The Vatican

The days keep rolling, and I keep doing more and more shit. Today, Stef wanted to visit the Vatican - somewhere she had never been despite having visited Rome many times. It was also something I was very keen to see. More than anything, though, one of the best parts about travelling with Stef was how easily we could communicate with locals. She either knew the good restaurants or, at the very least, knew exactly how to ask locals where we should go. We started at the main plaza of the Vatican, surrounded by an enormous colonnade that encircles the square and provides a platform for 140 marble statues. Saints, popes, bishops, and other religious figures look down over everyone wandering through the plaza. That alone was impressive. And it doesn’t even begin to account for the enormous Basilica that dominates the entire square.

We then continued wandering around Rome. We weren’t going into the Vatican Museums until the following morning, so we figured we would get up early and tackle it then. Our next stop was the Supreme Court, where we admired the sheer magnificence of the building before heading towards the main attraction for the day: Castel Sant’Angelo. The bridges leading up to the castle were incredible, and the castle itself was even more impressive. It’s crazy how many significant monuments you can see in Rome without having to travel very far at all. This is particularly true around the Vatican. Standing on the bridges near Castel Sant’Angelo, you could see monuments stretching across almost the entire city. It’s difficult to comprehend how impressive Rome must have looked hundreds of years ago when it is already so difficult to fully appreciate the size and scale of the buildings today. After seeing a few other sites along the way - including Piazza Navona and Largo di Torre Argentina - we made our way to Campo de’ Fiori. It was a small market whose name roughly translates to “field of flowers”. When Stef had visited previously, the area had apparently been filled with beautiful flowers. Unfortunately, this time around, it was just a fairly standard market, with most of the stalls selling the same things we had already seen everywhere else. With that disappointment, we didn’t stick around for long. We then headed towards the Pantheon. Despite being incredibly busy, it was still an amazing thing to see in person. It’s difficult to walk around Rome without repeatedly finding yourself standing in front of something that has enormous historical significance. The line to enter, however, was far too long for either of us to want to wait through, so we moved on to the Trevi Fountain. Once again, it was incredibly touristy, but still very cool to see. The sheer number of people made it difficult to spend more than a few minutes there, though, so we eventually headed back to the Airbnb for a shower and to get ready for dinner.

Stef had booked us into a very fancy restaurant, so we cleaned ourselves up and headed out. Because we were early, we stopped at an incredibly nice rooftop bar for a cocktail before making our way to the restaurant. After a few drinks, Stef had already decided what we were going to order. She refused to tell me what we were eating but assured me it would be good. The first course was a fairly standard Italian pasta dish. It was very good, but nothing particularly adventurous. The second course was considerably more interesting. Ox tail and pig’s stomach lining - tripe. I don’t remember the names of either dish, unfortunately, but they were both good. The ox tail was definitely my favourite, while the tripe was a little too chewy for my liking. Eventually, Stef revealed what I had actually eaten. At this point, we realised I had already eaten lampredotto back in Florence, which is essentially a traditional Florentine sandwich made using tripe. So, apparently, I had accidentally made eating stomach lining a recurring theme of my Italian holiday. By this point, we were incredibly full and fairly drunk, so we figured it was probably time to head home.

Most trains in Italy stop running around 11pm. It was 10:45pm. And we needed to catch two trains to get home. So we ran. Thankfully, we made the first train. Unfortunately, the second one had already finished for the night. More running followed. Eventually, we managed to catch a bus and somehow made our way home. By the time we got into bed, it was already early morning. And despite how late it was, we had already agreed that we needed to get up early and get in line for the Vatican Museums. And, on top of that, I still had to make my way to my accommodation in Rome afterwards.

Tomorrow was shaping up to be an interesting day.Read more