Roma e bella

When you're landing in Rome, it's not like landing anywhere else. 

First a little perspective. Flying out of (or into, for that matter) Detroit Metro Airport is, sorry to say, depressing during the winter. The landscape is flat and industrial. It's monochromatic gray (in a bad way) and if the day is overcast or raining, downright sad. 

When you land in Rome, you wonder for a moment, where is the airport? The gently undulating terrain is pastoral, with sienna hued homes scattered about. Plots of landed are divided by Cyprus borders and before you know it, your aircraft is in taxi mode. Almost to your gate you see these farms and houses. And even in March the landscape is green. Beautiful. 

I landed, bolted from the airport and  quickly retrieved my (or rather Lisa's requested items from Michigan) luggage and there was Lisa waiting for me with her found Italian Volpino dog, Trevor. We packed into her red Honda Civic (a boat of a car in Rome) and left DaVinci airport.

We got home to unpack and walked to lunch by her apartment near the Catacombe San Callisto (the catacombs that are a tourist site here in Rome). The ancient burial grounds (16 martyrs - count them - buried there) were in use mostly in the second-century. Just beyond the catacombs is the Via Appia (the Appian Way), built in 312 BC. It was the main drag between Roma and Greece. It is here that Saint Peter ran into Jesus while escaping crucifixion. Peter asks Jesus the famous question, "quo vadis?" (where are you going?), and Jesus replies to Rome to be crucified again. You know the rest. 

We came home, I took a nap and now we're off to ... who knows where. When it's not tourist season in Italy, the country is mostly closed on Mondays.