Just ROME-ing around!

We woke up Friday morning bright and early to catch our 6:37 train out of Lugano bound for Rome.  We arrived around 11:30 and after a few wrong turns we found our hostel shortly after.  We were staying at the Yellow—apparently it won a “hoscar” for best hostel in Rome!

It actually turned out to be pretty amazing.  Lucky for us, our room was available early when we arrived so we were allowed to check in right then and there!  Our room was big and spacious, one wall was a chalkboard-- so we all took advantage of that, and there were huge lockers under each of the beds to store your stuff in.

 The best part…. breakfast. FINALLY a taste of home-- bacon egg and cheese sandwich. I died and went to heaven.  After getting settled, we decided to walk around and explore a bit until our guided tour would start at 2:00 on the Spanish Steps.  My first thoughts when walking around Rome were that there were fountains EVERYWHERE… literally on every corner, and the Romans sure do love their scooters.

 One cool thing about walking around the city was the history that was so clearly before you everywhere you went.  Sometimes we had no idea what we were passing but were amazed nonetheless.  There are also street performers, artists, etc. all over the city trying to make some extra money.  I loved watching the street performances.  Most of the time the people were really impressive. 

 When we were getting close to the Spanish Steps we still had some time so we decided to stop for a snack at Blue Ice.  They had the BEST gelato, I had a sample, but I had to go with the nutella and white chocolate crepe—definitely a great decision.  I knew I’d get gelato again throughout the weekend so I wanted to try this new variation on a crepe I hadn’t seen yet.

 Afterwards we walked to the Spanish steps and took some pictures before heading to the bottom to meet our tour.  This is where we kept our eyes open though because we spotted some pickpocketers eyeing everyone trying to find out who they’d get.

 

 

We waited at the bottom until about 5 after 2:00 when we realized either 1) no tour was scheduled for today or 2) we somehow missed it. So then thank goodness for Bailey who had already been to Rome for over a week before becoming our new tour guide.  We started walking down the street and I got the feeling I was at the Rodeo Drive of Rome—Jimmy Choo, Burberry, Fendi, etc.  The boys had been joking around about getting themselves a Burberry scarf the whole weekend.  When we passed Burberry they ran inside JUST to see the price.  Apparently the store attendant liked Mitch and let him try one on…. (is this a trend with Mitch? Hahah) the scarf cost over 300 euro!

We stopped in a few shops along our way and I noticed shop after shop had a million little Pinocchio’s in them.  I didn’t know at the time, but I looked it afterwards and apparently the story of Pinocchio was first published in Rome!

After wandering through the streets we eventually found ourselves at the Pantheon.  Outside of the Pantheon they have a bunch of people dressed up as gladiators walking around trying to get you to pay to take a picture with them—I almost got one but decided against it.

After the Pantheon we made our way to the Trevi Fountain!  But on the way we stopped in the Church of Loyola.  I still haven’t gotten over the detail in the stained glass and paintings in all of these churches throughout Europe. 

 

Finally, the Trevi Fountain.  I was amazed.  I had no idea it was so BIG!  We stayed there for a while just looking in awe and taking picture after picture (I probably took 40 pictures of the thing—all exactly the same).

 Next stop- The Wedding Cake!  Better known as Vittorio Emanuele.  It’s essentially just a beautiful monument to Victor Emanuel.

Bailey knew of a great spot behind the monument that looked over ancient Roman ruins, we’re lucky we had her because we would have never found it on our own.

It was only day one and I guarantee you Michael had already taken about 500 selfies…. He loves to do that when we’re traveling.  Selfies throughout Europe… If we all compiled our pictures of him doing it on various trips, we’d have a whole photo album. 

At one point, we watched him take a selfie and a bunch of random foreign girls saw and walked away laughing hysterically.  Gotta love him for it, he sure provides the rest of us with entertainment.  After the ruins it was getting dark so we headed back to the hostel to get ready for the night.

   

First we headed down to happy hour at our hostel.  Everyone got a free drink for staying at the Yellow and all the girls started with a delicious, fruity cocktail while the boys were happy to finally be back in an area where Beer Pong existed again.  The hostel did a pretty good job of being our American fix after a couple of months abroad. 

 

After a little while, we got recommendations from the hostel staff as to where we should eat dinner.  They recommended a pasta place a few minutes walk from the hostel and it was delicious.  I ordered a gnocchi dish and a side salad, just what I wanted.

After dinner, we walked around a bit, got what might have possibly have been the worst tasting gelato ever... and then headed back home to sleep.  The next morning we got up and headed to the Colosseum.  On the way we stopped at another site of ancient Roman ruins (I swear they’re everywhere!)

Then there it was…. The picture I’ve seen in textbooks my whole life—The Colosseum.  We knew the line would be long but we had to stop to take pictures before going inside.

Lucky for us we got in line and a man said “next English tour starting in 15 minutes, come this way for an extra 5 euro and skip the line, go straight to the tour!”  At that point it didn’t matter if the tour was good or not…. The line was over an hour long… skip it by paying an extra 5 euro and adding on a few hours of sightseeing to the day? I think yes.  Our tour guide was okay at speaking English… so I didn’t get much out of the tour, but it was amazing to see the inside of the Colosseum and read all of the history.

 

 After the Colosseum we headed to the markets at Campo de Fiori for a quick lunch and to look around a little bit.  I bought a few gifts-- and a necklace for myself :)

 Then we started on the long walk to the Vatican City!  We walked along the river for a while and since the sun had come up it was absolutely beautiful outside!

We also passed by the Castle Sant’ Angelo.  I had no idea just how many sites we would see in Rome—but I guess I should have expected it!

Just a few minutes beyond the castle we reached the Vatican.  We were all amazed and also couldn’t stop talking about the movie Angels and Demons and how we would all relive what we had just seen by watching it as soon as we got back.

We got in line for what we thought was the museum (because it was around 3:30 and last entrance was at 4:00) but it turned out we were just in line for St. Peter’s Basilica! --- which was absolutely beautiful, I wish we had made the time to go back, especially to climb to the top of the tower. 

Once we figured out that the museum was not in fact close by we ran out and speed walked to find it, hoping we would make it since it is not open on Sundays—and who could go to the Vatican and NOT see the Sistine Chapel.  Along the way we passed the Swiss Guards (where I had about 0.2 seconds to snap a quick picture)

And after about 10 minutes of walking as fast as we could to get to the museum, we made it in time!  Once you’re in you have until 6:00 so we all walked out to a terrace and took a few minutes to sit and breathe.

   

 After catching our breath, the first stop in the museum was the Sistine Chapel.  We walked through a lot of beautiful rooms along the way.  This museum was just like a compilation of my favorite things with all of the sculptures and paintings throughout. 

 

 Finally we reached the Sistine Chapel and jaws dropped.  I did not realize the ENTIRE thing was paintings on paintings on paintings, I just knew that Michaelangelo had painted the ceiling—and there it was the pictures I’d seen throughout my life, right before my eyes.  It was absolutely amazing.  The detail…. We sat inside and just looked at each and every painting for about 30 minutes.

After that we walked slowly through some more of the rooms in the museum and finished off with the Raphael rooms.  I wish I was artistic.  These paintings right before our eyes were unbelievably.  I can hardly fathom how one person could have so much talent. 

 

We stayed until they basically told us to leave and then headed back to the hostel.  Our plan was to try aperativo for dinner—basically you buy a drink and then have unlimited food for certain hours of the night.  The place we were recommended to go had pasta, salad, pizza, etc.  We took the metro there and could tell we were in a local part of town, no tourists in site.  We were so excited to experience this real Italian culture until we realized there was an entire section of the restaurant roped off (something must have happened?) and they had to turn people away because they were at capacity.  Bummed out we headed back to the hostel (at this point starving) the find somewhere else.  They had mentioned a place called Mama Angela’s that was literally directly across the street, so not wanting to go try and find something else we just went there.  THANK GOD WE DID. Everything must happen for a reason because I kid you not… best meal yet while studying abroad.   It was a 15 minute wait for the table so we went across to the hostel and the bartender made us a special shot called the B-52 with Baileys!

When we were seated at the restaurant, Megan, Kerry, and I split a bruschetta appetizer then all got pasta for dinner.  I got the vodka carbonara. I seriously still can’t stop thinking about how delicious it was (ruined the rest of my “okay” meals of the weekend) 

 

After dinner we went to see the Trevi Fountain at night—beautiful. We stayed for a little while then wandered the nearby streets.  Some of the group got some Gelato and then we headed back for the night.

The next morning we took our time getting a start to our day because we had already seen most of the sites and wanted to dedicate the day to getting lost in Rome and seeing the city for un-touristy reasons.  We started the day at the Porta Portese Market.  I looooved it.

 

It was SO cheap and the tents went back at least a mile long.  We found out later it’s the biggest flea market in Italy!  It wasn’t so touristy, there were a few but it was mostly people going about their Sunday morning shopping and searching for whatever it is they might need.  You could have found anything there… beads, clothes, jewelry, furniture, animal skulls???, it was knick-knack galore.

 

 I found a few gifts, made my way through most of the tents, then headed back to our meeting point to continue on our day.  It was seriously such a beautiful day outside, we could not have asked for better weather during our weekend in Rome.  We walked towards the Trevi Fountain area to have lunch at L’Archetto Spaghetteria Pizzeria.  It was well-known for its 50+ pasta options and everyone on the trip had been talking about it so we decided to give it a shot.  Along the way we stumbled upon the famous Roman cats!  They live at “Area Sacra di Largo Argentina” which had some ruins as well.  It was quite funny to see so many cats there.

 

 We finally found the restaurant in a back alley and sat down to enjoy our meal outside.  It was a pretty good lunch, but hard to compare to the great meal we had the night before.  We ate and relaxed a little longer, enjoying the beautiful day, before making our way to Piazza Navona.

 

The Piazza has three fountains: the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi by Bernini, Fontana Del Moro, and Fontana del Nettuno.  It is also crowded with artist’s paintings and caricatures—a really fun area to walk around or sit and enjoy the day.

 

 After we had spent some time there we headed back to catch our train home.  A few wrong turns and getting lost a bit it turned more from a leisurely stroll to a fast paced search for the hostel but it was well worth the great day we had.  All was well, we made it in plenty of time to catch the train and got home a little bit before 1:00 am. 

I cannot WAIT to go back to Rome one day.... I know I've said this about most of the places I've been to so far but there was just so much to do and it was such a fun city to explore I know there is much more to be seen. 

Until next time-- Ciao Bella!