Category: European Trips

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 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!

We had to get up early today to get breakfast and get off the ship. The regular dining room was closed so we were a little concerned that the upper deck buffet would be closed too. Thankfully, it wasn’t. We ate and waited for our luggage number to be called. I miss breakfasts at home.. even if this is such a wonderful journey, I think it’s ok to miss home a bit too.

At 8:30 almost to the second, they called our number and we made our way down the stairs to get off the ship. We had to pick up our covid testing kits (the ship sold ones that are guaranteed to be accepted by the US on arrival back into the country, so to not have to deal with figuring that out at last second, we bought them to carry with us until the day before we arrive back in the US), grab our luggage, go through customs.. and finally get to the line waiting to board the shuttle bus to the Ravenna train station.

It all went very smoothly. We boarded our first train of the day to Bologna. It was just over an hour and while waiting for it, we met a couple from Nashville and we helped explain how these trains work. They’re going to Rome, too, so they asked if they could just follow us to make sure they don’t miss the next train. They were entertaining to talk to and made the sitting and waiting go much faster. Apparently, they were even on our cruise ship, but we never saw them..They said they found out the night before that the cruise went out of Ravenna and not Venice, and ended up paying close to €400 to get a taxi to the terminal and were some of the very last to get on the cruise ship! I thought we had it bad!

We made the connecting train from Bologna to Rome without difficulty, but the couple said they were so grateful for us because they wouldn’t have known where to go. That made me happy! Lol we arrived in Rome, found the metro subway, went two stops, and walked out into the heart of the city. We had already parted ways with our new friends back at the train station, they were hiring a private transfer to their hotel. Our little metro ride was less than 15 minutes and it spit us out within 400 feet of our Airbnb for the week. I’d call it a win 🙂

We used the passcodes to get in the main door, right out front by a busy restaurant. Then another to get in the gate inside the hallway. We took the elevator to the 4th floor and used yet another code to get into the lockbox with our set of three keys-to both the front door and the gate door, then the apartment door, too. The apartment is a two bedroom/one bath home, with a nice living room open to a tiny kitchen. There’s a long hallway connecting the bedrooms and the bathroom and two big balcony doors that open up to a courtyard. It really is beautiful. It didn’t feel that beautiful though so our first mission was to turn on every air conditioner in the place.

We decided to take our dirty clothes to the laundromat and to grab a late lunch (it was almost 4pm). The man at the mat said he’d do our laundry for us for a fee and to just come back in an hour. Honestly, I was so hot and hungry, I wasn’t going to question him. I just said a quick, “ok! Grazie!” And left. Ha, now if anything fits later, that’ll be a different story. We walked up the road to the pharmacy, grabbed a few necessities, and then found a restaurant.

We opted to eat inside since it felt like it was 8 thousand degrees in the sun. The waiter was so nice and helped us pick things to eat-we shared bruschetta and a small pizza, both of which were delicious, even if they still do this weird thing of putting each ingredient on its own slice of the pizza.. so you never get a single bite with all the things, weird. We stayed long enough to take up the exact amount of time to get our laundry.. and then we waited there a little longer because moms clothes weren’t all the way dry yet.

We took everything back to the room and cooled off in our now cooler apartment. Those little units work great! We rested long enough to start feeling guilty about being in a new city and laying on a couch instead of exploring-and then went for a walk around town. From our apartment, we can see the top of the spear like monument in front of the Spanish steps! So, naturally we ventured to that first. We took it all in, and slowly made our way down the steps, happy we unknowingly came in at the top and not the bottom of them.

We then ventured through the crowds to the Trevi Fountain, stopping to snap pictures of this incredible city every 5-10 seconds. We didn’t care if it took hours to walk a half mile.. we were soaking it all in! It was gorgeous, old, rich with details and character. It seemed like no two buildings were the same. The fountain was stunning too, although at 6pm it was so dang crowded there we vowed to come back at a better time of day to get decent pictures.

We made our way back to the room, red faced and sweaty, and laid on our new couch for the week. The TV has Netflix capabilities, so I turned it on and navigated the profile on the screen, which was Dutch.. so, that was tricky. I literally couldn’t figure out how to log that person out, so we just picked an English movie from their profile.. “Senior Year” with Rebel Wilson, cheesy, but funny.

After the movie, I changed and went for my run. I walked up to an area where my phone said there were gardens, to find out the gardens are on the other side of a huge brick wall that had locked gates.. so, I just did what I could in the park connecting to it, down a ways.. as I was running I made sure to stay near street lights and where I saw couples walking, strolling hand in hand.. but then I got this creepy feeling that I was about to be on an episode of Rome: SVU.. so I ran back towards the apartment and called it quits just under 2 miles.

We watched another movie before I showered and getting ready for bed. I’d say today has been the perfect first day in Rome. I’m excited to see what the rest of this week brings!