me at the trevi fountain!!!
spanish steps
i took no risks and did all three coins!
this is my favorite fountain in rome, it was also in the movie Angels & Demons, it was so large and beautiful all lit up.
the vatican at night, slightly blurry but still gives a glimpse of how insane it looked!
I took this after they announced no pictures. great shot at least!
you cannot go to rome and not have some of the Roman pizza! girl's gotta eat!
another addition, the potato pizza, yes you guessed it, boiled potatoes seasoned with rosemary and put on a pizza, carb on carb, come on now, who wouldn't eat this?
me excited at the Vatican, hoping for a front row seat to see the pope!!
this is the view from the top of the college our friend took us to, it was on the roof top, it was above the whole city!
oh you know just another place in Rome!
the cat sanctuary. there were sooo many!
this was the gelato from a great place, I ate so much food but there is always room for gelato. Limone of course. I just assume gelato is like water, fruit and ice, no calories there right?
Vatican by day
So, where oh where do I begin. Rome was absolutely magnificent. I was blown away by the experience, the views, the sights, monuments, architecture, the entire city was enormous and more than I expected.
Initially I was warned about the gypsies and the pick-pocketing that was around every corner. Well hello, I do live in Florence I do know a thing or two about gypsies and I was not at all hindered by the people in this community. It felt very familiar in this city, much like New York or a city in Connecticut, it was surreal. Everywhere you turned there was another monument or church that you had seen in your history book or in a movie. It was amazing, in case I haven't yet said that. So we reach out destination of Rome in the late afternoon, close to 5pm ish. Right away we want to start seeing some sights because we only have a few days in this beautiful city. We take the metro to the Spanish Steps and immediately next to the steps is Furla, ahh I am home. Shopping with Furla and Gucci and Prada and the Spanish Steps it doesn't get any better than that! We climbed to the top and took many pictures. There were hundreds of people resting on these steps, you can tell they were weary from their days adventures. We decided to try and make our way to the Trevi Fountain nearby and catch a snack before we searched for someplace for dinner. We followed the tourists hoards and the big sunflowers on a stick that led each of the groups all the way to the fountain and were surprised by the enormity of the fountain. Michael, my traveling partner in crime, found a small Roman pizza place close to the fountain, was enjoying a slice paid by the weight of enormous basil leaves, mozzarella and big chunks of whole tomato on top of it, while I took chance to guarantee my return to Rome.
The story is if you toss one coin in, you are to return to Rome someday, two coins you will return and find the person you will marry, three coins backwards, you will return, marry, and live in Rome forever! So I took no chances, and backwards tossed my three coins in!!! We shall see wont we!
Safety and security, in all the tour books they do warn you of pick-pocketing and gypsies begging for money often. Well yes this is true but I feel like the danger lies within the tourists. Many of the tourists all travel the same route to each of the sites. First spanish steps, next trevi fountain....etc, etc, etc. so the pick-pockets know where to go, where these large groups of people reside and mingle. It was easy to avoid the crowds at times and others it was hard, but using common sense and like I do in Florence, carry your purse in front or backpack, know where your money is, look ahead, don't cause interest to any of the locals and know where you are going, don't look around all lackadaisical and be like "oh wow, this is pretty!" Oops there goes your wallet. So I didn't find Rome to be any worse than Florence, I felt it to be pretty equal. Use your brain.
Next we decided to make our way across the city because it was getting late to try and find our hotel. I was getting more and more nervous that it was getting dark and we would never find it. I just wanted it to be clean and comfortable because already we had walked quite a bit. We stopped by a popular touristy piazza I had read about, Piazza Navona? sp? not sure. It was filled with tourists and lights and entertainment and fountains galore. It was filled with restaurants with people of course telling all the american tourists that "this is the right spot," "you don't know what you are missing" It was like being around a bunch of car salesman. Next, we made our way to this magical bridge all lit up and across the bridge was the most magnificent sight, the Vatican. AWWWWWW, cue angels singing. Hahah it was so incredible. Especially at night with all the lights and the view, it was right out of a movie. Both Michael and I had to pinch ourselves because it didn't feel real. We both felt like it was a replica of the real thing in like NYC or something, there is no way that the two of us could be here right now, at the Vatican, seeing this? It was hard to believe.
We explored a bit and asked many times for directions and many times we were sent in multiple directions. Soon we reached a man with a gps, most people in Italy own these, but mind you they still get lost. There are too many streets in Italy nevermind one city for satellite to update them all into a gps. So we come to the address of our hotel. One door is label communist room and the other is a gated community with passcodes. I immediately tell Michael I am not staying in a communist dorm, we will turn around and find the train and head back to florence. So we call our guy and he instantly shows up at the gated community. Thank god! He shows us to our room, very car salesman like, and I am comfortable and pleased with the result. It is clean, there is soap and towels. No bed bugs. We head out for a usual late dinner after settling in for a bit and try and find a place to fill our stomachs.
The traditional foods we heard about in Rome were the "roman pizza," paid by the weight and cut however long you would like, they are baked in sheets, and often with many many toppings, and the pasta a la carbonara. We dined on the carbonara. It was so delicious. I loved it. We return to our place of rest and pass out with excitement for the day tomorrow, even though it took us a bit to get to our destination we are pleased and happy that this trip is turning out so well.
Friday we wake to make a mad dash to the shop around the corner for the free breakfast, Italian breakfast mind you, a croissant and a cafe and are on our way to the daunting line of the Vatican tour. We arrive at 8:30 with 1-200 people deep. We finally reach the doors at 9:15, not so bad, I would have waited days to see the inside. We are searched and scanned and led in one by one. Swiss guards are everywhere and there are many american tourists I am surprised by the lack of Italian I hear. We get some audio guides and head on our tour. I, and neither is Michael, am not the artsy type but we are the slight history buffs. So we cruise through the statues and articles from the Etruscans, Egyptians and many more. My attraction of fever is the Sistine Chapel, everytime I see a sign my heart races. At the end of the tour is the chapel. All in all we spend like an hour or hour and a half in the Vatican alone, more of it in the chapel, listening to the audio and viewing all the magnificent fresco's. Unreal. No pictures are allowed in this room, but silly me ignored that quickly and snapped a photo. Oops.
Next we made our way through St. Peters, which also was amazing to see. We hurried off to meet up with a friend for lunch and picked up our jaws off the floor from all the sights and history we had just been next to. We are meeting a friend of Michaels who is studying to become a priest. I know I know, in Rome of all places, well yes. This man, kid, whichever, he was 25, and a brillant person at that. He was so educated and kind and open to all my 8000 questions about everything. As we walked our way to his college where he studied we must have passed a dozen or so other priests or those he knew and they all kindly waved and said their hello's and continued on their way. It was such a welcoming and nice experience to walk through Rome with someone like him. He knew every church, what everythign was, the history behind it, it was daunting. I loved meeting him and felt it made for such a more educational experience especially in Rome. We took a tour with him through his college and saw all the photos of past priests and bishops, etc. It was a beatiful place. He then later took us to lunch, a little restaurant called "Abruzzi," named after a little part of Italy where my family is from. Of course we dined and stuffed ourselves, and of course it was with the carbonara, they are known for it here. We rolled ourselves down the streets to gelato, one can never eat too much, and then rolled ourselves another twenty or 15 miles or so around the city checking out all the sights.
One of my favorite sights was the cat sanctuary. This by far was the weirdest concept. It is were Caesar was assassinated in Rome. It is in ruins now and surrounded below to keep the cats in. They take care, spay and neuter and feed the cats. They are lounge around in these ruins. There were so many, I lost count at like 30. It was definitely a sight to see in the middle of this city. Definitely a must see. Colosseum, more ruins and a few more churches. It was an amazing day. Lastly we decided to humor the female on board and attempt to perk her up with some shopping, at this point the priest in training left and had to return for evening mass. Michael and I shopped a bit in a few specialty food shops and then decided that even at 7pm we could not fathom eating another thing. So we returned to the hotel and decided to rest until dinner and then would head back out at 8 or 9ish, Italians eat late.
Well 10 pm rolls around and both of us are passed out cold. Like don't move one muscle, land on the bed and fall asleep just like that. I get into my pj's and Michael is passed out in his clothes. Needless to say it was a long day with many sights and our full stomachs put us to sleep.
Morning comes and we pack up shop for Florence. We are meeting up with our friend for breakfast before we head out. One last croissant and cafe. We walk along the streets to find so many early morning weekend markets. So many fresh, huge, not so life like, vegetables and fruits. They have slaps of beef and pork bolted to these boards clamped between these braces and are shaving off the prosciutto right there in front of us. If only my chefs were here. This was a sight to see. My central market in Florence has nothing on this market and this is only a neighborhood one, this isn't their main market? It was unreal. So many vendors, so few tourists in these outskirts, it was great. I took many photos and we hurried on our way to meet for cafe and cornettos before our train departed Rome.
We relaxed a bit and said our goodbyes to only hop on the train and be back in Florence in just over an hour. It seems so unreal that there are so many places near Florence, or in Italy in general that you can travel to in such a short time and have such a different experience. I would love to go back to Rome any day. It was such a wonderful place.
Here are some of the 100's of pictures that I took during my few days stay. I hope you enjoy them, nothing compares to the real thing.
So update, update! Over my past weekend I traveled finally, to Cinque Terre. Words cannot do it justice, it was unreal. Cinque Terre is located in northern Italy along the coast. It is five small towns strewn about along the coast that closely resembles what I think looked like Hawaii. Complete mountains and hiking paths to each town and a small train that ran from one end to the other. It was so worth the energy it took to travel there and the views were amazing. Cinque Terre is known for it's pesto! and when I mean pesto, I mean pesto! Michael, my faithful traveling friend, and I dined at a cute restaurant in the third town. I had the spaghetti and pesto and he had a dish typical of the town, what looked like a large flat pancake or crepe, sliced into squares and cooked like a pasta, and pesto on top of course. Literally my lips and tongue were green it was intense flavor and so delicious. Saying that Cinque is located in the northern part of Italy you would assume it was cold, but not at all. I left Florence with a hoody, under armor zip up, long sleeve t-shirt and a tank top, scarf and gloves, it was chilly at 7am. Once we arrived in Pisa to switch trains, it was even colder and we thought we were in for a miserable day of cold along the water in Cinque Terre. Little did we know that the climate there is completely tropical. There was cactus growing, lemon and lime trees bigger than my head! Seriously. It was like a microwave of heat and I loved it. It was a very calming and meditative place, one could sit for hours and listen to the ocean, it was really really beautiful to see.
