Whew. These journal posts are ending up being a bit more challenging then I imagined, especially with all the exploring, often we come back to the hotel absolutely exhausted. So it's our second day in Rome, and I have to admit… We slept in. Hard. Probably to 1130am - but once we were awake and had worked through our disappointment at sleeping in, we were off to explore Rome.
We decided to stroll down to the local Metro station, which is about a 5 minute walk from our hotel. For someone who hasn't ridden a lot of subways, the pushy, go go, get out of my way attitude was a bit of a shock. Even Hanna was pushing me off the subway when we got to our stop, but I guess I understand why now! We ended up in the northern side of Rome Capitale, and began to walk back towards our hotel, which we figured would be a solid 7 to 8 hours.
Unfortunately, it was raining pretty consistently when we got out of the Metro station. Hanna ended up negotiating hard with a street vendor over an umbrella, but she succeeded as she walked away, the vendor agree to her price of 3 Euro. That girl can negotiate. We ended up ducking into a pizzeria - where we both ordered what we thought would be a smaller pizza, but they ended up being pretty large. Hanna again, did very well ordering in Italian to her delight. I ended up not being able to finish the pizza, even tho it was pretty good. The server, who was a very nice middle aged lady, ending up scolding me and slapping my hand for using my phone, AND for not finishing my pizza. It was a cool moment, I admit.
One thing, before I continue our story for the day. We've noticed a distinct lack of toilet seats, at pretty much every public location except for our hotel. Not entirely sure if I should of packed one…
Anyway! We started our journey by stepping into the Piazza del Popolo which is an amazing square, filled with people. Right in the centre is a beautiful column, flanked behind by two basilicas. We walked down Via del Corso, which is the road which splits the two basilicas. What was amazing was the number of shops, jammed between embassies, basilicas, and unbelievably beautiful buildings - I think there was a gelato shop every 5 minutes or so, maybe less!
As we continued into the city, we made our way to the Spanish Steps, which is one of the more popular attractions, given the Italian military, police and bus loads of tourists flocking around them. I honestly didn't find the steps that amazing, but it's maybe because there are a million stairs made of marble in Rome, and I don't know the significance of the Spanish steps themselves. Not to mention, the steps were closed to the public and wrapped in barriers.
From the steps we walked, relatively aimlessly, and encountered a very large plaza called Palazzo Chigi. I found it interesting to see a Roma club store here, which seemed to be guarded by Roma fans, as if they were checking the credentials of each fan who entered. I was a bit too worried about being a pleb fan to enter, but cool to see.
In the middle of this plaza was a brilliant, beautifully detailed column dedicated to Marcus Aurelius and his victories in the 2nd century, whom you may remember from the movie Gladiator (which we later found skipped a lot of details). The cool thing about the column was the scenes of battle from top to bottom, which detailed his victories. Imagine a reel of photos, but piled all on a column, as to make the story accessible to the Roman public.
We continued forth into Rome, and ended up walking towards the Trevi Fountain, which was absolutely beautiful. We have been told that it is essential to see this Fountain at night, so we hope to do that on our final day in Italy back in Rome. I took a lot of photos, both of the Fountain and the breathing room only crowd. And this is off season for Rome!
The next major “stop” for Hanna and I was the large complex of buildings around the Piazza Venezia, which include a massive building, topped with monuments built in the early 1900's. This was a surprise when we found this out, as the building looked like a restored roman building, but no. It was built to celebrate the unification of Italy - and ended up taking years to finish. It now seems to be the focal point of Italian respect for their military, as well as the home of the tomb of the unknown soldier, just like in Canada. However, we did not build such a massive, and impressive building to house such a tomb. Ended up being able to walk up onto the Terrace and got some fantastic shots, without having to pay 7 Euro to use the elevator. Win!
We continued wandering into the old city, filled with ruins everywhere you looked. I was snapping photos as quickly as I walked, it was hard to know what to shoot. Everything seemed important, surreal, or beautiful (or a combination of all 3). We ended up walking by the old “forum”, and many of the grounds where shops were built. This is where the Romans came to meet, eat and shop, it was so my breathtaking. I tried to imagine what the area would look like complete, but there is old, built on older, built on oldest, so it's hard to tell how everything connects. Hoping our tour tomorrow (Friday) will help fill in some of the blanks.
As the sun began to set, we made our way back to our hotel which was about a 15 minute walk from all the beauty and amazing ruins, and after freshening up, headed back out to grab some food.
Pro tip here - I've been using this app called Foursquare for years now, it began as a way to share where you were, but over time has become a fantastic competitor for Yelp. We have had unbelievable success finding fantastic places to eat, including little known neighborhood joints, as well as some of the more well reviewed and well known restaurants. This has worked in Arizona, Winnipeg, Calgary, Mexico and now Italy. If you travel, get this app! We simply filter the results by price, distance from location, and reviews, and have always enjoyed our meals.
So, using FourSquare, we found an amazing little joint about 5 minutes from our hotel, tucked into a smaller side street called I Buoni Amici - if you are ever in Rome, please check this place out. Small, felt like an Italian grandma's kitchen, and the food was absolutely fantastic. I ordered a red sauce pasta with bacon and herbs, and Hanna ordered a porchini mushroom risotto which she enjoyed. We followed our “starters” (these plates were huge) with grilled king prawns, which were also good, and served complete with the head! I avoided the brains. I should add we enjoyed this meal with a bottle of chanti, but it should be assumed at this point that wine is a part of every meal.
We were stuffed, filled with wine, so we headed home to the hotel and watched the first episode of Billions, which looks to be an amazing show, and then crashed out for a big day tomorrow. I walked about 17k steps today, according to my fitbit - which is by far the most I have ever walked since I got it.
Looking forward to the next day - stay tuned for a journal update on our final day in Rome before we take the train to Bologna!