Rome, Italy

Ciao from Rome, Italy!

We arrived in Rome, Italy well rested and ready to go after our amazing overnight train! Walking out of the station, we were greeted by the heat. It was early in the day and it was already hot and starting to get humid. It was going to be a long day! 

Where We Stayed

We are staying in the heart of Rome, on the outskirts of Vatican City, and right on the Tiber River!  The hotel is located in the Prati neighborhood which is an artsy residential area, full of fresco wine bars and gourmet restaurants that fill up the streets at night (my favorite part), and has the Vatican and St. Peter’s Basilica basically right outside your door. We could not wait to get out and start exploring. I had read up on all my Dan Brown books and watched all of the movies, so we were ready to hit the ground running (and pretend we were in the middle of a religious mystery thriller)

Castel Sant’Angelo

We started at the Palace of Justice of Rome, because it was literally right around the corner from our hotel, and strolled around the gardens out front, staring in awe at this building. We knew it was going to be a long day, so we found a cafe in front of here and loaded up on some espresso. Making our way to the Castel Sant’Angelo we walked along the Ponte Sant’Angelo which gives you a perfect view of the castle. Being here, surrounded by all of these buildings, really takes you back in time. Everything looks and seems like it would have thousands of years ago. The Castel Sant’Angelo was built in 139 AD. That’s crazy.

We could see Vatican City in the distance. As in right down the street. It was jam packed with people. We are here at the end of July, the busiest time of year. It was extremely hot and humid, so we were trying to stay away from the crowds as much as possible. We found a restaurant with the Vatican in viewing distance. This is as close as we’ll get. This time.

Feed Me

I am so excited to finally be in Italy! We had been avoiding pizza, pasta, and ice cream since we started this trip. I wanted to wait until we got here! And here we are. Finally. We ordered a pizza, a calzone, and an Aperol Spritz. There are billboards and ads for Aperol Spritz’ everywhere! We saw people drinking them in every restaurant or cafe we passed. It is Prosecco, bitters, and soda water. We had to try it, and it was strong. Real strong. It has a strong orange flavor. Definitely a one and done drink. We decided to head back to our hotel and get some much needed rest. There is so much here that we want to see, so tomorrow we are getting into full blown tourist mode. We want to see everything Rome has to offer, in a day. High expectations we have.

Let’s See All the Things

We started off the next day by visiting Capitoline Hill, the Arch of Constantine, the Temple of Venus and Rome, the Circus Maximus, the Forum, and of course, the Colosseum and Trevi Fountain. So many ruins. So little time. Oh, and we also walked to all of these. I’m not sure if we ever computed how many miles we walked that day, but I was pretty sure my feet were going to fall off. 

The Colosseum is just incredible. It is hard to describe the magnitude of this building. We opted out of the inside tour. It was a 2 hour wait to get a ticket, then another 2-3 hour wait to get inside. We had too much to see today! We walked along the base of it, breathing in the ancient air. It actually has a smell to it. Old, damp rock.  We found a cafe that overlooked the Colosseum. We could see right down into it. This is way better than being crammed inside next to a bunch of sweaty people. 

The Trevi Fountain was beautiful. It wasn’t as packed with people as I expected, probably the time of day. We were actually able to walk right up to it and sit along the edge. The details in the faces of the statues are so intricate. Their eyes seem to follow you. It’s a little creepy. Legend has it that throwing in one coin will bring you back to Rome, Italy, throwing in two coins you will return and fall in love. We were already in love, so we threw in one coin. We will definitely come back here.

Be on the Lookout

Rome was the first place we ran into people trying to scam us. Some guy approached us telling us how he just had a baby, and just being overall friendly. He put some bracelet on my wrist and told me to keep it and it would bring me good luck, yadda yadda yadda.

As we said ok bye! and started to walk away, he came after us saying we needed to pay him for the bracelet. I tried taking it off and giving it back, but he insisted I keep it and we pay for it so he could support his new family. He was being so nice to us, and we felt a little bad for him, so we gave him money and asked for change, and he turned around and took off. Seth chased him down, and he ended up giving us our money back, but this incident put me right back on edge and untrusting of most people! I was told before this trip that if people were nice to me that I should be wary of them, and I thought what a terrible way to go through life. I met a lot of people on this trip that were so nice and helpful to us, and nothing bad ever happened, so I will be trying not to let this moment jade me.

FYI

Based on our modes of transportation, and sticking to a tight budget, we visited Rome, Italy on two separate occasions. We were here for 1 day, took a few days and visited other parts of Italy via train, then we came back for another 2 days before heading to the airport for our next adventure. I wrote about our experience as if we were here for consecutive days, which made it easier to put our trip into a coherent story. If you are an avid reader of our trip, and something in the Italy experiences makes you go “huh?”, then this might be why. Bear with me. Thanks.

Beach Day

Our last day in Rome, Italy, we put our bags in storage at the airport, and took a cab to the beach in Fiumicino. We had to check out of our hotel early, our flight wasn’t leaving for a few hours, and it was hot today! The beach sounded like the perfect way to end our Italian adventure. We were dropped off in a small residential area where we passed one little convenience store, and one restaurant.

We were hungry so we stopped here for some food. They were just closing up, and since there was no other restaurant in town, he said he would make us something. He ended up making us a cheese pizza with hot dogs on top! He had told us he only had pizza left, and Seth is definitely a meat eater so he asked if they had any meat to add to our ‘za. This is what the chef came up with, and we were so delighted! It was very child-like, and actually hit the spot. We swam for a few hours in the salty Mediterranean sea and cooled off. We thought we would rinse off at the outdoor showers on the beach and be ready to get on our flight, but the water coming out of the shower was saltier than the water in the sea! This is going to be a long flight!

Follow along as we visit our last EU country!..