JennysCornerShop : Rome, Italy

When In Rome....

This December my husband took me to Rome, Italy for our 20th anniversary. We had a wonderful time. We were gone 8 days, and spent probably 5-6 hours each day walking through the streets of Rome.

Our Hotel

We found our hotel by luck, after reading through travel sites and review after review. We stayed at the Hotel Mediterraneo Roma located on Via Cavour 15. We highly recommend it, if not for the big rooms, big bathroom and shower, enormous breakfast buffet, then for the hotel concierge alone. His name is Walter, and was wonderful. He was ready and willing at any hour to answer each and every question we could possible have. (And we had a lot!) Loved him! And after talking to many other
Americans on our daily tours, many people complained about the tiny showers and unappealing breakfasts. So we were very happy with our decision to stay here.

We booked all of our tours online months before we left, through a company recommended to us by a friend, called Viator. I'll admit, I had my doubts. Booking a tour, 1000's of miles away, 5 months in advance. And we'd print instructions on where to meet, and what to look for, seemed obscure. But each day we'd get up, follow the instructions, and there our little tour guide would be waiting for us. Each tour we took was fabulous and we'd recommend them to anyone.

Robert, Walter and myself at our hotel,
Hotel Mediterraneo Roma

Here's what we did:

Day 1: Arrived, settled into our hotel. Jumped on a Hop On/Hop Off tour bus that just drove us around the city so we could get a feel for the city and the location of the main sites.

Day 2: Did the Ancient Rome, Colosseum and Roman Forum tour. We did the one that skips the line, and go to all of the levels of the Colosseum.

The Colosseo (as the Roman's call it)

Lower level inside the Colosseum

Inside the Colosseum

Inside the Colosseum from the upper level

The Arch of Titus

Day 3: We did the Catacombs, Appian Way, and Aquaducts tour. Leaves the city walls of Rome and travels 10-15 miles outside of Rome. The Catacombs were interesting, and the country side along the Appian Way is beautiful.

Robert and me standing on
some of the original stones along
the Appian Way

The aquaducts along the Appian Way

Along the Appian Way -- Near the aquaducts

One of my favorite scenes....some shepherds guiding sheep for miles
along the Appian Way, with nothing more than a staff
in their hands, and the call of their voice to guide them.
Reminded me of the verse, "My sheep hear my voice, and they follow after Me."

Day 4: We did a private tour of the Vatican, St. Peter's Basilica, and the Sistine Chapel. WELL worth the private tour fee. SO unbelievably nice to have a private guide and skip all the lines. Plus we could look longer at what interested us, and speed by what didn't.

St. Peter's Basilica at sunset

St. Peter's up close

St. Peter's

Overlooking the Vatican Gardens

Outside St. Peter's

Day 5: We had a "free" day, where we didn't have anything planned. We ended up going to the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, and the Church of Santa Maria where the Bocca della Verita, or the Mouth of Truth, is located. This was one of our favorite days because we wandered up and down the cobble stoned streets in the Pantheon district, window shopping, stopping for Cappuccinos, pizza at a side café, and buying some of the local handmade items for gifts to take home. Not to mention a stop at the famous Lindt chocolate store where Robert bought $35 worth of chocolate. And it's pretty cheap there....so that was a LOT of chocolate!

The Pantheon - Temple to all gods
Inscription at the top states in Latin,
"Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucio, three times consul made this".

Inside the Pantheon

Our favorite day -- shopping in the
Pantheon district

Inside the Lindt Chocolate store in the Patheon shopping district

Shops along the way

Outside the church of Santa Maria, the Bocca della Verita
This image has been in several movies, including Roman Holiday with
Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn.

This is the Circus Maximus. The length is of this arena is that of 3 football fields.
It is here, not the Colosseum, where most of the Christians were executed.

The Trevi Fountain.
We sat by the fountain and enjoyed our
first taste of gelato.

The Spanish Steps

Day 6: We did make one day trip, our last day in Italy, outside of Rome, to Pompeii. We got to see the Pompeii museum located in the heart of Naples. Then ventured out to the geological site of Pompeii where we got to spend several hours walking around the ruins, and see Mt. Vesuvius. Fascinating. We learned that the Campania region in southern Italy where Naples is located is the origin of the pizza. And I will say, the best pizza we ate while in Italy was here in Naples.

Mt. Vesuvius -- The Italians call it, The Vesuvio
It is the most dangerous volcano in the world right now. Though
we didn't know this before going!

The oranges to the left are normal sized oranges. The lemons
that grow here in the Campania region are known
to be the best in Italy. They say the ground
is so fertile here because of the ash from Mt. Vesuvius.

Pompeii

Cobble stoned streets of Pompeii

Some of the silver
found in Pompeii that is
now at the Museum of Pompeii in
Naples.

Pompeii

One of the many people found after the eruption in Pompeii

Me and Robert -- Streets of Pompeii

Transportation

While in Rome, we used the metro a lot. It's the underground subway system. We also rode the city buses, and took a few cabs (despite warnings from friends). I had been to Italy before, and was prepared for the way they drive. But if you've never been, it IS a little bit to get used to. Just remember, THEY drive that way every day and are used to it, so you'll PROBABLY be fine!
(The driving in Naples is 10x worse though! So be prepared if you go there.) I would HIGHLY recommend you leave the driving to the locals, and not try to drive among them. They're used to it, we are not. And it is quite intimidating to watch.

Food
Our hotel had an AMAZING breakfast buffet, with just about anything and everything you could possibly want.

The breakfast buffet at our hotel.
And there's another whole wall this
picture doesn't show, including the cappuccino
and expresso machine.

See the coffee cup? It's a normal size. This
had to be the biggest donut I've ever seen.
Needless to say, I only had a couple of bites!

For lunch, we would usually grab something quick, like a pizza or calzone, or Panini wherever we happened to be at the time.

Pizza outside the Colosseum
Look over his shoulder and you can see the
Colosseum!

Panini lunch just outside of Vatican City,
near St. Peter's Basilica

For dinner, we usually found a quaint little restaurant to sit down and eat at. Here are the names of four restaurants we ate at that we would highly recommend.
La Grotta Amatricaiana
Ristorante L 'Europeo (ate here twice)
Ristorante Fulvimari
La Buca di Repetta Restaurante (ate here our last night, and was our favorite)

In so many of these little restaurants, you walk down stairs as you
enter, and it's just like in the movies! Old stone walls, wine bottles all along
the walls. So neat! Glad we ventured our way around and tried
new places. It was always neat to see inside each new place we tried.

My first dinner, lasagna.

Creamy rigatoni pasta with (real) Italian sausage. Delicious!

Potato gnocchi with meat sauce. Fabulous.

And the best for last....Our last night in Italy we ate
at La Buca di Repetta Restaurante. This was called
Cacchiopeppa in a parmesan basket. That's right, the basket was
made out of baked, fresh parmesan. OMG!

Coffee

They do things different in Rome. We are accustomed to having our giant cups of coffee handed to us and then take it with us as we leisurely stroll about our way, off to shop or walk about sight seeing. Well, not so. Here, you go up to the counter and pay for the coffee you want. Then you take the ticket to the barista, and then they make the coffee.

Now here's the part we didn't learn until the last day. You stand and drink your coffee at the counter, and then leave. You CAN sit down to drink it. But there is a law that states that if you stand at the counter, they can only charge you 1 Euro. If you sit to drink, they can charge you whatever price they desire. (That explains the $14 dollars we paid to sit and drink coffee outside of the Pantheon!)

Here's that super expensive cappuccino by the Parthenon! And no,
it may LOOK like an expresso, but that was what they called a
cappuccino cup! Robert's expresso was even smaller!

Shoes/Clothes
We were told that most people wear black over there, and if you didn't want to stand out like a tourist, we should wear a lot of black too. Well, they were right. Our Colosseum tour was the largest tour group we had, with about 15 people in it. Each and every person, including our Roman guide, were in black head to toe. Aside from a colorful scarf here and there. And by the way, everyone and their dogs wear scarves over there. Everyone. I loved it!

We were told that December was the best time of the year to go by every Roman we came in contact with. It's not hot, and not nearly as crowded. They said it's so hot and crowded in the summer (and very few places have air conditioning) that people pass out left and right!

I cannot stress enough to wear comfortable shoes. I paid the most I've ever paid for shoes before we left and was most grateful to have a comfortable (black!) pair of walking shoes!

Money
Most places do take credit cards. You just need to make sure you contact your credit card company, and your bank if you use your debit card, to inform them you are traveling overseas. We were told that debit cards are a last resort because of the exuberant fees they can charge you. We did use ATM machines over there and recommend that. And it's better to withdraw a large amount each time you have to withdraw, because there is a fee each time. But it's only like a 3% fee.

I made a money bag/pocket to wear under our clothes to keep larger bills in. They worked perfectly, and I would highly recommend one. Pick pockets are very common in Rome, although because of the time of the year, we did not get anything stolen. We were told it WOULD happen, but having our coats around us helped with that. We also kept our passports in the money bag and kept them with us at all times. We did make copies of our passports, and kept them in the safe of our hotel room though, as a back up.

Contacts
I recommend having the number of your hotel programmed into your phone, in case you get lost. Also program the US Embassy number in your phone, just in case of an emergency. I also took a list of all my medications along with the dosage, in case my luggage got lost, or in case flights were canceled. Can't be too careful with that!

And finally, I recommend Rick Steves' Pocket Rome book. It is small, and you can take it in your purse each day you're in Rome. It comes with a map, and such detailed information. Anything you could possibly want to know when you're out and about is in there!