Hi, I’m back home. Rome was splendid, I definitely recommend it. Especially if you like pizza and ice cream — last week we mostly ate pizza and the very delicious Italian ice cream. You can get really good pizza in Finland, but Finnish ice cream is nothing compared to the Italian. Of the various sights we saw, the one I’d recommend most is the crypt of the church Santa Maria della Immacolata Concezione dei Cappuccini. In the five vaults of the crypt, last remains of 4000 monks have been placed carefully in various ghastly shapes. Piles of skulls, lamp shades made of bones, mummified bodies wrapped in their cloaks, a complete skeleton of a young girl, bearing a scythe and scales made of bones. It was very eerie and terrifying experience.

About games… We visited a local game shop chain called GiocoFollia. It seemed to be mostly focused on video games and Games Workshop stuff (their window display had some very beautiful miniatures), but they also had a good selection of board games, especially Italian themed ones. San Gimignano, La Cittá, Princes of Florence, Capitol, Inkognito… I thought about buying Mamma Mia! (as I ate lots of pizza), but the price of 10 euros was a bit too expensive, especially as I’m planning to make an Adam Spielt order soon.

Most of the game were foreign editions (English, some French) with Italian rules, but some of them were in Italian (for example La Cittá). The prizes seemed to be about the same as in Finland: big box games were about 40 euros. Some more, some less. There were also some good board games available in one toy shop we visited. Still, seems like the Games Workshop hobby might be a bit bigger in Italy.

We also visited Florence. Didn’t see any jesters hanging around, but perhaps they were busy entertaining the artists and scientists.