Rome to Umbertide

  The taxi ride to Rome had the usual harrowing features, although it had automatic transmission.  We got to the Hotel Indigo on via Giulia.  This is the annual free night we get with IHG credit card, with a $49 fee, and this is the last time it's available for all the group's hotels: in the future it will be for Holiday Inns and similar.  Even with our stays just having been 1-2 nights, the desk manager recognized us.

We got our room, and as we were settling in, there was a knock on the door and they brought a bottle of Prosecco and snacks.  There was a card saying "Happy anniversary"; perhaps they had a record of a previous stay on our anniversary.  We had thoughts of eating in our familiar neighborhood, but being tired and repaying the hotel's generosity, we went on to their rooftop bar.

So it looks like the only advantage we had to being in the historic center of Rome was having the rooftop views (and the pictures aren't on my device).  I had two coupons for glasses of wine, and we had trouble completing the meal of caprese, amatriciana di mare, and a veal dish.

At check-in we'd agreed to have the breakfast buffet at a reduced price.  That was nice as we remembered, we had a nice conversation with the waitress about the current state of living in Rome, and there weren't many guests around.  As I remember now, I may have booked this flight date so the free night at this hotel would be available on our arrival.

Time to  check out, and the hotel called a taxi to take us to the Hertz office on via Sardegna.  There was a wait there, and we were sent two blocks to the garage to get the car, a Renault Kadjab.  I needed to figure out the way to do a push-button start with a stick shift, and we were on our way: not too much traffic in Rome, and we got to Umbertide without incident.  It was the last day of the annual 19th-century festival, with food setups right in front of our house.  With our mid-afternoon arrival, they gave us food during that lull, all for free in exchange for taking up space in front of our house.  It got loud at night, but the organizers were nice.