279 Via Cavour, Rome

Arrived in Rome at 9pm last night. Fortunately we connected immediately with our black Mercedes hire car and driver, very grand. He met us as we came from arrivals and took us to our 'Downtown Accommodation'. That's a 40 minute journey from the main Rome airport. Travel became heavier as we drew closer to the city centre because of the Good Friday procession from the Colosseum ( (Via Crucis). The journey would have worked for us by train or metro but would've taken us much much longer and not nearly as pleasant. Our host at 'downtown' (Lorenzo) was very helpful - settling us in; pointing us to the metro to get to the 8am tour and organising a 7:15 breakfast. We did a short walk to orient ourselves - even at 10pm the streets are full. We bought metro tickets and some gelato! Very tired - it is 11:30pm friday while it's 7:30am in Sydney and we're yet to sleep properly for Friday night.