Day three in Rome we didn't have too much planned, we wanted to leave 1 day for just wandering. We had found a great little "bar" (coffee shop) very near our apartment that had free wi-fi the day before so once we were ready we grabbed the iPad and headed over for coffee and pastries and catching up on football scores!
After coffee we headed over to the Pantheon, we had walked by it the day before but didn't have time to check it out. It was really impressive inside, just crazy how old it is! Next to the Pantheon was a meat shop that was handing out samples. I am a sucker for ANYTHING that is free so we headed in. The meat was so good!!!! We decided to pick up some salami for a before dinner snack.
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| Pantheon! |
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View from the top of the gardens
We finally made it back to our apartment, after stopping at the bakery for some bread to go with our cheese and we were pretty tired, lucky for us it was siesta time so we partook. Upon awaking I headed out to find us some cheese and wine to go with our meat and bread and Cayce headed back to the bar to check the work emails and more football scores. We then showered up and enjoyed our little snack and wine before heading out.
 Alessandro (our apartment host) had recommended a restaurant to us that locals ate at. Having had pretty horrible luck with food at this point we decided this would be a good bet for tonight. It took us a bit to find the restaurant, Dal Paino. On a side note, i don't think I have mentioned how horrible I was with direction on this trip! I am ALWAYS the one to navigates us but I couldn't get us anywhere for the life of me! Needless to say this cause a few stressful moments in the first part of Rome but in the later part I had surrendered, it was all up to Cayce at this point! So...we found the restaurant and we could tell we were the ONLY tourists there, which was great and what we wanted, but with that comes a little intimidation! We walked up to the host stand and sat, nobody greeted us, we noticed there were about 6 other people milling in the street so we figured they were waiting for tables to and followed their lead. Sure enough a table opened up and the very Italian owner just pointed at two couples and they went and sat, it kind of reminded me of the soup Nazi. Finally it was our turn and we got seated! We were both starving so we ordered some Pomodoro with bread to start which was simple but amazing and I got a Margharita pizza and Cayce a white 4 cheese, both were delish. We finished it off with some fresh melon which was perfect! By the time we finished dinner we were ready to call it a night. We had made it somewhat of a ritual of picking up a bottle of wine on our way home to enjoy in our apartment, and we did the same this night, perfecto! Rome Day 4: Vatican and St. Peters Day! We had read that Wednesdays were good days to go to the Vatican because everyone would be at St. Peter's for the Pope's appearance. The guidebooks don't lie friends, we were into the Vatican in no less than 5 minutes upon arrival (we had pre-booked our tickets online, so that probably helped as well!). Side note - it may be wise not to bring a large backpack or purse because you HAVE to check large bags at security, which means you can take any exit shortcuts outlined in some of the guidebooks, we didn't realize this and had to check our bag. The Vatican was very neat, tons of art. To be honest we aren't really museum/art people, so for us it was a little much but we really did find it interesting. We were however on autopilot through the museum, this was by far the warmest day in Rome yet and it was like an oven in there, no AC and just stifling with all the people! We ended in the Sistine Chapel which was very cool to see and actually had AC, so we sat in there, with about 1000 other people for about 10 minutest. The one thing that surprised me was how small it was! Night fell upon us and we decided to head to Pizzeria Da Baffetto 2, which I had read about before our trip and was really close to our flat. We shared a big salad and a pizza and wine, all was good! After dinner we headed across the river to Trastevere. What a difference going across the river makes! This area was filled with young people, we couldn't believe how many people were out and about partying. We concluded it must be a university area as we saw a lot of exchange students. We had a couple drinks and some great conversation but all these young people were making us feel old so we headed off, wandered down the river home to Campo Di Fiori and found the perfect place for a nightcap (with people more our age) before turning in.  That about sums up Rome, here are my overall thoughts:
Next up.....Tuscany! |
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