Day 1 - Arrival in the Eternal City

We arrived at the Fiumicino - Leonardo da Vinci airport around 9 am. The flight was uneventful and empty, so Kinjal and I both did some work. My little hard worker finished her English homework. I did a review for a STPI report. It was a good thing that there was no in-flight entertainment else we would have gotten no work done!

It was rainy and a little cold on our walk from the plane to the train stop. There was some time after we bought the train ticket till the train left, so Kinjal and I had a cappuccino and a croissant (I still don't know what a good Italian pastry is, so sticking with French for the moment) - having our little breakfast, we felt very chic and Italian. From there we took the Express called Leonardo to the Termini station (the main Rome train station) near where is our hotel - Hotel Morgana. Kinjal worked on the train, crazy girl (see pictures) while I eavesdropped on the Danish people sitting next to us.

Hotel Morgana is a 5 minute walk from the Termini station, and even with the rain, it didn't take long to get there. The hotel is small but cute (picture). We had to wait a bit for our room to be ready, so we ate some breakfast - eggs and bread for Kinjal, a yogurt and half a peach pastry for me. We came into our very small room and started to get organized for a day about town.

Then we watched a few minutes of The Bachelor on TV while I set up my computer to download emails (yes I work on vacations) and to watch one of my all time favorite Rome movies - Roman Holiday. However, we both fell asleep watching it and would need to return to it later.

I wanted to make sure that we adjusted to the new time, so woke Kinjal up around 2 pm to go check out Rome. We got dressed nicely - we are in Italy after all - and walked

out the hotel to find a taxi. It was raining and we didn't want to worry about finding the bus stop. As we looked around for a cab, guess what is the first thing we run into - a 5th century basilica (Basillica Papale di Santa Maria Maggoire) where the architect Bernini is buried. A feast for the eyes (picture). We then grabbed a taxi and headed to the most famous piazza in Rome - Piazza Novona. It was so spectacular - this sort of beauty is hard to describe in words, you just have to see it for yourself (picture). Maybe because of the rain, there was an ethereal quality to the beauty we saw, not just in the building but the whole piazza, the fountains, the sculptures, even in the cobblestones under our feet.

Despite the fact that it was raining and cold, we went into a gelatto store (those were the marching orders from Emily SG), I had a nocciola (hazelnut) and Kinjal had a pistachio one, they were both divine. Nothing like this in America. For some reason, all American gelatto I have had tastes like sorbet.

We exited the piazza just pulled by one magnificent building after another. And then suddenly, we were at the bank of the river Tiber (picture). Straight ahead, across the bridge called Ponte Umberto, we could see the Palace of Justice (picture). We flitted in and out of touristy kiosks looking at key chains, and other knickknacks. Our plan was to turn around as soon as the buildings got less interesting. Now THAT was a bad idea, because apparently in Rome, buildings DON'T get less interesting. As we walked along the river, the rain turned into a just a drizzle and we looked up to see this massive round building that the iphone informed us was called the Castel Sant'Angelo, a second century castle that now houses renaissance paintings. Over the years, popes have lived in it, and it was also a jail once. It's very eerie looking (picture).

The day being Easter and a holiday, the whole city seemed to be out. There were jugglers and artists and musicians on both sides of the road. There was a lot of traffic but it seems pedestrians rule.

Straight ahead we saw a beautiful dome. It was so striking, we had to get close to it. We reached the piazza, and only then found out that it was the Basillica di San Pietro - St Peter's Basilica. The Vatican! The Holy See! Kinjal and I couldn't believe it that we were standing where the Pope had had Easter Mass just hours ago. I am no Christian but it was humbling to be in the square. The place is breathtakingly beautiful and so peaceful. We can't wait to come back to get a tour.

We walked some more, passing one beautiful building after another. Soon we were

back at the bank of the Tiber, this time taking a different bridge back to the other side. We winded back to Piazza Navona and decided to have a fabulous dinner on our first night in Rome. It was only 7 pm which means all restaurants are empty, so we got a place in the Tre Scalini - a restaurant listed in all the guidebooks. We went crazy with the food, beginning with a plate of a variety of fresh cheeses with jam and honey. Kinjal said it was the best jam she'd ever had. I thought the honey was pretty fresh. For my main dish, I had a minestrone soup and a pear, walnut, endives and arugula salad, and Kinjal had a mushroom risotto. We ended dinner with a Tiramisu and decaf cappuccinos.

We spent a bit more time walking about in the piazza - it was night now and the place was lit up and packed with people. A superb first night in Rome. We took a cab back to

the hotel and Kinjal took some nice pictures of our hotel (picture). Back at the hotel, we finished watching Roman Holiday, and started watching another Rome centered movie - Angels and Demons, but soon fell asleep. What a great day. We walked a total of 5 miles today.