Italy
Piazza Barberini

Discover travel destinations of travelers writing a travel journal on FindPenguins.
Travelers at this place
    • Day 11

      Au Revoir Paris, Ciao Rome

      September 14, 2023 in Italy ⋅ ☁️ 29 °C

      It was an early wakeup from Susie that got us all moving at 6am. Showered dressed and packed and downstairs with the suitcases by 6.45 to wait for the arrival of 2 taxi’s at 7 to take us to the train station in Reims. Feet were getting twitchy by 10 past, we were all pissed off, so Kelly and I each ordered an uber. And wouldn’t you know it they arrived at 7.13 with one of the taxi’s turning up. He was given the short shift by all, and off we got into the Ubers. alighted at Gare Du Nord and on to the train. quick ride back to Gare du L’est in Paris and then decided rather than try and negotiate two more trains to Orly Airport we would hop into an uber…we do love the Mercedes Vans. Traffic was horrendous once again but our driver managed to get around the hoards of cars.
      Orly is HUGE, sat down and finally had some breakfast and coffee. Off to catch our flight… no buso on this one though 😢 and we didn’t purchase the Speed lane, so had to line up to get on.
      Nice little trip to Rome, I had an American guy sitting next to me, he thought I was Australian! Put him straight on that one.
      Grabbed another Uber to take us to our apartment and along the way my heart just about lept out of my chest when I saw what I thought was the colosseum, but no thats just a little one madam, the proper one is just along here, look right when we go around the corner! WOWOW there it was. I have wanted to see it all my life. Had a few tears in my eyes I can tell you.
      Finally arrived at our apartment where we were met by our host, fabulous guy, took us inside, up the lift! yay we have one, and proceeded to give us a lesson on the famous landmarks and their vicinity to our new home. funny chap but he had filled the fridge with a beer, bottle of Prosecco, milk, muffins and gluten free twisties that Beth was thrilled to see.
      Its an older building but really cool too. Few little quirky things. Susie was fascinated by the cornflake dispenser so hammed it up. She has never seen one before.
      Kel had told me about one place she has stayed in before that had a toilet in the shower which seemed very weird…and yep we have one here too. Its a second toilet though so we aren’t moaning. As the saying goes… you can have a shit, shave and shower…all at the same time 🤪
      Had a wee rest then off out for dinner, gorgeous food, I had the oxtail stew, and it was YUM.
      Ps we shopped on our way to dinner, 2 doors down from our apartment, 3 of us bought linen dresses, happy as can be.
      Home now, aircons are all on, its hot again in Rome.
      Tomorrow will be me exploring all the wonderful historical places I have had on my bucket list. I cannot wait. Hoho bus will be booked for us to see this beautiful city, and for an extra day for me so I can go explore the sites on my own. The other girls have been here before so the excitement for them has faded to visit them again.
      Internet is a bit sketchy here so even though I tried to post it last night, I had to wait to the morning.
      Read more

    • Day 10

      Day 8 and 9

      August 28, 2023 in Italy ⋅ ☁️ 27 °C

      On day 8 we took the train from Naples to Rome and checked into our hotel. That night with our tour group of 31 and our guide we went to a dinner party hosted by a fantastic Italian family. She cooked a beautiful 4 course meal for us and this was followed by karaoke. Its hard to put into words how much fun this night was and what great hosts they were.

      Day 9 - (Rome) We took a tour through St Peters Basilica, followed by a bus trip around the sites of Rome. There was a walking tour of more sites in the early afternoon. Late afternoon we toured the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel (no photos allowed in the chapel). Dinner was in the Vatican Museum. All tours today were guided.
      Photo 1 - High speed train from Naples to Rome. This train travelled up to 170 km/h.

      Photo 2 Dinner at a private residence
      Video 1 - Dinner at private residence
      Photos 3 - 7 St Peter's Basilica
      Video 2 - St Peter's Basilica
      Photo 8 - Vatican garden
      Photo 9 - Vatican Museum - dates not boobs
      Photo 10 - Dinner in the Vatican Museum
      Read more

    • Day 2

      First day dinner

      May 30, 2023 in Italy ⋅ 🌙 21 °C

      Had a nap when we arrived and woke up to jon screaming bloody murder, which got us up for dinner 🤪We found a lovely restaurant on Google tucked into the hotel eden, and it was exquisite. The staff were so kind, and brought us 2 extra desserts! Not pictured are the yummy chocolates. The mackerel risotto was so yummy and the scorpion ravioli was to diiiie for 🤌Read more

    • Day 2

      Made it!

      May 30, 2023 in Italy ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C

      The view of the alps was incredible. We managed to find our driver... let's just say she bumped in to some things 😬 she said all our hotels are amazing. Likely better than the driving here haha. I'll try to not post too many pics of wallpaper 😏Read more

    • Day 49

      Alle wegen führen nach Rom.. und zurück?

      June 2, 2022 in Italy ⋅ ☀️ 27 °C

      Am 1.6. um 9 Uhr war es dann soweit. Ich habe Karin und Silvan vom Flughafen abgeholt. Den ersten Tag sind wir relativ ruhig angegangen. Zuerst zurück zum Camping, alles einrichten, dann einkaufen einen Schwumm im Meer machen, Abendessen, Bieberbande, Bier, Bett.
      Am Donnerstag dann haben wir uns nach einem ausgiebigen Frühstück zum Bahnhof nach Rom begeben. Den ersten Zug verpassten wir leider wegen einer Minute, weil jemand noch aufs Klo musste... Kein Problem, nach 20 Minuten stand der nächste bereit. Als erstes wollten wir den Circus Maximus besuchen und dann weiter zum Kolosseum. Abgesperrte Strassen und sehr viel Polizei und Militär liessen uns rätseln, was wohl spezielles anstand. Das Kolosseum hatte eine riesige italienische Flagge am Haupteingang und es versammelten sich extrem viele Menschen. Plötzlich fliegen direkt über das Kolosseum etwa 30 Militär Helikopter und einige Minuten danach fliegt die italienische Luftwaffe in grün, weiss und rot über unsere Köpfe hinweg. Es ist der italienische Nationalfeiertag. Nachdem ich das gegoogelt hatte war es plötzlich sonnenklar und überall sahen wir Mützen und Shirts, welche den Nationalfeiertag aufgedruckt hatten. Ein lustiges Erlebnis.
      Zu Fuss ging es dann weiter zum Altare della Patria, vorbei am Titusbogen und Forum Romanum. Ein Durst, welchen man nicht mit Wasser stillen kann machte sich bei uns langsam bemerkbar und so machten wir uns auf den Weg in Richtung Hard Rock Cafe (Silvan und ich sind da ja seit San Francisco Ehrenmitglieder). Ich kann zusammenfassend sagen, dass die darauffolgenden Stunden eher den Barkeepern in Erinnerung bleiben werden als uns. Silvan meinte in den folgetagen dann auch mehrmals, dass Karin und ich gleiche Unterhaltungen geführt haben, wie im Hard Rock.
      Weil wir aber schlau waren, haben wir vorzeitig geschaut, wann der letzte Zug zurück zum Camping fährt. Weil wir aber betrunken waren, haben wir diesen letzten Zug aber dennoch verpasst. Blöderweise sind wir einen Teil der Strecke dann doch mit dem Zug gekommen, dann auf einen Bus umgestiegen und irgendwo im Industriegebiet gelandet. Die Aussicht auf ein Taxi waren klein und die Akkus von allen drei Handys auf etwa 5 Prozent. Zum Glück konnte ich uns noch ein Uber bestellen, welches uns dann sicher zum Camper zurückgefahren hat.
      Read more

    • Day 34

      Back to Rome for a Final Covid Test

      May 12, 2022 in Italy ⋅ ☀️ 79 °F

      Before we even checked in to the hotel Savoy, we went to the international pharmacy for our quick-result Covid test. The United States requires that we be tested for Covid within 24 hours of our departure from Rome. We have just enjoyed a beautiful lunch of spaghetti carbonara, and now we are ready for supper and an early departure tomorrow. So now we are here in a lovely hotel, with our feet up. This has been a wonderful trip, and we are still enjoying ourselves. Nevertheless, after five weeks we are ready to be home again.Read more

    • Day 7

      Tag 6

      November 27, 2023 in Italy ⋅ ☁️ 14 °C

      Heute war zuerst die berühmte Franzischkanische Katakombe Cappuchi an der Reihe. Gott sei Dank haben wir zuvor in einer Bar gefrühstückt, sonst hätten die künstlerisch an Decken Wänden und Boden aufgerichteten Gebeine und Knochen von 2800 Kapuziner Mönchen doch auf den Magen geschlagen. Egsl welche Sage nun die Wahre ist: Ob all die Gebeine ein Mönch aus Langeweile oder Buse oder nur um Platz zu schaffen in so kunstvoller Form angerichtet hat - jedenfalls eine coole Idee.
      Dann ging zum Escher Museum. Beeindruckend wie msn mit Zweidimensionalen Zeichnungen die Sinne Dreimonsionsl täuschen kann. Zur Feier des Tages - das wichtigste an dem Tag war natürlich der Geburtstag von Julia, gings in ein bekanntes Römisches Lokal. Die Spezialität: Trippe - Kuddeln
      Read more

    • Day 35

      Golf Cart Tour

      May 26, 2023 in Italy ⋅ ⛅ 21 °C

      Jan woke up with us feeling much recovered. Great looking day for our activity blue sky, no rain. No problem meeting our Golf Cart Tour driver for the 0930h start time. It is really the only way for Jan to navigate the Rome streets so she can see the main sights. Adrianne is originally from San Diego, studied in London where she met her Italian spouse and now lives in Rome, a son in the temper tantrum stage. She really wanted to impart as much information about Rome as she could.

      We got off to look at Trevi Fountain (fountain not on as they were vacuuming some of the 1.7 million in change that is thrown into the fountain each year, Piazza Navona, high baroque at St Ignatius Church, a fine sculpture by Michelangelo at Peter in Chains Church and finally Aventine Hill with its great view of the city.

      She suggested going to Trapizzino-Trastevere for lunch and dropped us off there. These are yeast doughs with various stuffings. Also had a taste of suppli (Roman rice balls deep fried, some of them with cheese inside). After lunch we walked a short distance to Church #3, Santa Maria in Trastavere, noteworthy for being one of the oldest Christian churches and made of repurposed Roman columns.
      Read more

    • Day 34

      Travel to Rome and Meet Jan

      May 25, 2023 in Italy ⋅ ☁️ 22 °C

      We woke up early to a message from Jan that her flight out of Toronto had been delayed to 0100h due to mechanical issues and debated what to do. We left our Barcelona Hotel at 0710h to catch the metro to Plaza Espanya to catch the Airport Bus but the bus driver would not accept our Hola card. He was wrong -- I checked again, but there was no time to sort it out, so we took a taxi from a nearby hotel (€32, ouch!) but made up the time and found ourselves to our gate with time to spare. We were we very careful packing to be sure we were not overweight for carry on with Vueling, but they didn't weigh us. This is a low cost carrier and we forgot the coffee offered in a paper cup came with a €3.50 charge (ouch!). We got to Rome on time about 1100h, had a quick lunch and Doug headed into Rome to meet with our host to check into our apartment near Piazza Barberini. Nancy stayed at the airport to meet Jan's plane at 1600h (was to come in at 1130h). She occupied herself with Penguins at the Eataly just a floor up from the Terminal 3 departures where Jan was expected in. Finally met up close to 1700h and had an Italian style taxi ride into our accommodation (€55 ouch again!). Jan was short on sleep and we were tuckered out, too much so to get anything from a nearby grocery store so went to Ristorante Claudia basically outside our door and had (what was a really excellent) dinner. Pizza for Nancy and Jan and a proper Roman dinner of Cacio e Pepe and Scaloppine for Doug. Jan was really tired so got into bed right away as we had booked a four hour Golf Cart Tour of Rome the next morning.Read more

    • Day 187

      St Peters Basilica

      September 27, 2019 in Italy ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C

      Photos of the Basilica. Now don’t get me wrong it was stunning but the audio guide felt it was necessary to tell me about every single thing in the church, the artist/sculptor of each piece, when it was created what it was made of and at whose instigation, what it was, what was in its hands, on its head, at its feet who else was there etc etc for me this was just too much information especially delivered in a monotone voice through headphones so we just walked around and looked at everything we were allowed to see. We thought about queuing to climb the dome steps but it looked like we would be there nearly all day. Saw the Vatican guards, well the guys in the odd striped outfits, only a few had weapons and they were spears. So glad we paid extra for our skip the line type tickets as the heat was still pretty awful today though a lot better than before we left for the summer. After a delicious salad lunch we collected our bags and headed back to the boat €1.50 each from Rome to the boat not bad eh? Oh yes got to go back and update yesterday’s post as forgot to mention the running!Read more

    You might also know this place by the following names:

    Piazza Barberini

    Join us:

    FindPenguins for iOSFindPenguins for Android