Sep
23
Andy and I arrived to Rome three days early for a little honeymoon before heading to Arezzo to begin classes.
I was disappointed with our taxi ride to Rome. I had told Andy about last year when there was a traffic jam on the highway, and everyone was just ignoring lanes, fitting through whatever small spaces they could find. I saw some of the worst Rome driving. (See what I mean with this video.) Unfortunately, it was a pretty smooth ride. We made it to the hotel around 11. Amazingly, our room was already ready at that time, and they had upgraded us from the annex of the hotel to a room with a view of the Pantheon!
View from our room at Hotel Abruzzi
It was perfect! W were right there in the middle of everything. It was about a 5 minute walk to Piazza Navona, a little more to Campo Di Fiori, 15-20 to Colosseum, etc. Lovely, except for the fact that it was deathly hot. I think I was sweating more in Rome than I had been in Oklahoma. The nice thing with Rome is that they have public water fountains all over! You buy a bottle of water once, and just keep refilling it whenever you need. Saved us so much money to be able to drink out of those.
Our first stop after dropping our bags off and cooling down for a bit was Tazza D’Oro for coffee granita! It is so delicious. Shaved ice and coffee with some whipped cream (this one had too much but I scraped it off haha). Perfect way to cool down a little.
Granita from Tazza d'Oro
Pizza lunch at Mercato in Campo di Fiori
We walked around and explored all day, and went to Piazza Navona that night to eat some tartufa, a delicious dessert from Tre Scalini.
Tartufa from Tre Scalini
Piazza Navona at night
In Rome, you feel like a true gladiator. Your life is a constant battle. A battle against foreign vendors trying to sell you random toys, knock-off purses, roses, singing cat dolls, toy rabbits, bubble guns, laser pointers and more. Most spoke English to me, but a few chose Spanish thinking I was a Spaniard. Interesting. I would say, “No grazie” or “No thank you,” but if they were pushy, I would start saying random things in Russian because I knew that was a language they would not speak, and they would leave me alone. At one point, a guy near the Colosseum started following me trying to push roses in my hands so I had to loudly say “Lasciami sta!” or “Leave me alone!” That did the trick.
Rome has its vendor problems, but the monuments and scenery outshine anything else. The big government building Il Vittoriano, the Colosseum, Trajan’s Column, the Pantheon, Piazza Navona, La Fontana di Trevi… the list goes on and on! The eternal city has some pretty amazing history.
Trajan's Column
Il Vittoriano
Il Colosseo
In Rome there is an ancient ruins kitty park. That is not the official name, but sounds good enough to me. Basically, in the middle of Rome there is an area of a bunch of old ruins, and 50-100 (in my estimate, but probably even more hiding) cats live there. The city pays for them to be vaccinated, etc, and they are available for adoption. There was one that looked just like our kitty back home in St. Louis. We miss him a lot, it was fun to see his Roman twin.
The Roman kitties
What a life, lounging around on ancient ruins!
At night we did a tour of the Colosseum. Incredible! It is so beautiful at night. We also got to go down to the bottom level of the Colosseum and explore around a bit. We didn’t get to walk out in the middle, but it was amazing to think we were standing where lots of animals and gladiators used to stand, to consider the history of the ground upon which we were walking.
Underground tour of the Colosseum
On Sunday, we woke up and explored some more. We walked out to the Villa Borghese and visited the Galleria Borghese (full of paintings and sculptures, particularly some of my favorite Bernini scuptures). Rome is a fun city and we will definitely be back during the semester!
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