Italia: Day 2

Valentine's Day in Rome, how ROME-antic!

We started off the day with a hike. I don't know if you know this, but Rome was founded between seven hills, so our goal was to hike to the top of the Gianicolo hill. Luckily, my French phone service transferred to Italy (even though it said "No Service" probably about 50% of the time), and we used Man Siri to find the top of the hill. After getting a bit lost, and probably doubling our walking time, we finally reached the summit of the hill. It was definitely worth the exercise. Here, there was a beautiful panoramic view of Rome. I could really see everything because the trees had no leaves, which made the

views and pictures quite nice. My favorite part of this hill was the really cool wall that I sat on and looked out to the city. The wall had the Italian constitution inscribed on it, which I thought was interesting.

Next up was a well-deserved lunch. We found a place as quickly as possible to feed our hungry tummies. I ordered the classic spaghetti carbonara. It was amazing! It tasted like really, really rich mac and cheese, something I'd been craving for a while. And it had bacon, yum!

The rest of the day, we spent wandering around Rome, sometimes exploring things we'd seen on the tour, and other times discovering something new.

We walked down by the Tiber River that runs through the center of Rome and gazed at the magnificent bridges that connected its banks.

I also enjoyed walking into as many churches and cathedrals as possible. There are over 900 Catholic churches in Rome! So, I made Nia go into as many as possible with me. Every time we passed a church, I'd say, "Wanna go in?" Each one was unique and so beautiful. I think if we had churches like this in the US, I'd go every weekend.

We made our way back to the Wedding Cake and climbed up the thousand stairs. But we couldn't sit on the stairs; there were strict police who would blow their whistle at you if you sat down. However, we kept climbing to the first tier in the cake saw even more amazing views of Rome. Luckily, we found stairs on the backside of the Wedding Cake that weren't as strictly monitored, and we sat down

and took it all in. It hit me there that the history of this place is astounding! There were over 100 of my lifetimes there, and that's just since Rome converted to Catholicism.

After ascending up yet another hill (I swear, Rome was full of endless and uneven inclines and stairs) we were treated to another panoramic view of the Roman Forum. This was cool because, even though we saw it the day before, I was able to see the bigger picture.

Next, we found this cute little market that was selling everything from flowers to beef. They even had samples, which was the best part! I tasted different cheeses and breads dipped in olive oil. They were all so good, and made me realize I was hungry again. So, we stopped at a gelato place, and I had my first Italian gelato. It was 1000x better than the Gelato Spot in Scottsdale.

Then, we made our way back to the Colosseum to take some pictures. I was super lucky that I was able to experience Rome in the winter, when there were minimal tourists. I got amazing shots of me and the Colosseum that I doubt I would've gotten in the summertime. I cannot even imagine how awful that place is in the summer. I would recommend go in the off-season, like I did.

After that, we took the tram back to our hostel and decided to take a little nap before dinner.

When I woke up, I was hungry again, and my parents had been kind enough to offer to buy our Valentine's dinner. So of course, we went all out, and tried to do a full Italian dinner. Fun fact: in Italy, a full dinner consists of a drink, an appetizer, a first course, a second course, dessert, and some kind of fruity liqueur. Unfortunately, that's way too much food for me, something I never thought I'd say. So, I ordered this amazing bottle of white wine, and discovered that I like white wine a lot! Then, we ordered an appetizer of bruschetta with a couple of different spreads. Next, I ordered the lasagna. OMG this lasagna was probably the best fucking thing I have ever eaten! The pasta just melted in my mouth, and it had the perfect combination of cheese, sauce, and meat. And finally, I ordered the tiramisu. I wanted to cry because of how good this tiramisu was. At first, I was a little iffy, because I'd never really tried it before. But this was the tiramisu to end all other tiramisus.

Finally, to end our day, we went back to the Colosseum because we wanted to see it at night. It was really cool because it was all lit up from the inside, so it felt like there was some kind of gladiator games going on inside. Then, we wandered back through Rome to our hostel, seeing all the monuments lit up for the night. Unfortunately, about halfway through it started to pour, and we had to trudge soaking wet back to our hostel.

Because of this day, I think Rome had the best food. Every place we went was spectacular, and had great service (something that France definitely lacks). It was nice to feel welcomed here.