Buon Compleanno, Jim!

Today (Wednesday) is Jim's birthday. Usually Jim claims the whole week but has agreed to economize this year and limit official celebrations to a single day.

In order to make this, then, a day to remember, we start off with caffe latte and cornetti in the Piazza Farnese. We sit outside looking on to the Farnese Palace surrounded by other travellers taking a leisurely breakfast. Inside, crammed at the bar are the local Italians having their coffee and pastries on the go.

A little lane connects the Piazza Farnese to the Campo dei Fiori square and the market is in full swing by 9am. Predominantly the market sells fresh produce, including the most delectable peaches, nectarines and berries. Peaches are 1 euro 50 per kilo - just a little over $2 - and they are perfumed and delicious. We've bought them every day so far and they are addictive. Also in season are fresh porcini mushrooms. I'm thinking of my foodie partner-in-crime, Roz, as we walk past a stall with these mushrooms piled high. I think we could do a great risotto with these, or maybe a frittata? Definitely on the shopping list before we leave Rome. At home, we can buy dried porcini, and they do add some oomph to italian dishes but I suspect, like most fresh produce, the taste is much better.

A quick stop at our apartment to drop off the shopping. We have 74 very steep marble steps up to our third-floor flat (74 stairs = 1 gelato) and I remember at the end of my stay last year my quadriceps were like iron. Today we're still trying not to gasp as we reach our front door.

We need to get to Rome's termini today to buy our tickets to Chiusi, the etruscan town in Tuscany where we'll pick up our hire car on Saturday. After lunch at an outdoor trattoria halfway down the hill and bit of shopping on the way (separate gloat entry to follow) we head back home for a late siesta. As we pay for lunch we get asked the inevitable "Where are you from" question ('You're from Perth? I have a cousin/uncle/aunt/brother in Perth!') we find that our waiter actually does have a grandfather who lives in the Dandenongs. He can't believe, like many italians, that we are crazy enough to spend 20 hours in the air to get to Italy.

We get back just before the storm begins. It's been sultry weather all day, and a low rumble and sheet lightning begins just minutes after we reach the flat. The downpour is spectacular, and sitting at the long windows in the bedroom we watch the water teem off the roofs opposite. Afterwards, the sky is quite eerie and lights up the terracotta and sepia buildings with a red/orange glow.

Before we left on our trip Jim was very definite on having his birthday dinner in the Pantheon square. Tonight also, the Altar of Peace is lit for the last time in the 2010 Festival season, with lasers to show how the marble was originally coloured 2,000 years ago. Our plan is to have dinner looking out over the facade of the equally ancient rotunda, and then head up the Corso to the Altar to see, what we hope, will be a spectacular view of the huge marble structure dedicated to the emperor Augustus' successful campains against the barbarians abroad.

The Pantheon is gently glowing in the evening light, as are all the surrounding buildings, and even the central fountain. We have an outside table on the square and both sit looking out over one of the most beautiful piazzas in Rome. Dinner is huge bistecca, medium-rare, and a bottle of red vino Nobile.

The Ara Pacis can be seen dazzling away as we approach along the Tiber. Originally sited on the Field of Mars, a little to the north of where it now stands, it had lain buried under the mud and silt of the Tiber floods for nearly 1,600 years, until various fragments were excavated. Mussoli gathered together the scattered parts and reassembled the Altar in 1938. Now, the monument is housed in a controversial glass cube, the first modern building in Rome's historic center since the 1930's.

At 11pm people are still trickling in to admire the structure. You can see the scale in one of the photos above. Along the sides the frieze depicts triumphal processions, and the figure of Augustus can be seen, half-damaged where the marble fragments have been lost, halfway along the line of priests, dignitaries and members of his family. A little further on, Marcus Agrippa, soldier, engineer of Rome's aquaducts, and son-in-law to Augustus, can be seen with his priest's cowl over his head.