Day one Italian Holiday

This morning we got up at 4:00AM, had our porridge and Kate drove us to Gatwyk Airport. We caught our Easy Jet flight and came to Rome. We were met at the airport by the shuttle which took us to our hotel. There we crashed for awhile and had a short nap. We are close to the centre of Rome and the traffic outside is busy. The Tour Director took attendance and gave a short talk about the tour, what to do, what not to do etc. Her name is Heidi and she is just a bundle of energy, very upbeat. She has a great sense of humour. After our talk, we went on the bus which took us to a great restaurant where we were served a 5 course meal. It was so delicious! After the meal we went on a short evening tour of Rome and saw the Vatican and some other famous landmarks which dated from the Roman times. There are approx. 40 people on this tour and we were seated at small tables in the restaurant so we could get to know each other a little. Most of the people are from the States with a smattering of people from Canada, the Phillipines, Australia etc. The people all seem very nice and are all around our age or older. We have to have our luggage outside our door at 7:00AM tomorrow and breakfast at that time too. We will see a few things here in Rome in the morning and then in the afternoon we will go to Montecatini in Tuscany. A great beginning to our time in italy!