Basilica di San Crisogono

We started our first full day in Rome with an early wake up call for 6:30. We’ve read stories (aka seen TikToks) about how certain historical sites get so overcrowded by mid-morning and we wanted to make sure we avoided that.

Since we are staying so close, we first headed to the Spanish Steps and were there with only a handful of other people. The steps are enormous and beautiful so we stopped to take many pics before moving on.

Next up- Trevi fountain- the real instigator for our early-morning alarm. We got there around 7:30 and already there was a significant amount of tourists (but half as many as peak). Plus- we were visiting with apparently every influencer under the sun. It’s kind of hysterical to watch these fully made up people stand in random, uncomfortable poses so early in the morning. But fortunately, we were able to find some empty spots and get our own, awkwardly posed shots! The fountain is really impressive and surprisingly clean. However, the area around the fountain is not and after several minutes, the crowd was shooed away by the “trash police” and they had to clean all of the litter from the night before away.

We continued on our walk until we got to the Pantheon. You approach the piazza from the corner and, as you make a turn into it, you are presented with a massive, well-preserved building from the era of Hadrian which has been used throughout the centuries as a temple and a church. It was still early so there were several brides and grooms taking wedding photos in front of the facade. The building was still closed so we continued on our walk where we passed Chiesa di San Luigi dei Francesi (church of St. Louis of the French where we peaked in to this gorgeous church which housed multiple Caravaggio paintings). We all stopped to recognize just how many historical sites there were in Rome. They are everywhere you look and even some of these beautiful places aren’t listed on the “must see” because there’s just so many. And we definitely can’t talk about all the churches- there’s just too many!

We finished up our morning roam in the Piazza Navone admiring the gorgeous fountains there before finding a small little cafe for some cappuccino and breakfast (of course there was a lot of Nutella and a fresh croissant consumed)!

After a bit of downtime, we headed out to the Bhorghese Gardens. Think “Central Park of Rome”. The walk was short but the sun was now beaming down stronger than we’ve felt on this entire trip so far, and Mike initially led us astray on a 20 minute walk (Editors Note: Mike checked the map and it was a 6 minute detour. Everyone else felt like it was a 20 minute detour) only to end up back where we were. But after regrouping, and hiking up a huge, steep staircase, we made it to the gardens which start with a beautiful view of the city. We were able to count numerous basilica domes from up there- most significantly, St. Peter’s. We explored the gardens for a bit before heading through the Piazza del Popolo which contains 3 of those basilicas, plus an ancient Egyptian obelisk (there’s many of these throughout the city).

We decided to head back to the hotel area and Mike and Becky decided to do some shopping- they were starting to lose faith in ever receiving their bag (see next post). Lunch was a first for us in Italy- we had huge leafy salads right near our air bnb. They were so delicious and light! We all were thankful for not as heavy a meal for once!

Becky and Mike decided to go directly to the airport to look for their bag (again, see next post) so Dave and I wandered past the Pantheon, saw the piazza where Julius Caesar was killed, grabbed some small-batch gelato (mixed berry and lemon with turmeric- delicious) and then checked out the Jewish quarter. We didn’t spend much time there since we knew we would be coming back later with Mike and Becky- so a long trip past the Tiber and we were back to take a quick nap and shower up for the evening.

We headed back to the Jewish Ghetto and then over the bridge to the area known as Trastevere. We first checked out the Sunday night market which has tons of small pop-up restaurants, mostly geared towards American food. We then went to the trendy Trastevere neighborhood- known for its cute streets and up and coming restaurants. The food looked amazing and we wandered to a restaurant recommended by our guide from yesterday. After last nights meal recommendation, we had high hopes for tonight. We ended up at Maritozzo Rosso and I’m afraid to say, this has probably been my least favorite meal. We ordered 3 appetizers- fried anchovies, fried chickpea cakes and fried pizza that were just “fine”. They are known for their sandwiches and those were ok- the meatball was actually very good. And the pasta was “fine- but had too much cream. Oh well- you can’t win them all. We stopped on our way out to try arancini balls and suppli- Roman street food, but those were just “ok” too. That’s alright- tonight just wasn’t our food night. So we headed back to the Airbnb- tomorrows a big day. The Vatican and the coliseum!Read more