O solo mio

Although it seems like barely a minute has passed since our wonderful family trip, I’m now off again on a two week overseas jaunt. Week two is the main event - a residential leadership course at Oxford, but given the distance and the travel time, it seemed foolish not to add a week of personal leisure to the schedule. I’ve chosen to go back to Florence, via Rome, to spend some time exploring in a more leisurely fashion than was possible in our wonderful but chaotic group of nine in July. 

Flynn dropped me at the train station early in the morning. I was near to tears as he drove off, already mourning the loss of the laughter, camaraderie and shared experiences of our last trip. Still- I’m looking forward to choosing my own activities and the opportunity for quiet wandering as the mood takes me. 

Even for an early riser, getting to the airport by 4am for a 6am flight is challenging. I managed to put my shirt on inside out and then back to front (third time’s the charm), but both road and human traffic is low at that time of day so I soon was ensconced in the Emirates Lounge. After two undrinkable attempts at coffee from a nasty automated machine, I decided to abandon caffeination, which proved to be helpful in promoting a number of naps during the 24 hour transit. A series of schmaltzy Hallmark Christmas movies may have helped the dozy vibe. 

Good food, great service, a delicious burger at the Emirates first lounge, and in no time at all I was in Rome at my hotel. I’m staying at a lovely Sofitel up on the hill near the Park Borghese. They’ve kindly given me a suite, complete with a balcony that opens onto a narrow cobblestone street. I have full intentions of drinking my coffee out there tomorrow morning. It was already 8.30 at night after I was showered and feeling human again, so I opted for dinner in the hotel restaurant. Bread, olive oil and a glass of Rosé were a good start but I took one bite of my pasta and KNEW I was in Italy. It was a zucchini flower pasta, topped with the standard little fried zucchini flower, but after that, anything standard stopped. Fresh spaghetti, toasted almond slivers, tiny crispy paper thin slices of Zucchini (air fried perhaps?) and a very mild creamy red pesto. Next level amazing. 

I agonised over the title for this post. The correct spelling was “sole”, translated as my own sunshine. It works- I will be finding my own sunshine, but I just couldn’t resist the “solo” bit. Apologies to any opera purists.