Byer Family: ITALY - Rome (Day 1)

Alright, so I've received a few requests to blog about our Italy adventures, so I thought I'd whip back out the old blog address.

We recently took a trip to Italy. We left on Sunday May 11 from Minneapolis, returned two weeks later on Sunday, May 25. We booked our first three nights in Rome along with our round trip flights. Other than that, we booked our hotel nights as we went along. It gave us flexibility in the amount time we wanted to spend in each city and when we wanted to travel.

We arrived in Rome around 9:30am on Monday morning. We took a bus from the airport to the train terminal and then walked to the hotel, where we checked in. We thought we would take the train once we arrived at the airport, but upon arriving, we found it was much cheaper to ride the bus to the terminal. We paid about 5 Euro each for the bus vs. about 15 Euro each for the train. It was about a 50 minute bus ride vs. a 1/2 hour train ride. For our nights in Rome, we stayed at Hotel Massimo D'azeglio. It was a great hotel in a fabulous location. It was near the train terminal, and the walk to the Colosseum, Roman Forum, Palatino, Capitoline Museums, and the Trevi Fountain was more than manageable!

After checking out our hotel room (which I really liked - very "Italian"), we walked over to Pizza da Michele, a restaurant we read about in our book. We had slices of pizza. They were pretty good. The recommended restaurant definitely didn't make our top list though.

Side note: We would have been so lost without or travel book! We borrowed a Lonely Planet Italy travel book from one of Patrick's coworkers. The book has maps, travel tips, sight seeing advice, great restaurants, etc.

After eating, we made the quick walk to the Trevi Fountain. It was a gorgeously sunny day, and the fountain is beautiful! We took some pictures, both threw our coins in the fountain, and then purchased some gelato from a nearby restaurant. We enjoyed the fountain from some steps while eating our gelato.

Before heading back to the hotel, we did a walking tour, following the map in our Italy travel book. The tour stops included:

Largo di Torre Argentina, a busy square set around the ruins of 4 Republic-era temples and the site of Julius Caesar's assassination in 44 BC
Elefantino
Chiesa di Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, Rome's only Gothic church
Pantheon, ancient Rome's best-preserved monument and the largest unreinforced concrete dome ever built, now a church
Piazza Navona, central Rome's showpiece square

At 4:30pm we headed back to the hotel after our walking tour to take a quick nap. Around 7pm, we walked around near our hotel to find a restaurant to have dinner. We ate at Restorante Pizzaria Tudini Galoriele and Tomoko. Both Patrick and I ate pizza and had some wine outside along the street. The restaurant had very cute tables and umbrellas outside of the restaurant.

After dinner, we both got gelato - you will sense a theme on our trip, lots of pizza, pasta, wine, and gelato. The food and wine was SO GOOD!!!!