We decided to take a tour to see the Vatican. There was a huge line to get in so we were glad to have a skip the line tour but, still, it was just packed with people. Even with a tour, we had to fight our way through crowds. We did a lot of standing and walking and were just exhausted at the end.

The entry to the museum.

A look from the back.

One of the ceilings. The floors were fabulous too, in fact some of the marble on the floors were made from material taken from the Colosseum and other monuments and are so rare they can no longer be found in nature.

A room of maps done the old fashioned way, going in person and walking, no views from up above with a drone or airplane.

One lady in the tour had this little Pope doll and took photos of it in front of everything.

Inside the cathedral, the Pieta by Michelangelo. It’s now behind a protective screen after a nut climbed up and started hitting it with a hammer in 1972. I saw it years ago before this happened.Michelangelo sculpted this when he was 24! We saw the Sistine Chapel too, by the way, but no photos were allowed.

Look at this crowd.

Great dome inside the cathedral.

One of the Swiss guards, a long tradition.

As I said before, we went to Rome to see some tennis. We both used to play some but never do now. We just like to watch it. The grounds are really nice where the Rome Tennis Open is held.

Mussolini had the grounds built, a sort of sports centre in the Fascist Architecture style. It is no longer called by his name.

There were lots of statues around looking Roman and athletic.

Some of the courts had Roman statues around them.

Some had those wonderful parasol pines. I moved into the shade of them often when the sun got too much for me.

A look at the action.

We saw Gasquet play, a French player. He is a beautiful player with a fantastic backhand, the follow through which you can see here. He easily won this game and then crashed and burned in the next one.

Maurice and I love watching tennis and have traveled to see many tournaments. One of the tournaments that we see on TV every year is in Rome, the Rome Open, and it looks like such a beautiful setting that we decided to make the short trip (from Paris) to Rome to see some of it. I had been in Rome many years ago. I was by myself with two of my children driving all over with no GPS, just a guide book, finding hotels by driving around a city with my kids being my copilot. I don’t remember much of Rome for some reason-just a big rain storm and getting lost on a bus going in the wrong direction and some of the monuments. We met with my ex later in Venice. Anyway,this time it felt like our first time there. We got lost constantly, especially when trying to find our hotel. I learned to use the GPS function on my cell phone which gives you a map of where you are and at the end of the five days, we had our section of Rome pretty much figured out. Our hotel was in the part of Rome which is near Piazza Navona, central to most of what we wanted to see.

Castle San Angelo. We never made it there, just saw it from a distance.

As in all old city centers, there are many alleys and courtyards.

Beautiful painted buildings.

Those lovely Italian colored buildings.

God didn’t help this nun find her way either. I hope her map did.

We took one of those Hop On, Hop Off buses around Rome to see the major sites. This is, of course, the Coloseum. We had both visited this before so this was the closest we got.

More modern architecture.

Many corners, high above, had religious symbols and paintings.

I’m back in Paris with the usual jet lag and a sore throat to boot. It’s so beautiful today in Paris that I’d love to get out but I will probably have an emergency nap instead. Here are a few photos taken in the States while visiting.

The bluebonnets were in bloom in Texas so I went out into the countryside to have a look.

A nice lady there said, “Are you alone? Let me take a photo of you with the bluebonnets.”

Then, as I struggled to my feet she took about ten more.

I saw some beautiful cactus flowers in Arizona while visiting my Mom.

And I took a ton of photos of family. This is one of my grandsons, Micah, who dressed for charcoal fire. Made me laugh.

Another birthday. Gosh, they come fast. Anyway, when Maurice asked me what I wanted to do I picked lunch at the Grand Vefour, a Michelin stared restaurant that has been around since 1784 and where such people as Napoleon and Josephine and Colette dined. I have passed it many times when visited the Palais Royal grounds looking in at the ornate ceiling or drooling at the menu in the window. Another thing happened that made me want to eat there: the chef, Guy Martin, liked one of my photos (one taken near the restaurant) on Instagram. It was like a sign.

The entrance.

Isn’t that a great ceiling?

How a spoon was placed on the table. I liked the decorative back.

The spoon was for this very good soup, a sort of squash called potiron. It had a ginger under taste.

Really tasty duck.

About fifty cheeses to choose from.

I had my chocolate dessert served on a silver platter with a bouquet of flowers and a candle. Rather classy.

A view of the restaurant from up above. Such fabulous ambiance.

A nice place to have a birthday lunch.

Utrecht (Netherlands) has a really interesting food scene and we did some eating and drinking there.

My son took us down this tunnel to the canal to a place called Humphrey’s.

It used to be a storage facility for unloading boats from the canal. This place was huge and the rooms went on and on. They were all painted red full of red glass chandeliers.

This room had a little movie going on the wall.

Another room.

Here was another place we passed that evening.

We ended up at this bar which doesn’t look that unordinary but inside:

you find that it was once a church.

I took this photo from up above where the organ was.