The Eternal City - For a Week

We arrived in Rome, the ninth week of our incredible journey that began in January at The National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. It has been an amazing, fantastic, wonderful time.

This is a magnificent, powerful place, a massive contrast to the quiet of Venice and it's regular, secure rhythms and wild evenings of Venice, or the text-book art, stunning scenes and sun-drenched moments of grassy peace in Florence. Rome is Living History, if it's not the power of The Imperial Forum, the stunning art of Caravaggio or Raphael, Baroque splendour, cobbled streets, noise, clamour and flavour; the perfect climax to those nine weeks!

We ended in Tivoli, as we have done for decades, with prosecco and raised glasses to 'Beauty' and the timelessness of friendship and all things that contribute to a better world. Gregory Dowling took us through John Keats' last days by The Spanish Steps, we walked through The Borghese Park, pausing to honour the great anti-hero of La Dolce Vita, Marcello Mostriano, and of course, the unforgettable private visit to The Vatican Collections that culminated at The Sistine Chapel.

It seemed fitting, as we stood with that glass of prosecco, by the 1st BC temple of Vesta, to recite the final stanza of John Keats' 'Ode to a Grecian Urn', Keats, who has kept us company throughout our times in Italy tells us that whatever we have seen, heard and learned, it's the ability to appreciate beauty that outlasts everything...

When Old Age Shall this Generation Waste

Thou shalt remain, in other woe than ours,

A friend to Man,

To Whom Thou Say'st

Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty - that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know

and we finished, as we'd begun, drunk on camaraderie, beauty...and Lazio wine