from roman royalty to tennis royalty

Day three we finally got the scorching weather I'd been expecting from Rome. Rach wasn't feeling well so Michael and I took Jake to the Roman Forum and wow, was that ever impressive! The shells and pieces of buildings thousands of years old were really amazing to see. We wandered around for an hour or two, reading the plaques and listening to tour guides to get an understanding of what we were looking at. It was basically a public square where town meetings, elections, and other public business was attended to.

It's also the site where Julius Caesar's remains are buried, Romans still leave flowers on his grave - I found that area a bit creepy.

I also went and had a look around a museum at the top of Capitoline Hill which displayed sculptures, monuments and paintings that date back to BC - most of them in honour of various Emporers, particularly Caesar and Augustine.

From Roman royalty to tennis royalty, it was time for me to head to the tennis arena to cheer on Rafa against Tomas Berdych. I got there plenty early (hard for most of you to believe I'm sure) and managed to catch most of the woman's semi final which featured an Italian woman, Sara Errani and the hometown support the crowd showed was unreal. She managed to push it to a third set against Azarenka and I'm sure it was the intense support from the crowd which got her that far.

But onto the main event, and it did not disappoint!

Rafa, who would win the tournament the next day was in superb form and if I'd thought the previous night's match went too quickly, this one was even faster - he dismissed Berdych in straight sets in only 1 hour 17 minutes.

Being a crowd favourite in Rome, he stuck around after the match for a long time doing interviews, hitting balls into the crowd and signing autographs, what a man! It was awesome to see him play live and I was kicking myself a little bit for not getting finals tickets when we originally booked, but I think a Nadal vs Federer final would have seemed to good to be true all those months ago.

To finish off the evening, Michael arrived just in time for Federer's match as his bus had broken down and we watched Federer also dismiss Benoit Paire in straight sets, setting up an epic final for the next day.