Gleaned from a couple of entries from my dad’s Rome journal:

The street shots are from our windows. One, of the two men, one standing and one seated, is of the mystery establishment. Ever since we arrived, we have been trying to figure out what was going on across the street. On many evenings, that table is there. At other times cars are parked inside the tub/shrub barriers. A few people move in and out. Is it an exclusive club? Staff are dressed in white shirts, red neckerchiefs and waist sashes. More recently, from time to time we hear a group singing lustily, often accompanied by an accordion–by the way, the accordion has not lost its popularity on the streets of Rome; there are even barely pubescent boys can be seen pumping away at the sidewalk tables of restaurants–and always including Volare. Hmmm. At 7:30 this evening a group of 42, no doubt a tour group we surmised, strolled down the street and inside. Sure enough, in what seemed to be no time at all, Volare!

And then, moments from the Italian Open:

Then we hopped a taxi to Foro Italico and picked up a couple of panini.There were a couple of interesting doubles matches on Pallacorda, so I started there and Hilary went to Campo Centrale for singles. The first match was Novak and Robredo vs. Bhupathi and Woodbridge. The second was the Bryan brothers vs. Paes and Zimonjic. Hilary came back over for that. We met and chatted with an American couple whose life in retirement is following tennis, especially the Bryan brothers, in the US and now and then abroad. They are here for the entire two weeks and are sitting in the foreground of the picture with Hilary concentrating on the match.

When it was over, we returned to center court for Agassi vs. Hrbaty and Nadal, a fabulous young Spanish player who later won the French Open, vs. Stepanek. Then it was arreviderci time. My new best friend, Maurizio Marucci, and I exchanged addresses. He had seats on the second row down from us with a gorgeous young woman with whom he, a portly and not very well dressed sort, was quite affectionate, and who left about halfway through the afternoons. Wow, I thought, these Italian guys really know how to get it done. Turns out she is his daughter who had to leave to go to work. But he kept her up to date re the matches via telephone. He has had week-long seats for both the men’s and women’s tournament for many years. Professionally, he is a financial journalist with Eilsole24Ore, a news service much like Bloomberg, covering the Chicago futures market.

On the way out, we ran into Bud Collins, the tennis journalist and commentator, and chatted with him a bit. Of course he did not remember us, but he was most pleasant as he had been in previous encounters in New York and Key Biscayne.