An Easy Day?

Just a short post here - mostly in pictures. This was supposed to be a low-key easy day. A quick jaunt up Gianicolo Hill in the AM, naps in the afternoon and the usual playtime at Castel Sant'Angelo before a dinner at home. What transpired was a couple of tired kids, LOTS of crying and whining and a night out for dinner (what better thing to do with to whiny, tired kids?)

The walk up Janiculum Hill (Gionicolo) starts with a picturesque slog up these stairs.
When Nona did it I think she counted 83 stairs. 

Hadden got a head start but here's Clara (doing it herself) and Yvonne carrying her stroller up those same 83 stairs.
I don't think anyone cried on these stairs, which is a highlight.

Hadden doing one of his favorite things in Rome: checking out the plastic toy junk at a newstand (actually this one doesn't even have news - just toys). They usually have lots of gun toys. Great.

Clara trying to fill up a water bottle while a runner patiently waits her turn. What the photo does not capture is the in-the-stream, out-of-the-stream method she's using. It takes longer but I suppose it's more satisfying. The runner did eventually get her sip of water.

About 1/2 way up there is a statue of Anita Garibaldi (wife of Rome defender of 1849,  Guiseppe Garibaldi). The statue depicts her riding a bucking horse side saddle, carrying a newborn baby and shooting a revolver in the air. That's one serious, multi-tasking lady. I think Yvonne admires her.

There was a puppet show at the top - the tour book says "authentic" but I might label it as "cheap." We put three Euros in the offering dish to watch. It was in Italian so we had no idea what the story was about.

Mostly the story involved puppets hitting each other in the back of the head with a big stick. You can kind of see the stick here. Both Hadden and Clara said the puppets weren't being very nice to one another.

Nonetheless, we were into this show for 3 Euros so we stuck it out.

Afterwards, we went to the other side of the Piazzale Guiseppe Garibaldi and dropped some coin in this little combo funhouse (video games, standard carnival fare), merry-go-round place. Kids had been here twice before (once with Nona, once with Leslie). What better name to use for such a facility than "Bimbo Time at Gianicolo". So, we had some "bimbo time." As an aside, I'm SURE the use of Donald Duck's likeness is fully authorized by the Disney Company.

After having one too many, Hadden gets behind the wheel of a motorcycle on the merry-go-round. 

Clara rocks her outfit on an equally tricked-out horsey.

The shoot a cannon from this Piazzale every day at noon to synchronize the church bells around town (I think I mentioned this in a previous post). Does anyone want to see the cannon? Only taker was Steve. Here it is shooting.

Why no other takers? Hadden and Clara are busy under a tree digging up  imaginary dinosaur bones with a couple of sticks. It's quite cute but really dirty. Mommy tried to clean them off with wipes but it was only a partial success. There was much crying when we had to leave. Between this scene and the next we had two aborted naps and much crying and whining about everything. Since I was up "doing work" Yvonne bore the brunt of this. I think they about cracked her.

Happiest picture of the afternoon/evening. We are at Baffetto's (famous pizza joint near Piazza Novana). Just finished three pizzas and, for a moment, nobody is crying. We decided to eat out because Hadden really wanted to. However, later on we found out that what he really wanted to do was play Angry Birds on my iPhone while we waited for our order (as has become the custom over the last week). He got banned from the iPads today so he was sneaky enough to figure this out. So, he's conniving but smart. I suppose I can live with that. Finished off the day with Gelato, much crying, a bath and more crying. 

Now they are sleeping and wonderfully cute again. ;-)

Ciao,

Steve