Well, Hotel Nazionale won the breakfast competition of the trip. Their buffet filled an entire room and included the exciting additions of eggs and fruit in addition to the usual carb options. After stuffing ourselves, we headed out to get our culture on.
As in Florence, our hotel in Rome was within walking distance of most of the landmarks we planned to visit. Our first stop was Palatine Hill. I think some emperors lived there. We waited over an hour in line for tickets. The sun was brutal and the site was underwhelming. We kept running into signs for Augustus’ house, which seemed to be pointing in every possible direction. We snapped some pictures and headed to lunch nearby, then went to the Colosseum. I spent some time looking at and taking pictures of the cross there that stands as a memorial for Christian martyrdom. To think of how much time and effort I have spent resisting various forms of sacrifice, clinging to the same notion of “It’s mine!” that I had as a three-year-old…and I was standing on ground where blood was shed by believers who would sooner lose their lives than claim them apart from Christ.
Dinner was a couple of blocks from our hotel, near the Pantheon. We sat outside and were served by a waiter named Marco who was blessed in the looks department. We may have been starving for male attention at this point, so our reaction to him may have been melodramatic. (“I’ve never felt like this before,” P. said.) After dinner, we walked by the Pantheon, beautifully illuminated in the moonlight. Then we walked to the area called Campo del Fiore (the Roman version of the bar district–a bunch of them surrounding a piazza) and hit a few bars. The Drunken Ship and Sloppy Sam’s were our favorite. Their titles, decor, and clientele left us feeling like they could be any bar in the U.S., which–like the Hard Rock the night before–was oddly comforting. We even played beer pong with some guys from Connecticut. It was a late night that led to a late wake-up the next day.
We finally all tumbled out of bed around noon, a little worse for the wear. We left the hotel in search of a nearby lunch, which we found a block away at an Irish (?) pub called the Black Duke. Lunch was Cokes, cheeseburgers and fries. When in Rome. We stopped for gelato on the way back and then hit our beds for what we planned to be a short nap. THREE HOURS LATER, at 6:30 pm, we woke up. Not wanting the day to be a total waste, we decided to take a cab over the Tiber River to the Trastevere area. We found outdoor seating at a restaurant in a piazza and it was there that I was introduced to spaghetti carbonara, a Rome specialty. We also had prosecco, house red wine, and chicken with lemon. A concert trio played in the piazza as the sun set. There was little conversation as we observed the romantic scene is sleepy appreciation. We decided to walk back to the hotel, crossing the river on the way and pausing on the bridge to admire the stillness of the water at night. We hung out for a few minutes at the Pantheon, where some guys on guitars were playing “Stairway to Heaven”–kind of a bookend to our Florence night with Simon and Garfunkel. Our last stop was for gelato, where I got chocolate chip with whipped cream on top. Because I could.
Present time: the BF and I head to Newport tomorrow for the weekend. Sailboats, cardigans, mansions…can’t wait!
