Last Day in Rome

On our last day in Rome we woke up and took a cab to the Villa Borghese.  After a lovely morning of art (my favorite was Apollo and Daphne by Bernini) we headed back to our hotel for some quality R&R at the pool.  As soon as we got out there, it started raining, of course, so we spent some time enjoying the Turkish baths and nap room.  We were so bummed our pool day was ruined, but we settled for some other forms of R&R.

We strolled down to a cluster of sidewalk cafes we'd stumbled across a few nights earlier.  We sat at a sidewalk cafe at a table next to a lovely couple from the States and chatted for hours.

We ordered antipasto, which was prepared in a style similar to that served by my family on holidays, had to take a photo.

We strolled around and got some final gelatos of the trip and then headed back to the room to finish our bottle of wine and pack for our flight home the next morning.  I've never been excited about the prospect of going to Europe, but I'd definitely return to Italy.  Next time I'd love to go to France or Greece or Spain!

The Day We Ran Into Rick Steeves, Saw the Vatican, and Other Things

Darryl arranged for us to have a private tour of the Vatican while we were in Rome.  We saw all the big sites, the Sistine Chapel (and totally illegally took photos of it) and St. Peter's Basilica. 

Here we are in front of the main altar in St. Peter's.

This man is clearly asking the Swiss Guards for fashion tips. 

Me in front of St. Peter's.

After a 3 and a half hour tour from our lovely guide, we decided to catch some lunch.  We went to a couple places in our Rick Steeves guide book but we either couldn't find them or they had gone out of business.  I was nervous because the Steeves states that most of the eating establishments around the Vatican are sub par, so I really wanted to stick to the book.  We bickered a bit, Darryl was sick of following the book.  Right about then, following the book paid off in a big way. 

We stepped into a cafe from the guide book, I started to go in to the air conditioned part but Darryl stopped me and said he wanted to sit outside.  While we were sitting there waiting for our food I was casually flipping through the guide book and eavesdropping on an intense business related argument at the table next to ours.  I took my shoe off and started fussing with my blister guards and next thing I know the guy in the argument jumps up and runs from the table next to us.  I figured they'd finally come to blows but snapped out of it when Darryl says, "it's Rick Steeves".  The guy had run up to him to shake his hand.

It took a while to register, of course I froze like a deer in headlights with my Rick Steeves guidebook in one hand and my shoe in the other, there he was, in all his glory, 10 feet away from us.  The Steeves cometh.  Finally, when I snapped out of it I screamed at Darryl, GET THE CAMERA!

 I may have been paralyzed in awe of the Steves, but I did get a few photos of him dashing off across the street towards the Vatican with his camera crew.  We were talking with the owner and he said that Rick Steves comes there once a year and that they were shooting a segment inside for his TV show.  I will never forgive Darryl for not letting me lead us to eat inside ;)!

 This is my smug "I just saw Rick Steeves in ITALY and also I have gelato" face.

After our big lunch, we stopped for gelato.  Yes, gelato was served as an included dessert, but we got more, I don't need your judgement.  Then we walked down to St. Angelo's Castle and climbed to the top for some sweet city views.  After all this, we were spent.  We hiked back to the subway, which dropped us off to our hotel shuttle station and then took a nap.  That night, we decided to hang around the hotel.  Since even the room service and cheap restaurant were above our price range, we had some cocktails and snacks in the executive lounge (free) and then struck out in the residential neighborhood surrounding the hotel.  We made a pact and decided to eat at the first place we came to.

Not far from the hotel we ate at a place called "The View" where we were the only tourists in there amongst a ton of loud locals.  We were greeted with a complimentary glass of champagne and a spectacular view of Rome at sunset.  We started with beer cured beef carpaccio served with guacamole (not too shabby with the guac, Italy).  For my main I had the best, most melt in your mouth, lamb chops that I've ever tasted in my life.  We had an amazing basil creme brulee for dessert and strolled hand in hand back to our hotel room, a couple blocks away.  Much nicer than fighting through the tourist traps littering Rome, it was one of my favorite meals and a remarkably romantic evening.  We went back to our room and opened a bottle of Chianti and enjoyed our balcony. 

The Rome Waldorf Astoria, My Natural Habitat

On our second day in Rome we left our tiny cramped room in the city and did some sight seeing.  We bought our Roma Passes, hopped on the subway, and zipped off to the Colosseum.  We did our guided tour with our Rick Steves audio guides, of course.

 Next stop was the Forum and Palatine Hill, Roma Pass and Rick Steves to the rescue!

Next we grabbed a couple slices of pizza and ate on the steps by a fountain near the Pantheon.  We went inside an had a look around, once again, Rick Steves free audio tour.

Next we headed to the Trevi Fountain, tossed a few coins into that bad boy.  After a day of hoofing it around to all of Rome's archaeological treasures (which was made easier because there were some helpful street signs unlike anything we'd seen in the other Italian cities we'd visited thus far), we were wiped out.  So we grabbed our luggage and hopped a cab to our second hotel in Rome, the Waldorf Astoria.  I have a ton of hotel points and the hotel was free (it's a tough job, but someone's got to do it).  Other friends had stayed there and had good things to say about it even though it was more out of the way than most other touristy hotels.  I was THRILLED when we walked into our room.  LOOK at how big it was!  It was big by American standards, so by Italian standards it was downright obscene.  I was giddy.  No more crashing into each other while we tried to get ready in the morning.  Pillow menus, fluffy robes, room service, complimentary sparkling water and chocolates on the pillows.  Oh and the CLOSET space.  Our hotel was also home to La Pergola, the only three Michelin starred restaurant in all of Italy.  Of course we didn't have reservations made 6 months in advance, nor did we have 400 Euros to spare for us to have dinner there (not an exaggeration, that's how much it costs), but I took the elevator up to the top floor and rolled out of it like I owned the place.  Even the bar was too spendy with the cheapest cocktail costing 15 Euros.  As quickly as we came, Darryl piled me back into the elevator before I could get us into some serious financial trouble.

We had a cute little seating area and a balcony with chairs and a table.  And the bathroom was huge.  I had my own little makeup stool and area, so no fighting for the mirror.

We freshened up, had a few glasses of champagne and snacks in the complimentary lounge and then took the shuttle into town.  You could rent a Ferrari from the hotel and zip around town.  We were more comfortable with the shuttle.

We went for a romantic stroll to the Spanish Steps, pretty much just wandered around and did the Rick Steves night walk in our Rome tour book.

We had a long wait at the taxi stand to get back to the hotel, which was annoying because we were super tired and spent half the night stroll lost, but when we returned to our room we found a chilled bottle of champagne waiting for us.  I had mentioned we were celebrating our second wedding anniversary months ago when we were making our room reservation and they remembered.

So we put on our fuzzy robes, slippers (isn't it funny that they put out little mats by the bed when they did the turn down service?  I do hate letting my bare feet touch hotel carpet, it's like my pet peeves were totally catered to.), grabbed our pillow chocolates and our bottle of champagne and sat on the patio and watched all the people roll in for the night in their Ferraris.

Some of those people drove not just Ferrari's but Bugatti Veyrons.  The most expensive modern car in the world (worth a cool 1.5 million dollars and I TOTALLY touched it). Out of our league much, ha!

 

Roman Around

After our lovely jaunt to the Amalfi Coast we packed up and headed to Rome for the final leg of our trip.  This was the worst train ride ever.  Well, I'm sure there are other horror stories out there much worse than ours, but it was pretty lame.  First, our train was delayed about 2 hours so we had to spend that time hanging around the Naples train station.  Not exactly the kind of place you want to make an extended stay and every time I got up to check the board, the train got delayed another 20 minutes.  Ugh.

Darryl reading on the train as the train I wished we were on rushed past us out the window.

Finally we get on the train.  Immediately I notice we aren't in one of the nice, sleek Eurostar trains that we were on during our other legs of the trip, but a Trenitalia intercity train.  And somehow we appeared to be the only tourists on our car.  Not a big deal, except the train broke down.  Twice. 

They kept making announcements over the intercom (all in unintelligible Italian, of course).  We sat there, unmoving on the track for about an hour each time.  And every time the train stopped, the Italian passengers became more and more exacerbated.  Some angrily questioning the conductor.  Others making phone calls to what I imagined to be loved ones waiting for them at the station.  It was the most irate I saw the Italians around me during the entire trip.  Italians are a fairly laid back people compared to Americans.  So honestly, I was too afraid to ask anyone around me what was going on, lest I irritate them more.  So we sat there quietly, reading our books, observing the scene around us, praying that neither of us would have to use the bathroom before we arrived in Rome.

After what seemed like an eternity, we arrived on million hours late and trudged to the Hotel Serena near the train station.  We checked into what is possibly the smallest hotel room I've ever seen.  All the hotels we stayed at on this trip were at least 3 stars, so it wasn't a terrible hotel or anything, just tiny. 

The elevator would barely hold D, myself, and our 2 bags.  Plus it was the old fashioned kind, with the door you pull open.  I kept imagining a drunk college kid opening the door and stepping down the elevator shaft to his death.  Next our room had no AC.  It was way too noisy in the city to keep the windows open at night and our room rate clearly stipulated AC.  Turns out you had to go down to the front desk and specifically request that it be turned on.  Finally, the shower was akin to the size of a small marine shower on a boat.  You were basically stuffed in there with barely enough room to turn around or throw some elbows to work up a good lather.  And it leaked buckets of water through the space at the bottom of the door.  The room itself barely had room for the queen sized bed, an armour, a desk, and limited floor space for our bags.  What an odd hotel, but it was clean and the staff was nice.

Why is the Whopper angry?

By this point it was around 3 in the afternoon, so we took the subway to the Piazza Popolo.  The irritation of our train ride combined with our tiny living space, compounded with the general culture shock that is Rome versus the Amalfi Coast lead us to a bit of a breakdown.  We had skipped lunch and needed sustenance.  We stepped into an Italian cafe and browsed but didn't see anything that looked particularly comforting, so we admitted defeat and split some chicken nuggets, fries, and a coke at the Burger King across the street.

 

I don't typically go to fast food in the US, especially not BK, but I can't imagine how these stay in business.  Our tiny shared snack cost 8 Euros and was even WORSE than the BK back in the US.  And the restaurant was filthy, yet full of people.  Why on earth would anyone other than an American tourist at their breaking point choose this place over all the other establishments Italy has to offer.  Nonetheless, I've never been to an American chain like that in a foreign country and the food did hit the spot.  We were fortified for a few more hours of "Roman around" until dinner.

 

church in Piazza de Popolo

 We strolled through the high end stores on Via Condotti.  I went into my first H&M ever.  I took photos of all the neat shop displays.

Sparkly Shoes!

Louis Vuitton store, went inside, poked around.

Finally we ended up on the Spanish Steps and did some people watching.

Next we went to Capital Hill to watch the sun set.  There were a lot of stairs.  My legs got really tired.

Ancient Rome

Dusk at the Forum

After a long day of hoofing it all over, we stopped at a cafe on our way back to the hotel and I had my first and only pizza of the trip.  Not a fan of the pizzas in Italy.  I'll stick to my Chicago deep dish, thanks.  With that, we returned to our hotel and passed out.

Positano

Having recovered from my bout with food poisoning/a stomach bug (oh irony of ironies, I write this post at home on a work day as I was stricken with a similar episode starting last night, but alas, no bidets to barf in).  So the day after the Capri trip I did not go on, we departed for Positano. 

Still hadn't quite conquered solid foods yet, but thankfully didn't get sick on the bus ride.  Beautiful views!

Overlooking the sea.  Still feeling kinda weak.

We meandered our way down to the beach, reading the Rick Steeves guided tour the whole way down, poking our heads into all the little shops along the way, brousing through brightly painted ceramic pottery and linen dresses.

Beach!  I laid there for a while, then we decided to try and introduce me back to solid foods.

Bruscetta.  This place was one of the best places we ate on our trip.

Darryl declared this the best lasagna he'd ever eaten.

Spaghetti putanesca.  This dish hails from this region.  Not usually my first choice on the menu, but I figured, when on the Amalfi coast.......It was great!

View from the Foreiner's Club at sunset

After some more random toodling around and shopping, I was fairly tired.  We considered continuing on to Amalfi, but we were fairly content to head back to the hotel for a nap and fresh clothes.

Next we checked out the Foriener's Club in Sorrento which has amazing views of Vesuvius, live music, good eats, and good cocktails.  You'll note that I reintroduced alcohol into my diet prior to essential nutrients, such as meats and other proteins.  What, champagne is an important part of a balanced diet.  Don't judge.

The Foreiner's Club is a notorious hot spot for wedding receptions, so as we dined we were treated to one of the most spectacular fireworks displays courtesy of one of the wedding parties. 

Enjoying limoncello and tiramisu, enjoying the fireworks


Thus ends my recap of our Amalfi Coast leg of our trip.  My impressions?  Despite the stomach issues, it was probably my favorite leg of the trip.  The sea breeze, Vesuvius in the distance, the smells and sights of fresh citrus everywhere.  Don't even THINK about skipping the Amalfi if you get a chance to visit Italy.  It was amazingly relaxing, beautiful, and SO romantic!

The Day I Did NOT Go to Capri

One thing I failed to mention in my last post was that as we strolled back from dinner and gelato, I felt like my stomach was having some digestive issues.  I chalked it up to heartburn as we retired for the evening.  Then in the wee hours of the morning....it began.  Food poisoning. 

I use that term loosely, Darryl and I ate all the same things and HE didn't feel the slightest bit ill.  I however managed to have the colon cleanse to end all colon cleanses interspersed by bidet vomiting.  You know what's handy?  A bidet to vomit in.  I saw the contents of last night's dinner in reverse as I yacked it into the bidet.  And then I turned on the water and neatly rinsed it out.  How convenient.  How Euro of me to vomit my hazelnut gelato into a bidet? 

By 10 AM the day was starting to slip away and I was no closer to making it farther than eyesight distance from the bathroom.  So I convinced Darryl that there was not much else he could do for me and to go alone to Capri.  So thus I spent this day of my trip weak, slipping in and out of sleep.  My goal for the day?  Consume a banana and a bottle of water and keep it down by the time Darryl returned.

This is the boat Darryl took to Capri.  Or it was Ralph Lauren's yacht.  He saw that too.

Rocks and blue water and stuff.

Darryl on Capri

The chairlift.  That I didn't get to ride.  ::sigh::

 So Darryl came back and showed me all his photos and videos and regaled me with his tales of travel.  I told him that I managed to shower while he was gone.  I didn't mention that it was huddled up in a ball sitting on the floor of the shower.  So sick.

Me and my chamomile tea

 So he helped me get dressed and walk a short distance to the closest possible cafe.

Darryl's pizza, I couldn't look at the food on the other side of the table, made me queasy.

Minestrone, cures what ails ya.

I had my tea and my soup and I managed to keep from barfing at the sight and thought of the other food around me.  Mercifully, I was doing considerably better the next day.  The next installment, Positano, my road to recovery, solid foods, and other things.