Roman Holiday

The first part of our amazing 8 day romp through Italy was in Rome. You hear so much about this city but can never truly know until you have been. I can say it is definitely one of my favorite cities now. It really is the Paris of Italy in my opinion. Even though I am a Francophile, maybe I even liked it a little better than Paris?! Here is a synopsis of our time there. I don't write guides because I am not expert but I can say that it is possible to do Rome in just two and a half days! 

The first day we got in around 2pm after an 8 hour flight and a 2 hour connection from London. We took a cab to our hotel with the nicest driver who's family was five generation Roman. On our way to our hotel we got to see many sites which was a great introduction. After we checked in we walked around to the Piazza Spagna and the Trevi Fountain which was close to our hotel.  We definitely worked up an appetite so we went to dinner and I got my first bite of Italian Carbonara at a local restaurant. Later we drank delicious Sagrantino wine and then stumbled over to Harry's Bar for a nightcap. The funny thing about Rome is they never stop feeding you! Even though we were full after dinner we continued to devour the free snacks at Harry's and they even gave us free cookies.

The next day I woke up at sunrise as I do every trip for the beautiful light and empty city. After a beautiful walk we ate at the breakfast buffet at our hotel and saw Comedian Jim Gaffigan eating with his family! This was a huge day filled with stopping at all the tourist attractions including a tour of the lesser known Palazzo Doria Pamphilj which is still inhabited by the original family. After that I had to get some Gelato which became my lunch with a macaron on top (the Francophile in me of course). Then we cabbed to the Colosseum at sunset. To end the day we walked over to the Monti neighborhood and ate at Ai Tre Scalini. I had the most delicious pumpkin lasagna. It was still early, so a few hours later we sat outside at Taverna Dei Monti and got a pizza pie and more wine.

Our last day there we had to see the Vatican of course. Lines are the worst so we got tickets in advance and got right in. The Sistine Chapel was awe inspiring and the one place you cannot take photos, which I actually appreciated. It was nice to see everyone enjoying the moment. After that we walked to St. Peters but unfortunately there was the biggest line I had ever seen to get in. We decided to move on and not waste the day in line. Guess we will have to be back! We UBER'd over to the quaint Trastevere neighborhood and found a great spot for lunch. Percorsi Wine Bar was said to have the best burger in Rome and after two days of straight Italian I was ready for something different. It was honestly top 3 best burgers I ever had! After we were done with lunch I stopped to admire the huge chandelier in the restaurant and the waiter lowered the chandelier and told me to get in! I was raised to the ceiling on the chandelier like in a movie, it was so much fun! For dinner we ate a more high end Italian meal at Brunello which was fantasic!

This is probably the most I ever wrote in one blog post, but Rome was worth writing down each moment.