In anticipation for precipitation

Once again we have saved a nation from any remote threat of drought.

It has rained each of the first three days we have been here. Perhaps most amazingly, the skies over Rome will weep even when they are blue. (Is this Zeus at work?)

The view from the cafeteria of the Capitoline Museum, including a bonus rainbow.

While that's inconvenient for travelers and tourists, that's money for the scores of umbrella and poncho hawkers. At the first hint of a potential rain cloud, the entrepreneurial salesmen swarm the tourist locations. I don't know where they all come from. It's as if they just pop up like an, ahem, umbrella.

As tourists walk by, they their wares out. "Umbrella?" they ask almost as more of an instruction than an inquiry.

I didn't stop to take a shot of the salesman en masse because I was afraid one would mistake my lack of movement for an interest in purchasing. This one had a friend nearby though. 

So persistent are they that I plan to sell a T-shirt when it rains that reads "If I wanted an umbrella, I would have bought one from the last guy."

UPDATE: It did not rain on Thursday! Hence, sad umbrella salesmen on the Metro for the evening ride home.