(Yes, I know it's been two weeks and I haven't yet finished writing about Rome. Oh well).
The logical point at which to divide up my posts about Rome is, of course, when my friend Rachel arrived. Having previously run into problems meeting up with a friend in London (apparently there is more than one "main entrance" to the British Museum. Thanks for that, Google Maps!), I wanted to be very specific about where we should meet up in Termini, the large train station that serves as the main gateway for trains arriving from the airport. "We'll meet at McDonald's" I said, picking the most obviously recognizable landmark. This would, of course, have been a much better plan had I known that the station has two McDonald's inside, and one across the street, leaving the two of us running a circuit between the three locations (apparently in opposite directions), before eventually meeting up.
Now, planning this trip was a bit complicated. We knew we wanted to go somewhere and meet up and have adventures, but getting our schedules and interests to aligned with one another, and according to budget, was no small feat. So, when we realized, just before booking, that we would only overlap for a little over 24 hours in Rome, we decided to book anyway, because it had become one of those "if we don't just do it, it's never going to happen" things. With only 24 hours to hang out, we set our sites on having a sort of pleasant, chill kind of day enjoying Roman food.
We started the morning off by wandering through the streets of Trastevere to a little market. Having heard good things about the produce in Italy, I wanted to stop to buy some fresh tomatoes. Through bizarre combination of broken English, Italian, and Spanish, the lady also convinced us to buy some red peppers which had been soaked in olive oil and spices. We took our bounty to a nearby square in front of a fountain, discovering that the peppers had, indeed, been a very good choice. We then continued our walk. Remember how the Vatican wouldn't loan me a pen? Well, as a result, our first destination for the day was to head back to the Holy See to drop of my postcards which were now signed, but had stamps only valid in the Vatican. This turned out to be a good thing because, as we left the Vatican heading vaguely in the direction of a pizza place we'd read about online, we stopped, on a hunch, in a cute looking grocery store, where we happened upon some cornetti (croissants), in miniature, filled with a sort of hazelnut chocolate cream. We instantly regretted the decision to buy only one each.
After a brief detour heading the wrong direction, we soon found ourselves in the vicinity of the pizza shop we were looking for. Already this neighbourhood was obviously different from the more touristed areas, with less English, and more authentic looking food lining the streets. The pizza place turned out to be an excellent tip: sold by weight (as pizza in Rome typically is), the pizza came in numerous varieties, and was topped with extremely fresh ingredients. The woman working behind the counter also seemed to have a sixth sense about what we would like-after picking one or two pieces, she suggested a third for each of us. Full of proper pizza, we set off again before stopping, only a few blocks later, for gelato at a small shop on a corner, rounding up a blissfully decadent morning.
Stuffed full of Italian goodies, we spent most of the afternoon walking through the streets of Rome. It hadn't actually been our intention to spend so much time out on foot in the heat, but our only real goals for the day all involved trying different foods, and at that point we couldn't have eaten a bite more. And so, we walked, and walked, stopping briefly at different tourist attractions (the park surrounding the Villa Borghese, as well as the Spanish steps), or shops, looking to fill the rest of the afternoon. As we wandered back, we realized that we were in the vicinity of the Vatican again. With relatively little hope for success, we decided to see if we could find the little grocery store from the morning and, much to our surprise, we succeeded! Having spent the day talking about how much we regretted not buying the entire case of pastries, we ordered two of everything. Then, in one our of smartest decisions, we decided to walk back to the Vatican to enjoy them. As a result, we wound up sitting in the square in front of the Basilica, eating delicious Italian pastries, and watching the sun go down and the lights come on, as nuns from around the world gathered for some sort of function.
We rounded out the evening, after walking back to our room, with dinner. Trastevere turned out to be more geared towards tourists than we had suspected, and so finding a restaurant that was even moderately authentic was a challenge. With some help from Trip Advisor, we picked what was either an authentic local restaurant or, at worst, the best of the tourist restaurants. Wine, fettuccine bolognese, and tiramisu, followed by some more gelato, rounded out the end of our day in Rome.
The next day was an early one for me-with a flight back to Brussels leaving at 7:10, I was up just before 5, catching the first train to the airport.
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