We spent our two and a half days walking all around town.  We stayed in Trastevere, so all the major sights were within walking distance.  On Saturday afternoon/evening, we got our bearings, sticking close to the center of town (Campo dei Fiori, Piazza Navona, Pantheon).  On Sunday, we covered a lot of ground – probably too much, because on Monday, my tootsies were a wee bit sore.  We set out at about 8:30 am for the Colosseum and Forum.  Then we walked over to Piazza Navona to do some people watching and eat a ridiculously overpriced but decent lunch with crap service (expected).  Then we walked up to the Spanish Steps, climbed them and strolled around in the Borghese Gardens for a couple hours (this was wonderful – we didn’t go here last time, and it was beautiful and shady and had a lot of fountains with drinking water so we could cool off from the 90+ degree heat).  We walked back across town via the Trevi Fountain and got home around 6:00 pm to rest a little bit before dinner in Trastevere.  On Monday, we went to see St. Peter’s Basilica.  We didn’t go to the Vatican Museum and see the Sistine Chapel, but if you go to Rome, you should definitely do that (we did it last time).  Then we strolled around some more, ate lunch at a wonderful and cheap tavern near Piazza Navona, walked around some more, went home, rested, then went out to dinner at the Peroni Birreria (like an Italian-German beer hall, complete with sausage and sauerkraut!), and then walked to the Trevi Fountain to see it by night.  Pictures below:

One of the statues in the Piazza Navona

Another statue in the Piazza Navona

Detail of one of the statues in the Piazza Navona

The crowds move through the entrance of The Pantheon.

The interior of The Colosseum

A view over a part of the Roman Forum. The garish, white building in the background is the Victor Emmanuel Monument.

Meredith leads the way through the Forum with guidebook in hand.

Detail of the Arch of Septimius Severus in a corner of the Forum.

Drinking from Il Nasone, one of Rome’s many public fountains.

Meredith loved the many dragons around Rome. This one is another public fountain.

Domes of buildings in the Piazza Venezia in front of the Victor Emmanuel Monument.

The view down the Spanish Steps.

A view from the Villa Borghese Gardens out onto Rome, with the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica in the background.

Boating in the Villa Borghese Gardens.

The Trevi Fountain during the day. Actually, not the fountain but the perpetual crowds around it.

Here we are at the Trevi Fountain at night when it is lit up and looks very nice.

At the Vatican, the Swiss Guard stands ready at one of the entrances.

A Bernini altar in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican.

Detail from the ceiling in St. Peter’s Basilica.

Outside L’Antica Birreria Peroni where we had dinner.

A typical night scene in Trastevere.

- Meredith & Dave

– Dave

Il elefante bianco

For a moment I entertained thoughts of driving this around, especially the look that would be on our friends’ faces when we came back to the airport the next day to pick them up in this thing. But Meredith said, “no way” and we headed back up to the desk. The man’s eyes widened and Meredith said, “troppo grande!” We cleared up the confusion and ended up with a VW minivan that was “perfetto” and much more “similar” to the original I had rented.

– Dave

• Getting lost on tiny cobblestone streets.
• Eating dinner ai fuori (outside) and listening to everyone around me speak Italian.
• Getting shooed into the world’s tiniest elevator with Dave, all of our luggage and our B&B host Norberto (seriously, one person shouldn’t even ride in this thing).
• Walking down the Roman Forum on the same stones that people walked on 2000 years ago. I took Latin in high school and learned about all of this 20 years ago, and I’ve been wondering why it’s taken me so long to come here and see it with my own eyes. Seeing all of these buildings and roads that were built during the rise and fall of Rome made me feel better – as if 20 years really wasn’t that long ago.
• Strolling down the Via Appia Antica on a warm sunny Sunday when cars aren’t allowed to drive there.

- Meredith

- Meredith

There’s so much to do here, and we’ve been trying to pack it all in. That has left little time for blogging, let alone thinking about what to post. I haven’t even written down everything we’ve done yet, but here is the quick and dirty laundry list.

Things we’ve visited inside and out:

• Colosseum
• Roman Forum
• Pantheon
• Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel
• St. Peter’s Basilica
• San Giovanni in Laterano (this was a surprise visit – we went in when we were walking by looking for a gelateria that is supposed to be the best in Rome – more on that in a subsequent post!)
• Catacombs of Domatilla (seriously creepy, except when the kids from Boston who were in the same tour group as us said, “hey, these big graves look like Bertucci’s pizza ovens!”)

Here are things we’ve seen while walking:

• Piazza Navona
• Campo dei Fiori
• Spanish Steps
• Vittorio Emanuele Monument and Campidoglio
• Castel Sant’Angelo
• Baths of Caracalla

- Meredith