July 2, 2018

Honeymoon has begun!! So with wrapping up Malaga, we were lucky to have TWO weeks free till Caoliang had to start work again. Many of his colleagues took this long break to go home but we took this break to see a new country and spend some time together after getting married. Where you ask? Italy! Home of pizza and pasta and people speaking with their hands!

This day was primarily a travel day. So from Malaga, we took a train to Madrid and then a flight to Rome. We didn’t arrive at Rome till the evening so really couldn’t do much. In each place we stay, we tend to look up AirBnBs for lodging. In Rome, we chose a place that wasn’t too far from the Vatican City. We had not been to Rome before but when looking at a map and using Google to figure out walking distance from things, I figured this location would be ideal. Our host, Antonello met us right outside the nearest station and kindly showed us our place. The room was small but it had everything we needed.

After dropping off our stuff, we were hungry! Luckily, Antonello recommended some places nearby that we could walk to and that were still open.

We ended up going to Buona Forchetta. It was a short 10 minute walk away and being that it was a little later in the evening, there wasn’t much car traffic or sun to slow us down. The restaurant was situated next to a residential area, the tables were all outside in front of the restaurant, and a decent amount of people were there. We ordered a pizza, spinach risotto and two beers. The food was tasty, affordable and beers necessary to celebrate the beginning of our trip. I was surprised at how cheap the pizzas at this place were. They were all about 6 to 9 euros each.

Even though this day was primarily travel. We were happy to arrive in Rome safely and to have the next two weeks free to exploring!

 

July 3, 2018

First full day! So I’m not sure if I have told you guys this before, but I’m a very plan oriented person. Before each new place or big trip, I tend to spend some time researching and creating an itinerary for the day. This helps me to feel productive and use my time wisely when going to a new place. In my opinion, I think when you don’t have much time in a new city, you have to know where you want to go and what you want to see before, so you don’t waste time on the actual day fiddling around with your phone trying to think of what to see next. Luckily, my husband doesn’t have a problem with me being so plan oriented.

So as I said, I had the two full days in Rome pretty planned out. I usually make my plans based on other travel bloggers I find via Google, using Google Maps suggested itineraries, or simply just looking at a map of the city and pulling out key interest points that Google already has suggested. From there, I check the distance and see how much time it would take to walk from point A to point B, etc.

On this day we started with Campo de’ Fiori. We took the city bus into the city to save some time and to get a better feel of where our apartment was located in relations to all the stuff we wanted to see. Campo de’ Fiori is a small market area in like a plaza area. All the vendors here sold mostly the same stuff: dried fruit, nuts, dried pasta and some cooking seasoning. The place was interesting to see but unless you were planning to buy something, little time would be spent here. I honestly wanted to buy some of the cool looking pastas but didn’t because of the lack of space in my luggage.

From there, we took a short seven minute walk to Largo di Torre Argentina. According to my research, this was a place with ruins of Pompey’s Theatre but now was a place where a bunch of cats lived. I didn’t see any cats roaming around but I did see a sign that said not to feed the cats because they already had specific food. Strange. As you could guess, we didn’t spend much time there either. Next we walked under the very hot Italian sun to Campidoglio. I’m guessing because Rome is the capital of Italy and it is high travel season, the city was very crowded. Did I mention it was hot? Anyways, Piazza del Campidoglio was laid down at the summit of Campidoglio, the most important of Rome’s seven hills, and is the first modern square to be designed in Rome. Surrounded the plaza was the Campidoglio Museum and Fontana della Dea Roma. We took this opportunity to find some shade and sip some water, along with snapping pictures and video of course. Roaming around the backside of the fountain, we saw the Roman Forum. This was actually very impressive and peaked our interests.

We didn’t exactly go down into the Roman Forum just yet, but we spent some time walking around it. It was actually more interesting to see it from above. We also saw some archaeologists working underneath a tent. I wonder, with something so old, how often do they really find new stuff?

Rome has a few major sites that nearly every tourist who comes to Rome plans to see. One of those things, is the Colosseum. We had purchased our entry tickets online, with Tiqets, before to enter at 4:30 pm (36 euros for two people). Because it’s such a high traffic place, you must have a ticket to enter. We got to the Colosseum grounds a bit early just because everything was unfamiliar to us and we wanted to be sure we weren’t late for our time slot. Once it was our time to go in, we entered smoothly and bought two additional tickets for a guided tour (5 euros a person). When we were outside waiting in line, there are a lot of people trying to sell you tickets or tours for way more money than it should be. Before we entered, there was a man that was trying to sell us a personal guided tour for 15 euros a person. He also told me there was no guided tour inside! What a liar! I’m glad we didn’t listen to him because the reality was, there ARE guided tours inside for much cheaper! So if you plan to come to the Colosseum, beware of those salesmen!!

Our guided tour started at 5:15 pm. The group was pretty large with at least 15 people in the group. I had never really done guided tours before but in Rome they were everywhere. The tour guide would give you this listening device where you would put one ear bud in, tune into the right station, and hear the guide perfectly no matter how close or far you were from them. I thought this simple device was pretty clever for something such as guided tours (but a little wasteful because they don’t recycle the ear buds).

 

Our tour guide was a French woman who knew a lot about her history. She started telling us about the background of the Colosseum and how it got named. You’ll have to forgive me on not knowing everything she told us. It was a lot to remember! The interesting part, for me, was the information about the gladiators. Some fun facts I didn’t know before: the arena was originally covered in sand. The word “arena” comes from the latin word harenae which means sand. The sand helped absorb the blood from the fights and executions. At the Colosseum, they had many fights, even animal fights. The different animals they had ranged from lions, panthers, tigers, gorillas, giraffes, snakes, elephants, and bears. There was also an order to how the events would happen at the Colosseum. Usually executions or animal fights would come before the gladiator fights. Another fun fact: even if the rare chance a gladiator gets his freedom, he is seen as society scum. He would be equal to prostitutes and grave diggers. Why them? Grave diggers because they deal closely with death and prostitutes because just like them, they use their body for glory.

Being in the Colosseum was pretty interesting. It is such an old place with so much history, I could only imagine how crazy the stands would be during those times or what the spectators would actually see happening before them.

I have also read about a tour of the tunnels in the Colosseum. Unfortunately for us, we didn’t have a booking for that so had to keep all our sights above ground.

After the craziness of the Colosseum, we ventured back towards the city center and came across the Pantheon. The Pantheon is an old Roman temple but now used as a church. It is one of the best preserved of all Ancient Roman buildings because it has been continuously used throughout history. Sadly when we walked by it, the church was closed so we didn’t get to see inside. But the square in front of the Pantheon, Piazza della Rotondo, was very busy with street performers, tourists, and people just hanging out enjoying gelato. Before coming to Rome, I heard that is has a bad reputation for pick-pocketers. So anytime we are in a busy area, like we were in this plaza, I get a little nervous and hold my bag in the front of my body. Also because of this fact, we didn’t spend too much time in the area and quickly moved on.

Nearby, we found a whole street of restaurants. One tricky thing you hope to get right when traveling, is picking the right place to eat! We decided on Il Barroccio based on a blog I read. The restaurant was near the Pantheon and the prices reflected the location as well. We had ordered a pasta and Caprese salad. The food was mediocre and forgetful but I think because of where the place was, the prices were that high for just ok food. Also another detail, in Italy, anywhere you eat there will most likely be a “service fee” of  about 2 euros a person. I guess you could think of it as a tip.

It was soon becoming nightfall but we still wanted to fit in at least one more thing. Our AirBnB host had told us that Janiculum Terrace was really nice and romantic at night. The walk from where we were was a bit far, thirty minutes, but we figured we could walk off our food and kind of be heading in the direction of the apartment. The walk here was a bit dark and out of the way so it made me feel a little uncertain with Google’s directions. Luckily, we made it to the top of the hill and it wasn’t all that great. The botanical garden right next to it had shrubbery that blocked a lot of the city. Also, Rome is a low city with not much to see from a high point. What was there though, were people having beers outside hanging out, a bar with live music, and a truck with snacks, beverages, and souvenirs. We went about 9:30pm and spent only a short time up there before decided to make the walk back down to call it a night.

xx
t.