The Pantheon and Shopping on Via Condotti

Our last two days in Rome were "lazy days" as my family likes to call them - that means that I don't have anything in particular booked and allow them all to sleep in and laze about in the morning.

So around noon, we finally headed out to the Pantheon - which we had seen multiple times at night but finally got to visit during the day.  The oculus, as the 9 m circle in the roof is called, was very cool and sent an enormous shaft of light into the dark interior.

At lunch at Maccheroni, I had their special pasta with black truffle.  Not the best choice on my part since it was 90+ degrees out and the heavy pasta lunch made me a little ill.

But then I rallied for the afternoon shopping expedition.  Trying to avoid the nightmarishly crowded area of the Spanish Steps, we wandered down Via Condotti - in and out of all the lovely designer boutiques.  I ended up at Louis Vuitton where I unwisely purchased a beautiful limited edition purse.  The transaction took about an hour due to complicated export paperwork that needed to be filled out for the purse, because it was partially made of exotic material (python in this case).  But I was a good enough customer to be offered champagne while I waited (Moet, I was told) and they were shocked when I asked for cold water instead!