I’ll admit, when my friends and I booked tickets to go to Rome and Florence for our fall break, I was slightly skeptical about Rome. Our program in Spain thus far has been full of touring ancient Roman ruins and architecture, so I was expecting Rome to just be more of the same, just with more tourists. But, as with every other city we’ve seen during this trip, Rome COMPLETELY exceeded my expectations in every way possible.
We had a pretty effortless trip to Rome: all our trains and planes were on time, we breezed through security, and we made it to our gate with relative ease. This was already a vast improvement from our trip to Zurich back in September. When we landed in Rome we were picked up by a private driver (courtesy of our awesome Air BnB host Paolo) who took us to our Air BnB.
Our Air BnB was INSANE. It was on a gorgeous street, a three minute walk to a metro station that took us everywhere we needed to go, and a 15 minute walk to the Colosseum. It was beautifully decorated and super comfortable! After we got settled in this gorgeous place (how in the world were we able to afford this lmk) we walked towards the colosseum in search of food.
We ended up at this pizza place super close to the colosseum, and enjoyed our first of many delicious Italian pizzas. We then took a walk down to the colosseum and walked all around it, and then kept walking and explored a little of downtown Rome for awhile. We saw some amazing ruins, impressive architecture and crazy talented street artists. The sunset was gorgeous, and the silhouette of the buildings against the pink sky was beautiful. It got dark ridiculously early, at around 5pm, so that combined with our long travel day made it feel like 10pm. We were super tired so we went back to the Air BnB to plan the rest of our evening. We ended up just getting some cheap Chinese takeout for dinner that night, and we had a relaxing night eating our orange chicken, drinking cheap wine and watching the Lizzie McGuire movie (when in Rome, right?).
The next morning, we decided to take a guided tour of the Colosseum so that we could see the inside. Going with a tour guide in a group was actually cheaper than going in individually, and we only had to wait about 45 minutes as opposed to two and a half hours. Our tour guide was this young happy guy named Antonio who was a wealth of knowledge about the Colosseum. The most interesting thing that we learned was that it only took the Romans 10 years to build the Colosseum, which is insane considering its massive size and their lack of technology. The tour took a while and there was a lot of standing around and waiting, but it was worth it. The inside, somehow, seems even bigger than the outside. It was surreal to think about how many people and animals died fighting in the middle, and how many people would actually come to watch these shows.
After our tour we were RAVENOUS so we went to the first restaurant we could find. It was super cute and Italian looking, and we got to sit outside. I had the best lasagna of my entire life at this restaurant, no exaggeration. We were extremely happy and content after our meal, and set off to do some more sight seeing.
Our first stop was the Trevi Fountain, and I swear I have never seen so many tourists in my life. We had to push and shove our way to the front, and unfortunately there was a gate around it so we couldn’t get as close. I threw a coin, Lizzie McGuire style, but since the gate kept us farther from the fountain I’m pretty sure it didn’t even go in. It was still amazing though, it’s such an impressive fountain! We only stayed there a few minutes because it was so crowded, and next we walked to the Spanish Steps.
I’m honestly not entirely sure the history behind the Spanish Steps? I’m pretty sure they were a gift from Spain but I don’t know when or why. It was beautiful though! It was a really nice area of the city, across from a bunch of fancy stores like Chanel and Louis Vuitton. After we took a few pictures sitting on the steps we walked to the Pantheon, which was really close.
The Pantheon looks old. All of these monuments and buildings are obviously very old, but for some reason it was more obvious when looking at the Pantheon. The inside was spectacular and very ornate. We grabbed some gelato from this great place right next to it, and then sat and enjoyed the view for a little while. Somehow we figured out the bus system, and we took the bus back to our Air BnB.
That night we met up with another friend from our study abroad group, who was also in Rome visiting some of his other friends. We all went out to an Ice Club which was so cool (literally), none of us had ever done anything like that before. They give you big cloaks to wear to keep you warm, but drinking out of the ice cups literally made my hands and lips numb. We went on Halloween, which made it an even cooler experience.
We got up bright and early and took the metro to Vatican City, where we joined hordes of people trying to enter. We were standing in a crowd of people, trying to get to the center area, when all of a sudden everyone started cheering and clapping and pointing. It was super startling, and we looked up to where everyone was pointing, and the LITERAL POPE was standing in a window, giving a speech in Latin. We were absolutely shocked. Apparently, little did we know, the Pope gives an address every Wednesday morning, and we just happened to be there for it. We had absolutely no expectations of seeing the Pope when we left that morning, but it couldn’t have worked out any better.
After his speech, when our shock wore off and the crowds thinned out, we made our way to St. Peter’s Basilica. Throughout our study abroad experience we have seen our fair share of Cathedrals and Basilicas, but THIS ONE WAS MASSIVE. You feel like an ant when you walk in. Even for someone not religious, like me, it leaves you in awe. Being in Vatican City in general is pretty awe inspiring, since it is the center of one of the largest religions in the world. Although I’m not Catholic, it was still amazing to experience. Unfortunately, since we were there during the Holy Week, the Sistine Chapel was closed. So after we saw the Basilica, we found a restaurant close by and got lunch.
Travel tip: DO NOT EAT IN VATICAN CITY. That lunch was the most expensive meal we had in all of Italy, and it was also the crappiest food. Everything on the menu had an asterisk, meaning it is frozen food, and you could definitely tell.
We ended up needing to take a nice siesta that afternoon (living in Spain for two months has this effect on you) and then packed up and cleaned our Air BnB. For dinner that night, we walked across the street to a cute little neighborhood restaurant that our host Paolo recommended to us, and I had the best ravioli I’ve ever had in my life. Later, we met back up with our other friends and went to a club that they had picked out. I don’t remember what it was called but we had a good time! It wasn’t the best crowd and it was a little pricey, but it had a good atmosphere.
The next morning we had an early train to Florence. The train station was surprisingly difficult to navigate, it took us forever to figure out which platform we had to go to, but we made it to the train in time. Rome was absolutely amazing and we had the most relaxing, perfect, flawless two and a half days!
Idly Wild 