Today was our first full day in Rome and I do believe we pretty much saw most of it! ...at least that's what my feet are telling me at the moment.
.:)
After a light breakfast here in our room we headed back over to the train terminal a couple blocks away to purchase our train tickets for our trip later this week up to Venice (via Pisa and Florence). We also bought two
Roma Passes which give us free entry into a few of the major tourist spots. Then we headed down toward the
Colosseum about 30 minutes walk away. It was quite impressive! Photos can hardly to do it justice.
Once we had wandered around long enough and felt that we had gotten our money's worth in photos, we went down the street and explored the
Palantine Hill.
After getting lost among these royal ruins and getting completely turned around, we finally figured out where we were and headed over toward the Pantheon, wandering through the small side streets and quaint & picturesque Italian alleys that are EVERYWHERE throughout this city. We had to consciously NOT take pictures of every little street we passed! Along the way we stopped in a small cafe and enjoyed a tomato & mozzarella sandwich and a spinach & cheese panini.
The
Pantheon was absolutely stunning! It's always been a personal favorite of mine and so it was a treat to finally see it in person. After spending a bit of time in & around the Pantheon we made our way through the small cobblestone streets across town to the Spanish Steps. This is the nicest part of town that we've seen yet. Nice shops, quaint little buildings, yummy looking restaurants and gilato shops....
The Spanish Steps are a gathering place for tourists and locals in the afternoons... I don't know why, but it is. This was quite an interesting area of town.
Leaving the Spanish Steps we headed back "home", across town and stopped for some
gilato along the way. All in all I think we must have covered 5 or 6 miles today (maybe more). I haven't yet looked at a map to find out for sure.
For supper we tried out the "Indian Fast Food" restaurant right around the corner from our room. We had two kinds of curry & rice and shared a samosa & vegetable pakora. It all was a bit oily, but still pretty good.
...and that's the Reader's Digest version of our second day in Italy.
Italy08vacation
