thing going on now so

Did I mention yesterday how wonderful our hotel is? It is beautiful, so central and yet totally quiet and the bed really comfy so we slept well.  Today we started out meeting Don at the Trevi Fountain, it was a 1km walk for us and 2km walk for him and our itinery was to stay over this side of the city. Sadly he got lost - sorry Don telling the world - and was very late meeting us in this crazy tourist hell of a place.  Try looking for someone when it's packed like this. We were already expecting the Trevi to be surrounded and covered with scaffold so kinda expected less people - seems not.  We were all hot and tired so headed towards the Pantheon stopping for a smoothly at a place we thought very Samantha like, raw food.  Then the first queuing experience of Rome began. Granted the queue moved along. There are signs everywhere saying beware of pick pockets but every fountain had at least 2 Fountain police (my name for them) and every building had more. I became kinda obsessed with

Today was a travel day so felt like it wasn't going to be much fun - but it was! Because of my two wonderful men.  Don decided to come to Rome with us - yay! I get 2 more days with him. So we all had final hotel Augustus breakfast, drove to Rimini and dropped the car back, walked to the station and killed 2 hours before our train. Steve and I opted to take the slow route thinking the opportunity to see Italian countryside would be awesome. Well it was and wasn't. Don was in 1st class from Rimini to Ancona, we experienced the predictable seat debate and settled into a crowded 2nd class 1 hour journey. The coast line was beautiful. I dozed off so lucky steve didn't.  Ancona to Rome stops at every station so is slow. 2nd class is unallocated seating. We got air conditioning but it barely did anything so people had windows open.  Don slept a lot, I dozed.  There were beautiful villages in cliff tops - every single one had a crane - and fields of olive trees or vineyards. There