Rome

Rome was an amazing city and a great first stop on our Italian Adventure. We flew in on Saturday at 9:30 AM, after spending the night sleeping on the airport floor at the Madrid International Airport.  We’ve become accustomed to sleeping anywhere (airports, train stations, buses, you name it, I’ve snoozed there), under any conditions, always with our purses wrapped around us, and our backpacks under our heads. We stopped for brunch outside of the train station, a delicious sandwich with veggies, cheese and red sauce, before searching for the fabled Roma Pass. This pass allowed us three days of unlimited metro and bus use, as well as 2 free entrances into a list of sights. After moseying around between tobacco and newspaper stands in the heart of the city, we finally found one and set off on our metro adventure to our “hostel”. The metro in Rome is waaay deeper below the city than one’s we’ve used in Spain. During one of our visits, it was noted that they used underground tunnels created by the Romans back in the day as tunnels for the metro.

After a short metro ride and hopping a bus, we made it to Camping Village Roma! 

Yes, camping. We weren’t too sure what we were getting into when we booked the reservation, but the reviews were great and the price was cheap. We opted for the “bungalow”, which was a small trailer, divided in two, with 3 beds and a small bathroom occupying each half. There was no room for activities. As we slept on a concrete floor and the most basic airplane I’ve ever seen (no reclining, no SkyMall, no foot rests…) the night before, we decided to bikini up and head to the pool for a short nap before we ventured back down into the main area of the city.

Around 4:00, we set off for the Trevi Fountain, the really huge, famous fountain near the center of the city (featured in the Lizzie McGuire Movie!). 

This place was PACKED. People everywhere, posing for photos, taking photos, pickpocketing people taking photos… it was insane. After throwing in a few coins and taking a few pictures of our own, we headed to Pizzaria da Baffetto, a famous pizza place that was on the top of our guidebooks list of restaurants. The walk getting there was intense, as we kept stumbling on amazing buildings, but had no idea what they were. The line for the pizzeria was out the door and across the alley, so we grabbed a spot in line, then rotated visiting the gelato stand next door to tide us over. My first gelato experience was YUMTASTIC: half chocolate and orange and half chocolate and caramel. When our desert was finished, we got a seat inside the packed restaurant. This place has huge tables, so the three of us were sat with a cute little Asian couple for dinner. We ordered bruschetta, then the house pizza (sausage, peppers, mushrooms, artichoke, and fried egg) along with a margarita pizza, then ate like we were homeless. The combination of flavors seemed strange, but was beyond amazing.

 I will definitely be spicing up my pizzas back home with a little fried egg action. Once our bellies were full, we continued meandering around the city, with a general direction in mind, happening upon beautiful plazas with statues and fountains and street vendors galore. We made our way back to the camping village around 11:00, and missed out on the “toga party” (mostly attended by drunk 16 year olds – legal drinking age here) at the village’s dance club.

The next morning we got up, and ventured back into the city. We grabbed some breakfasty foods at the market the day before, so we threw those in our backpack. We also scored some to go espresso (not a common concept here) and walked a few short blocks back to the Trevi Fountain. We found an unoccupied area (it was WAAAY less crowded than the night before) and set up our little breakfast. The market croissants were so-so, but who can say they’ve had breakfast on the steps of the Trevi?!

We then set out for the Colosseum, were able to bypass the gigantic line (thanks to the handy dandy RomaPass) and get right in. Instead of paying for an audio guide or group tour, we worked stealthily, and eavesdropped on other groups when we were curious about something. Bonus: there were as many Spanish tours as English and French, etc., so we were able to utilize our bilingual-ness to get some free info. The Colosseum was amazing.

 It had amazing views, steep steps and great information on signs (yes Jennie, you would have hated us, we read ALL of the signs). I still can’t imagine watching people get eaten by lions or panthers, or two men trying to kill each other as a source of entertainment, but to each, their own… I’ll stick to Project Runway. Next, we found a nice menu at a restaurant nearby and grabbed a table. After placing our order and noticing our surroundings, we realized that we were in the gay district of the city, which made the restaurant’s name (Coming Out), and rainbow flag make sense. I ordered an iced coffee and gnocchi and was not disappointed.

Afterwards, we headed to the Roman Fourm and Palatine. The Fourm contains ruins from old, old, old structures from the Roman heyday, mostly churches, government buildings and gardens. The Palatine was described by our guidebook as the Beverly Hills of the Romans. Anyone who was somebody during the Roman times lived in this neighborhood. The remains of the houses were still amazing, and featured giant gardens with swimming pool sized fountains… one Emperor even had a private Olympic style stadium built next to his house, you know, for when you want to invite you friends over to play discus or run a decathlon. This two-part adventure took almost 12 hours (including lunch), so we were again in dire need of nutrients. We found a gelato stand (desert is always better first) before finding a small, family ran restaurant with an Italian Napoleon Dynamite as our server. My lasagna was loaded with cheese and yummygoodness, however my drink was a different story. I was under the impression that I was ordering a glass of white wine, but when it was brought to me, it was in a shot glass sized wine glass. I’m still not 100% on what I drank, but I think it was super concentrated white wine, that burned like tequila when I drank it. I waiting until Napoleon wasn’t looking to consume is, as I am under the impression that it’s a drink you’re supposed to sip and enjoy, not take like a shot.

Monday was our last day in Rome. We woke up, but on our church approved best and headed to the Vatican City. We stopped at a bread shop before entering the city, and consumed the most amazing sweet/danish/croissant of flakey goodness filled with gooey dough and chocolate, coated in a layer of sugar. I also had the pleasure of chatting with the owner, who just got back from Colorado, “knows about Michigan” and wished us luck on our adventure. Once we made it to the Vatican wall, we found a mega line waiting for us. After having the line-free experiences everywhere else in Rome, we paid our dues and waited. After an hour, we made it into the Vatican Museum, post metal detection and xraying of the bags. The place was huge… like 16 museums and the Sistine Chapel all in one complex huge. After passing by the audio guide line, we got out into the garden. Even being there was too overwhelming, so we doubled back, sucked it up and spent the money we saved on our student discount on the audio guides. Walking through here felt like the poor Packerland cows… being forced and pushed through hallways, and missing out on chances to see amazing art. Finally I was just over all of the touching, prodding and rudeness, and when we found a shortcut to the Sistine Chapel that allowed you to skip a few museums, we jumped on it. The chapel was amazing, and nothing like I imagined. Michelangelo’s paintings have been cleaned and restored, so they were amazingly bright and way larger than I expected.

 We found a spot to sit in the Sistine Chapel and gawk for a solid 30 minutes before heading out for another meal of fettuccini and salad (sights and food, literally all we do here). We returned to the Vatican for the St. Peter’s Square experience before heading into the basilica. The square was amazing, not so full of tourists and filled with more stuff I’ve seen in movies. So fun! The basilica was another huge, open church, my preference over the dark, depressing cathedrals we’ve seen in some Spanish cities. Michelangelo painted the dome too, so there was some continuity between Vatican sights.

Last we made our way to the Spanish steps and another amazing plaza.

There were tons of teenagers hanging out and drinking on the immense staircase as we gawked at its amazingness. We headed back to the main bus/train station to buy tickets when we encountered metro problems. An entire half of the metro was out of service, so we took the bus tour of the city; we got to see all of the stuff we’ve been missing below the ground. We purchased our train tickets to head for Florence at 6:48 am the next day, grabbed some dinner and headed off to bed.