Rome: Day Four

Our last full day in Rome was the only day when we didn't have anything specific booked, so we expected it to be more relaxed, but it actually turned out to be the day when we walked the most out of the entire trip!

After breakfast at a nice café, Claudio and I started the day's sightseeing at Largo di Torre Argentina. This square with its Roman ruins is believed to be the site where Julius Caesar was assassinated. However, it is now also famous for being a cat sanctuary! It was lovely to go there and watch the kitties wondering around through the ancient ruins.

Our next activity of the day was exploring Piazza Venezia (with its Venetian style palace) and the Victor Emmanuel II Monument. Although we didn't go up to the roof of the monument, as that costs 17€ each, we had a great time looking around both the inside and outside. It really is an incredibly impressive building.

After a bit more time exploring the outside of the Colosseum, we had a lot of fun visiting La Bocca della Verità (The Mouth of Truth)! You have to queue to get your photo with this ancient Roman sculpture, but the queue moves quickly, and it's free to visit. Legend says that the mouth will bite your hand off if you tell a lie!

After your visit, you move through into a pretty church that has a gift shop. I took the opportunity to buy a Roman Holiday postcard, as I absolutely love this movie. In fact, this is one of two films that gave me Wanderlust to visit Rome - the other being the Lizzie McGuire Movie, haha!

Next to the church, you can find two Roman temples that are absolutely worth checking out: the round Temple of Hercules Victor, and the Temple of Portunus, which is somewhat like the Parthenon.

Afterwards, we went back to Pasta Imperiale for lunch, this time trying Fettucine Alfredo, a Roman pasta dish, which was very tasty and also very filling!

Then we spent most of the afternoon inside Castel Sant'Angelo. I always love visiting castles, and really enjoyed this one! It was actually built as a mausoleum for the emperor Hadrian, but was later used by popes, and has some beautifully ornate rooms inside.

The views from the roof across the city and the Vatican are also stunning.

After some delicious gelato, we finished off our last evening in Rome with a quick trip to see the Vatican City by night.

Rome had been on both of our bucket lists for a long time, so our week there was a real dream come true. It was fabulous to see all the iconic sights, such as the Colosseum, the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain, as well as some quieter spots, like Villa Borghese. We also enjoyed visiting the Vatican City - a new country for both of us - and having a relaxed beach day in Santa Severa.

Hopefully, we'll have the chance to go back at some point in the future, but we both feel that we really got the most out of our time there (despite the nasty cold I had at the beginning!) and we have loads of wonderful memories to look back on from the Eternal City. ❤

Rome: Day Three

This day of our Roman holiday was one of the most exciting; this was when we visited one of the 7 New Wonders of the World - the Colosseum! 

It was also the first day of the holiday that I felt completely back to normal again, having started a nasty cold on the first morning of the trip. So I was able to enjoy it even more!

We'd booked our Colosseum tickets for the late morning, which meant we could take things slowly in the early part of the day. We had a nice walk there from our hotel, passing by the Victor Emmanuel II National Monument, and some amazing Roman ruins.

Then at last, we arrived at the Colosseum! We had breakfast at a nearby café and then went to join the prebooked tickets queue.

We'd expected similar chaos to the Vatican Museums, if not worse, given that the Colosseum is the city's most famous attraction, but in fact, we got in there fairly quickly.

The Colosseum is the third Wonder of the World that I've visited, having been to both Machu Picchu and Christ the Redeemer in 2022. I was intrigued to see if it would be as incredible for me as the two South American Wonders were, and after going inside the arena, I can say that it definitely was!

It's amazing to think how long it's been there for, how well-preserved it is, and of course, how much gory history took place inside it all those years ago.

Seeing a gorgeous cat inside was also a nice bonus!

We spent quite a long time inside the arena, walking around its circumference and making sure we took it all in as much as we could.

Afterwards, we sat outside in the sunshine at a restaurant with great views of the Colosseum, and enjoyed yet more delicious pasta, as well as our first Aperol Spritz of the holiday - a nice treat after finally having been able to stop taking cold and flu medication!

The afternoon was a time for us to explore even more Roman history, as our Colosseum tickets also gave us access to the Forum and Palatine Hill.

On the Palatine Hill, you can find remnants of Roman palaces, as well as beautiful gardens. And of course the Forum needs no introduction: although a lot of the original structures have disappeared over time, what is left is still amazing to see.

These sites also had some great vantage points of the Colosseum.

After the site closed for the day, we walked over to the Circus Maximus, where they used to have chariot races in Roman times. This place is now a public park, which is free to walk around - quite nice, considering that many of the other tourist attractions in the city are expensive to visit.

Our next stop of the evening was the Tiber Island, another recommendation we took from the Voices of Bell'Italia podcast (the first recommendation being to try maritozzi!)

This island in the river looks like a pretty little Italian village and feels a world away from the rest of the city.

Other sights we saw later in the day included the Capitoline Hill, with its palazzi and great views of the Forum, and the Marcellus Theatre, which is like a mini Colosseum.

Our next day in Rome was also our last full day in the city, so we needed to make the most of it, and I think we did just that! Places we visited included Largo di Torre Argentina, the Victor Emmanuel II National Monument, la Bocca della Verità, and Castel Sant'Angelo. I'll be writing about all that and more as soon as possible!