Rome, Italy 2019

This is our travel diary of our visit to Rome from Saturday till today.

Our Adventure

On Saturday morning, we flew to Naples from Barcelona (LINK) with the intention of visiting Pompeii and eating the “best pizza in Italy”. Unfortunately, I was suffering the worst food poisoning of my life 😭 so we had to cancel our plans and train it to Rome 7 hours earlier than expected.

We caught the ItaliaRail and a taxi to our hotel, Little Queen Pantheon (LINK) and poor Mick had to carry all 3 luggage because I was so useless 😔.
The rest of the day was a right off, with me hunched over the toilet or curled up in bed 😅.
For dinner, I had the most expensive vegetable soup ever for €14 at Hostaria Pantheon… We chose this restaurant because I couldn’t be further than 1 minute from the hotel HAHA At least there was a view of the pantheon 🤣.
On Sunday I was still off but I glammed myself up in hopes of feeling better. It only worked for a bit 😂 We picked up our 3-day Roma Passes, got lost, tried 2 different restaurants that were closed and ended up at La Ciambella Bar a Vin Con Cucina for lunch (LINK).
There were so many statues and fountains along the small streets of Rome 😍
On the way back to the hotel, we saw a long queue outside the Pantheon and realized entry was free (and not included in the Roma Pass). We went for a quick tour before my stomach rumbled and I had to rush home to the toilet 🙃 (LINK).
We had an afternoon nap and I felt good again so we went to Cantina e Cucina for dinner. The lasagne was really delicious and creamy! (LINK).
Afterwards, we strolled along Via Dei Fori Imperiali in amazement at the different forums, buildings and statues (LINK).

We ended up at the Colosseum and had an encounter with a scammer. This tall, black dude approached Mick and tried to grab his hand to give him a bracelet, and he asked Mick:

“Hi friend, are you from Africa? What tribe are you from?”

🤨🤨🤨
LOL WTF???

We legged it the fuck out of there. Once we got back to our hotel, we laughed at the situation because the dude thought Mick, a little Asian, was from Africa. At least he wasn’t racist 😂.
On Monday, I felt 100% and the bug had passed me. We actually woke up at 6AM for photos at Trevi Fountain (LINK). We did pass by it the day before but it was so crowded that we decided to come back in the early morning to see it. Then we went back to sleep because Mick hated waking up so early (thanks babe! 😘).
Once we were awake, we explored the Spanish Steps and the Piazza del Popolo (LINK), did some window shopping, hopped on the tour bus (because how else were we gonna make up the value of the pass 🤑), passed by Largo di Torre Argentina and ate cheap pizza at a corner store.
After lunch, we explored Castel Sant’Angelo with our Roma Pass (LINK).
Afterwards, we did some laundry, passing by the Fate Bene Fratelli Hospital. I found it fascinating that the hospital was on its own ditch in the river lol. We had our first taste of Italian gelato and it was marvellous! The ice cream was so creamy and flavourful. We could definitely see the hype.

​And to end the day, we had McDonald’s and saw this genie 😲.
Tuesday was a lot more eventful in a touristy way. We started our morning at the Holy grounds with the Vatican Museums (LINK).
Then we had the best pizza in Rome, at Pizzarium Bonci (LINK).
After lunch, we entered the great Vatican City with our Roma Passes. I convinced Mick to climb all 551 steps of St. Peter’s Basilica with me and to this day, he still hates me for it LOL 😂 We highly recommend taking the elevator option and bringing a bottle of water because the top of the basilica is very claustrophobic (LINK).
​We ended our day with dinner at Cantina e Cucina again (because I barely ate the first time hahaha) and more gelato!
IMG-20190313-WA0007
Yesterday was our last full day in Rome and we went to see the Colosseum (LINK) and the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill (LINK).
The weather turned grey while we were taking our cheesy couple photos so we had AL42 by Pasta Chef Rione S.Angelo, cheap and delicious pasta recommended by Damo (LINK).

Afterwards, we did some window shopping because Mick was looking for new kicks. The shoe stores, like ILoveTokyo and HolyPopStore, in Rome were a little odd. They had different opening times and certain stores only sold women shoes or kids shoes. We walked to 4 different locations just to find the men’s section 😂.
By dinner time Mick was craving a big fat juicy piece of beef; we definitely can’t live off pasta forever 😂. He got his wish and had a tomahawk steak and I had more pasta at Osteria Delle Coppelle and we had the most wholesome conversation with an Italian couple (LINK).
Today we’re on the way to Florence via ItaliaRail (LINK).

Rome was such a fun city to explore and we walked so much! Our average daily step count was ~20,000. Everything was in close proximity to each other so we found it cheaper to walk everywhere.

We did think a lot of the restaurants and spots were ‘tourist traps’ but that was to be expected in one of the most popular destinations in the world. The scams and thieves situation in Rome was okay too. We were still self-conscious of our belongings but we did not feel we were under much scrutiny or had targets on our backs compared to Paris. It might have been because we blended in with the Chinese tour groups 😂. The African situation was weird though HAHAHA.

Thanks for reading! Ciao.

2 Comments

  1. September 22, 2021 / 6:26 am

    Wow, amazing blog layout! How lengthy have you been blogging for? you made running a blog look easy. The full look of your website is fantastic, let alone the content!!

  2. September 27, 2021 / 9:23 am

    Wow, incredible weblog format! How lengthy have you ever been running a blog for? you make blogging look easy. The full look of your site is magnificent, as smartly as the content material!!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *