(by Carol)
Our room at Hotel Roma was stylishly hundreds of years away from the style of our room at Hotel Pendini. Hotel Roma’s furniture was very modern; Hotel Pendini was full of antiques, or at least antique-looking furniture and light fixtures. The bathroom at Hotel Roma was twice as large, including a tub clearly designed for giants. The colors were strikingly different, too: Hotel Pendini was full of warm light and the walls were in various tones of yellow and gold while Hotel Roma was full of bright light and a mixture of aquatic blues, greens and white.
Piazza di Santa Maria Novella
It is located on the Piazza di Santa Maria Novella, a beautiful area that features a couple of small gardens (lawn and flowers) in the center, a statue at one end, with the Museum of Modern Art behind it (across the street), and at the other end—of course—the Basilica Santa Maria Novella. (A basilica is a large oblong hall or building with double colonnades and a semicircular apse, used in ancient Rome as a law court or for public assemblies, later often used as a Christian church.)
Once we had settled into our rooms, we wandered a block or two down away from the plaza to grab some lunch (sandwich shops are all over the city), wander through a card shop, and then landed back at an overpriced restaurant located next door to our hotel, on the plaza. We were both still exhausted, and my feet were still very swollen (though my torn toenail wasn’t hurting so much anymore). But it was warm and sunny and beautiful, so how could we not be happy? And that overpriced restaurant added to our delight with lovely deserts and coffees.
