Ah Rome! We stayed here the longest- 3 days. It was so neat you'd be just walking to your hotel, turn the corner, and BAM Trevi Fountain, a few blocks more, O look you accidentally ran into the Pantheon. Every few corners had some other really cool old thing. It was the most rewarding kind of accidental scavenger hunt.
Beware this is a long one :)
First we hit the Pantheon because we were dying to get inside. Ah it's so beautiful. The oculus is totally mesmerizing too.
We then headed down the road to the Colosseum but first stopped at the Victory Monument, which is gigantic. It's a newer building but still quite impressive.
You could take a tiny elevator to the top of it which gave a great 360 view of Rome. It was fun to start off with it because we could see everywhere we'd be going.
We then headed back down the road toward the colosseum & stopped to pose at some ancient ruines.
We got lucky and the line wasn't very long so we just waited it out for tickets right away. Inside we imagined how it all would have looked and how they sealed it tight enough to have water battles. It was cool to be in a place like this, sad so much of it was in ruins though. We could walk up the stairs to the second level which gave a really great overall view of the arena.
 |
| the Arch of Constantine |
We meandered through the Palantine and ruins of temples, basilicas, and the Roman Forum after that. Mostly we couldn't figure out what any of the ruines used to be but we had fun making up stories and putting on pretentious voices like we knew what it used to be. They had tours which I'm sure would have been super informative but we know ourselves well enough to know we aren't patient enough for that, plus we had more fun walking around and kissing behind ruines anyway.
 |
| Trevi Fountain |
We spent a morning here while I wrote down our travels of the day before
in a journal and then we both made wishes and threw in euros
Wandered back through Piazza Navona which has some Bernini fountains and lots of restaurants. Then we went to Campo de Fiori which is filled with market stalls during the day and then bars at night.
We stayed in an apartment which was really nice. We had a couch a fluffy bed and table. It had really great light and made our stay in Rome feel much cozier. Had the best late afternoon naps here.
After a nap we woke up craving tiramisu so hubs googled it and found there was a great place near the Spanish Steps so we took it to go and enjoyed it amoung the tourists. Ah if only I could eat tiramisu regularly, so darn good.
Then we walked along the water under old dropping trees, crossed over to visit a few buildings like the Castel Sant' Angelo, grabbed an espresso.
We found a random stray cat hideout amoung some old ruines, ha can't believe that there are ancient roman ruines all over. Starving we headed to the Il Ghetto for some Pita Shwarma and fried artichoke. Wow! These were so so good, plus it was a really fun atmosphere in the restaurant.
We loved all the cities we visited best and night and that definately held true in Rome. Everything was lit up and romantic, it made it feel more surreal and special to stop back at all these places mostly alone.
 |
| Spanish steps |
We dressed up cute one night and went to have dinner at a fancy place in the Piazza Navona. We had Caico e pepe, roman meatballs and sweet wine. The best part was we could spend the whole dinner outside with Bernini's fountains because there was a cute fire column next to us.
 |
| Pantheon |
 |
| Trevi Fountain |
You can tell we were getting tired because our photos dropped off significantly the last day we were in Rome. But we still had a really great day, it was sunny and slow. We stopped off and had wine, pasta, caprese at a restaurant right next to the Pantheon (we kept laughing because it was crazy that we could just do that). We found a cute leather shop and bought some gifts for our family, ate our last pistachio gelatos and took a visit to the Vatican! So cool it's a different country. We sent our families postcards from inside, we thought it was cool. The stamps were the pope, well the old pope.
We walked through a bunch of small museums and sculptures. We made it to the Raphael rooms which were really beautiful and cool to see so close up. Sadly no photos were allowed in the Sistene Chapel but we did spend quite a bit of time in it.
Next up St. Peter's Basilica, which is so so big. It was so impressive and grandiose, and free which was awesome too.
We spent the rest of our day soaking in sunshine and meandering back via a large park. Ended in Campo de Fiori with negronis and one last tiramisu next to a fire. The plane ride back was long and jet lag was enduring but the trip was amazing. We feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to go on a trip like these. We'll truly hold all our memories closely.
Thanks for letting me share it all.
Check out the earlier parts of our trip:
Istanbul
Pt 1 Pt 2 :
Venice :
Cinque Terre :
Florence
