Month: June 2022

I have never been so thankful for choosing a later tour than I was this morning. Originally we were supposed to tour the coliseum tonight, “at night” but the tour got canceled and they added us to a 3:30 tour instead.. which, while it sucks to not be inside the coliseum at night, at least they didn’t move us to 8:30am! Sooo, we slept in! It felt so so nice, too.

Around 11am we went to breakfast. I got excited about waffles on the menu, but y’all-they were like sweet waffles, with powdered sugar.. it was weird, almost like a funnel cake. It did come with fresh fruit which was nice, but then they put 4 little scoops of ice cream on the plate, too. I prefer a savory breakfast, this was just too much for me. But, since it was already ordered and I front of me, I ate everything but the ice cream.

From there we shopped around a bit. I got a couple dresses, as it is seriously too hot here even for shorts.. like the Jean material just makes you feel heavy. Mom didn’t find anything she liked, so we took my purchases back to the house, I put on one of the dresses, and we left again. We took the metro to the coliseum stop and found the meeting place for our tour. Since we were early, we decided to sit down and eat lunch (it was about 2pm now), even though we weren’t terribly hungry-we didn’t know how long this tour would last.

Mom ate a burger and I ate some pasta with a glass of rosè. It was way too hot for anything not chilled. The cafe as across the street from the meeting point for the tour, so we didn’t have to go far at all once we paid our bill. We checked in and got our little stickers telling us which group we were in, then waited for the tour to start. It was sweltering out there!

Our guide, Valentina, made us forget about the heat.. she was so engaging and entertaining. We ended up being on a three hour tour of the Coliseum, the Roman Forum, and Palatine Hill! I had no idea, I guess the tour company decided this would be the best alternative since I couldn’t go on the tour I originally picked.

Anyway, as we walked around the Coliseum, Valentina told us it was built in the year 80, it took only 8 years to construct, which was very impressive for the time.. and it isn’t made of marble, instead it’s made of travertine, which is a limestone. Pretty cool. And, as a bonus, as we were walking around the exterior hearing about the history, local firemen were doing a training session by repelling off the side of the building! Imagine living somewhere that on your required “training day” at work, you get to literally hang by ropes off of a building built in the year 80.. EIGHTY.. Eight-zero.. just.. WOW.

The Coliseum was built by 1000 slaves brought over from Jerusalem, which was just conquered by the Roman Empire. It was here that the public came to watch the gladiators fight.. but not necessarily always to the death.. gladiators were slaves as well, taught to fight, and they were like property to the owners.. as in, they got paid to “lend” the gladiator out for a fight, and if they killed someone in every single fight, then those owners would be losing money.. so they never wanted the public to choose death to the loser.

We got to walk through the loser’s exit gate into the arena floor. The gladiators came up through elevators operated on pulley systems.. so from the stands it looked like your favorite gladiator just appeared in the middle of the arena. It was also covered in sand to be able to quickly “clean up” the bloodshed. The stands had 3 levels, the poorest people were up top, while those with money were lower, as to get the wealthy out quicker if a fire or earthquake were to happen.

We went on to Palatine Hill, where the emperor made his palace. The ruins were incredible, and Valentina pointed out different colored marbles. The reds, pinks, dark greens were transported to this area from Egypt-after Julius Cesar, considered a dictator and not an emperor, fell in love with Cleopatra and then eventually conquered Egypt and made it part of the Roman Empire. It was expensive and took a minimum of a month to transport these marble slabs, so only the richest of the rich had them in their homes.. aka Julius Cesar and the emperors following him.

She also told us that the Romans learned the “importance” of grand architecture from the Egyptians.. that if you build the homes and places for the emperors to be massive and “larger than life” it made the common people feel subordinate and fearful of the ruler’s power, and therefore less likely to revolt.

I was completely fascinated at Valentina’s every word. She explained how Julius Cesar was a favorite of the common people, but the other senators hated him for taking solo power of the Roman Empire-when it is supposed to be ruled by 4 equally powered people. So he was killed, by them, but the people were furious and angry, so to attempt to stop a revolt, they buried him in the Roman Forum, gave him a temple-the first ever made for a man-and claimed that he had been turned into a God. From man to God, it was his destiny, the first ever. While the people were still angry, they were placated all the same.

We saw the vessel virgins house, a home that kept 30 nuns-they were chosen at 8 years old and had to remain there for the next 30 years to keep a fire burning. It was believed at the time that if the candle light burnt out, then the good fortune would be gone. They had to remain virgins and could not speak to men. However, they were the only women of the time that were paid money, so when they left at age 38, considered very old at that time, they always found mates quickly.

After our 3 hours of exploring and being stunned that something of this magnitude was preserved in the heart of a very busy city, we said our goodbyes and continued walking around town. We came across awesome buildings with Nike on top (the swoosh originally like wings apparently), snapped pictures, then wandered around until we saw a restaurant that looked pretty from the outside. It was almost 7pm at this point.

The building had vines of flowers growing up the side and across the terrace. It was still sweltering hot, so when the hostess said she could fit us in without a reservation, but we had to sit inside..I was happy. They had the fans going in there! It was beautifully decorated! I ordered the Cacio e Pepe, which is a pasta dish with cheese and pepper, typically from Rome.. mom got some ravioli, although she said she wasn’t going to keep ordering ravioli since it’s never quite what she expects it to be..

It was phenomenal! Mine and hers! I think this restaurant might be my favorite now. Everything we ate was delicious, the bread was even soft and wonderful too. Mom loved her ravioli and seemed completely content. We all but licked our plates clean. We were so stuffed, but the waiter boasted about their homemade tiramisu.. so obviously we had to try it. I don’t know how these things just keep getting better, but trust me when I say, they do! So dang good!

When we finally decided to pay and waddle out, the sun had set. We wandered a bit taking pictures in the dark and made our way back to the Coliseum. I wanted pictures of it at night, all lit up, and it didn’t disappoint one bit! We cheesed in our photos and then walked back to the metro station-to find out that it was closed for the night. I considered getting us a taxi, but it was only a 15-20 minute walk, so when mom said let’s walk.. I was all for it.

I ended up running my two miles along the way, since I had running shoes on already, but it was awkward, running ahead on the long stretches, then running back past mom, then back again.. haha. Whatever, I made it work. Back at the apartment, the men working the restaurant waved and said their “Ciao!”s.. I think they’re starting to recognize us.

We showered and I promptly got in bed. I’m so worn out and tomorrow is the Vatican with the famous Sistine Chapel, plus St. Peter’s Basilica. Another can’t miss! Plus, tomorrow evening I booked us on a food tour of the area right outside the Vatican, so it’s going to be a busy day!

Today was phenomenal, but it started off with some hiccups.. well, maybe it didn’t “start” with hiccups, but they surely came. We left the house and caught the Metro to the Vatican City stop. We got croissants and coffee (I’m so sick of croissants-Italians would be so mortified by this), and walked to the meeting spot for our tour-and ate while sitting on the sidewalk.

We got put into our group, and our guide was a little underwhelming. I couldn’t tell you his name, because if he ever told the group, we we’re privy to hearing him. We didn’t get the headset thingys until actually inside the two locations we went to, so all the walking and talking as a group that he did-we caught none of what he was saying. That makes me sad, because I love the little details.

We went to Saint Peter’s Basilica first. The inside of this place screams money! There were no paintings present, everything was marble, so the pictures that look like detailed paintings: mosaics! Just, wow. So very stunning. I was staring at the floors and the walls and every intricate little thing the entire time. Of course I guide showed us the tomb of this saint and that pope, but I don’t remember any of that, besides the fact that Saint Peter is clearly one of them, since this basilica is named for him.. I was more shocked about all of the red, pink, green marble absolutely everywhere.. knowing that it was imported from Egypt way back when..

We went back out into the heat and walked about 15-20 minutes around the walls of Vatican City (which is recognized as its own country, by the way, and it’s guarded by the Swiss army, to keep church and state separate). He took us into the Vatican museum and got us new headsets for this part. We walked through a couple rooms and out into a courtyard where he explained the details of the Sistine Chapel that we would be seeing by the end of the tour.. but since it’s considered a holy place, silence is required inside.

While it was blisteringly hot out there, I did actually pay attention during this part.. though it wasn’t easy. He showed us the different sections of the walls and ceiling, depicting different scenes from the Bible.. like Adam and Eve and the serpent of temptation. The scenes from heaven had many people/angels looking distraught and our guide says that was thanks to Michelangelo now having questions about his faith after dealing with the church for so long. Who knows?

From the heat, we finally headed inside and had a few rooms before the chapel. I loved the map room.. it had old world maps and a gorgeous ceiling across the entire place. At the end of this room is where we quickly gave back the headsets and made our way to see Michelangelo’s masterpiece. It was busy and so crowded, but people were mostly silent as requested, and no pictures are allowed to be taken, even if I did see many people sneaking them. I didn’t attempt.

It took us about 25 minutes to figure out how the heck to get out of the museum and the Vatican City walls. We walked a little ways before mom picked a place to sit and have a drink to cool off.. except it was just as hot sitting with a cold drink as it was walking-but the still air felt stagnant and suffocating. We got up and walked until we found a restaurant with actual air conditioning that was actually on.

We ate lunch, both of us loved our pasta.. it’s hard not to. And we sat awhile, killing time in the cool air. Around this time I got a text asking if we could join the 3:30 food tour instead of the 4:30 tour, because they didn’t have enough guides today. We said yes, thankful that our next “thing” to do was sooner than expected, even if we were a little worried we wouldn’t be hungry yet. I booked a Prati Food Tour because Prati is right by the Vatican, making it an easy transition between the two places.

As we were walking to the meeting spot, we came across a little market with people selling clothes. Mom and I got some €10 dresses and I couldn’t be happier with them! Finally! Good, cheap dresses! We had to buy them in a hurry though because we were getting very close to being late for the tour.

We walked up to the little cafe meeting spot to find about 10 people standing outside. Our guide introduced herself, Irena, from Moldova, but she’s lived in Rome for more than half her life. She was wonderful! And the people on the food tour were pretty awesome too! We met Allison and Dolly, two women from Scotland here celebrating Allison’s 60th birthday. We sat next to them at the cafe-and they had us in tears! So very witty!

At this stop we had Prosecco (about a bottle a piece, I swear) plus little appetizers, like bruschetta, cheeses with honey and truffles, caprese salad-with Mozzarella and fresh tomatoes so good it’s going to make eating it at home feel disappointing. We ate and laughed and had the best time meeting each other.

From there we walked to a famous pizza place and Irena chose 4 different pizzas, had them cut into little squares, and we all got to dig in and get a couple squares of each kind. We also started in on the red wine there too. And “there” was on the sidewalk outside the pizza place because it was only for take away. Here we started chatting with a girl from San Diego and Dolly kept all of us laughing so hard we could barely breathe.

Our next stop was inside a restaurant where we had some type of almost calzone, like a stuffed type pizza.. but mine had chicken that wasn’t very good really. I tried a bite of a mozzarella and sardine one, only because Irena said it was a traditional local choice. It was disgusting.. hahaha

Finally, our last stop was at a nice restaurant where we got pasta (caccio e Pepe for me) and tiramisu.. and way too much wine. We ended up talking with a couple from Reno, Desirae and Derek, and another couple stationed in Italy with the US military, Rebecca and Jayson. We had such a blast talking, laughing, eating the food and drinking way too much wine. We even carried on outside once dinner was done and the others departed.. with more wine on the sidewalk. It was probably one of the funnest nights I’ve had!

Around 10pm we finally started saying our goodbyes and figuring out how to get home. We popped into a little cafe to get mom and coffee and to let me use the restroom. Mom ended up getting them to call us a taxi from there.. thank God! Once we got home (and I’m here to tell you I don’t actually remember getting home)-y’all-I was too drunk to run. I ended run streak by missing the 146th day! I thought I would be so so sad-but I honestly wasn’t, and I’m still not. I had such a good time and there was no way I would have ran earlier in the day when it was so muggy hot.. nor do I regret a moment of that food tour and enjoying meeting new people.

So. That’s that. New run streak starts tomorrow I guess!

I woke up very hungover.. as in, got sick in the middle of the night hungover.. I haven’t felt that cruddy in a long time. I was so beyond happy that we had nothing planned and we could sleep in today. Some time after noon, we finally got motivated to go find some food.

We stopped into a restaurant named “That’s Amore” and ordered a pizza. It was hot and stuffy inside, and hotter and muggier outside. Ah, when in Rome. We ate and made sure to order drinks with ice, that melted way too fast. Even the Italians were complaining that this is the hottest May they can remember, and we all know it’s only going to get hotter as the weeks pass.

We strolled through the busy roads, slowly thanks to me feeling crappy, and snapped so many pictures of this beautiful city. We just don’t have this type of ancient architecture back home, so of course we oooo and ahhh at every building with flowery vines roped across it. It’s impossible not to!

We passed the Trevi Fountain again, which was even more crowded than the first time we saw it, then headed directly towards the Pantheon. We could have signed up for a tour of it, but we both decided pictures of its outside and the piazza that it sits in would be enough for today. We strolled back towards the apartment and decided to stop at the little grocery store between the two restaurants on the ground floor.

The store was tiny but we couldn’t seem to find what we were looking for. The man behind the counter came to help us find the eggs (not refrigerated by the way), butter, cheese and bread.. plus some other snacky things. Mom asked him about the coffee maker in our apartment, seeing if he would be able to explain to her how to use it-which he did.. then he tells us that he will be working tonight until 10pm so if we can’t figure out the coffee maker or the stove, take pictures and come back down and he’d try to help us get it working. So so kind!

We put our new groceries away and then settled into the couch to watch movies. I googled how to logout of the Dutch Netflix account since I couldn’t tell what any of the words were, and then logged into my own. I also tried downloading Hulu to the TV, but it isn’t an app they “allow.” I guess no Chicago PD for us! We watched movies in the cool air conditioned paradise apartment until a little after 9pm.. it was fantastic!

We then decided to get dressed and go find somewhere to eat dinner, don’t we sound like legitimate Italians now? Ha! Originally the plan was to eat at one of the two restaurants right outside our door, but they were so busy and had no seats available. We walked up the hill towards the Spanish steps. A man in a suit told us about the rooftop restaurant right down the side street from where we were standing. He let us check out the menu and then off we went!

It was a beautiful rooftop terrace, and mom looked so beautiful in her new sunflower sundress. The food-was mediocre. I got mushroom and truffle risotto, but the rice wasn’t quite cooked to the soft smush it usually is, it still wasn’t terrible, but not nearly as good as it has been at other places. Mom got a steak and every bite she tried to take was gristle.. I thought she was exaggerating, but when I took a bite I couldn’t chew it either. She ate her sides though, and we planned on telling our waiter, but he never came back during the actual meal.

When he finally did come by, he was mortified that she didn’t like her steak and tried for awhile to talk her into something else, which she wasn’t having.. she was full from the sides and had already decided she wanted dessert from down the street. So, he took her food off the bill and apologized over and over. We did our best to make him realize we weren’t upset in any way, sometimes things just don’t turn out right, it was still an enjoyable dinner!

We took some pictures on the rooftop with the flowers and then carried on the to dessert place. We picked out some little pastries to take with us back to the room. I changed my clothes and did a very slow jog for my mile and accepted the fact that I’m 8 miles away from reaching the 50 mile goal for the month.. and only have 2 days to do it.. soooo, more than likely that’s not going to happen. And not to mention I’m now on day 1 of a new run streak.. Whatever, it is what it is.

I got showered and in my pjs and we settled in for another movie. I think we both needed this downtime. It’s felt so refreshing and relaxing to have no whee to be and nothing to do but escape the insufferable heat. Today felt more like living here than exploring here, which is a wonderful feeling.