We got up this morning around 10ish, showered, ate breakfast, and had some coffee…of course. Before we left Roslanda’s mother, who is apparently the maid for this B & B came up to clean up our room, which was slightly strange at first. She told us that she is 85 years old, and really spoke very little English. This was cool because I actually had a conversation with her in Italian…which was pretty fun, although I caught myself mixing Spanish and Italian…but she understood. I somehow was able to speak and understand much more than I thought I was able to.
Before we started our day we wanted to walk into the Vatican and see how crowded it would be, because the Pope spoke outside this morning. Just as we expected, there were people everywhere, and decided that we would save the Sistine Chapel and the Tombs of the Popes until tomorrow.
After we left the bed and breakfast we headed to Castel Sant’ Angelo, which was closed the day before when we tried to go. This castle was originally commissioned by the Roman emperor Hadrian as a mausoleum for himself and his family. Later it was used as a fortress and castle, and today it is basically a museum!
Castle at night...
Statue inside the castle...
Here are a few more pictures from inside the Castel; there were some great views of Rome up here.
Picture of the Vatican from inside the castle...
More pictures of Rome from the castle:
This next picture was of the restaurant located inside the Castel, definitely resembles what one would think a restaurant in Italy would look like…
After the Castel, we headed to Piazza Borghese, where we wanted to see the Villa Borghese and just the plaza in general. A branch of the University of Roma’s Architecture school was located there, which was pretty cool to see. It amazes me about how different universities in the US are from universities in Europe!
We stopped by the Ara Pacis Augustea and the Mausoleo Augusto because they were both very close to Piazza Borghese and here are a few photos of them…
Ara Pacis: is filled with monuments, sculptures, etc.
Mausoleo Augusto: was a large tomb that was built by Augustus in 28 BC. It is no longer open to tourists because of carelessness that has stripped the ruins. It was still pretty cool to see from the outside though.
We really wanted to check out Piazza Spagna, I heard that it was awesome, and I figured that we had to go. During the 17th century the area around the Spanish Embassy was even considered Spanish territory. The steps are always crowded and are both a tourist attraction and a local one as well. We walked down Via del Corso and eventually made it to Piazza Spagna. As you can see by the following pictures, it was filled with people!
The following picture is of the Fontana della Barcaccia (Fountain of the Old Boat) which was designed in the 15th century.
This next picture is of Trinitá dei Monti which is a French church that looks over an amazing view of the city.
We walked a few minutes to the right and saw Villa Medici, which has housed the French Academy in Rome since 1803.
After walking for hours we worked up an appetite and decided to walk back to Via della Carrozze, which had tons of Italian Restaurants down little alleys and they all looked amazing. We walked around for a little bit, and picked a restaurant called La Cucina a Roma, which has been around for many years. Here are a few pictures outside of the restaurant…
Of course I had to take some pictures of our food…
We both ordered rigatoni and soups:
After lunch we decided we wanted to go and see the Fontana di Trevi, which is one of the largest tourist attractions in the city. The present fountain was finished in 1762 and was restored in 1998. The legend here says that if one throws a coin into the fountain, they will always return to Rome. There are many different legends regarding throwing coins into the fountain, but you’re “supposed” to throw three coins in the fountain. So of course we had to do that, and then leave because the place was absolutely packed!
After walking around for hours, we were both beat and walked back to the B & B to relax for a little bit before dinner. We had another beautiful day in Roma, as it was slightly overcast this morning, but turned out to be pretty sunny as the day went on.
We tried finding a restaurant that my Uncle Fred recommended, called I Corsari, which was located about 10 metro stops from ours. We couldn’t access the internet in our B & B and only knew the name and general area of the restaurant. Of course we walked around for about an hour and still couldn’t find it. We got back on the metro and headed back to Borgo Pio for dinner again.
We ate at a restaurant called Il Papalino Ristorante, which was excellent. I had a dish with three different pastas, which were lasagna, rigatoni, and ravioli. Dad had a canola dish which was also very good. I had tiramisu for dessert and dad had an Italian cheesecake which was great. After a few amaretti and cappuccini, we called it a night.
Ciao!
