Waking up to being yet another year older, it might as well be on a(nother) glorious sunny day in Rome. It was the boys’ suggestion that we go to the top of the “wedding cake” monument to Italian unification to get what we’d be assured was the best view of the city.

And so up we went, aggressive pricing be damned! The views were certainly excellent, if somewhat hard to capture on photograph given the extremely bright sunshine.

Then it was down to loop back through the forum and this time head up to the Palatine Hill to check out the remnants of imperial excess (and further super views)

Birthday lunch was in a traditional Roman trattoria, which was only slightly marred by my decision to try their specialty, the trippa alla Romagna. Turns out that it’s extremely offally, and not really that nice. Sometimes the adventurous ordering goes against you…

After a short afternoon break, we strolled out for an aperativo (or two), which came with some excellent snacks.

A grand place to celebrate a birthday.