Exploring Rome

On to our last stop of the trip - Rome!

We're staying next door to The Pantheon in a very central part of the city for the next 3 nights. No plans, just a lot of pasta lunch and dinner ideas.

After getting settled at the hotel we embarked to find cocktails and dinner with a quick stroll by Trevi Fountain. It was pretty busy at the fountain but nowhere near the crowds I expect have been here all summer! Site seeing complete we grabbed cocktails at a cute hotel bar with oysters on the menu. Unfortunately Kevin's martini and oysters + maybe a slight flu, did not sit right and so we were down to three for dinner this evening.

Operating at partial strength we still managed to find a lovely osteria with roman pastas (not all that tricky) and enjoyed a few bottles of delicious wine. I had the truffle carbonara (freshly grated table side truffle!), Igor got the amatricana, and Amanda went for seafood tonnarelli (a thick spaghetti famous in Rome).

We had all intentions of returning to the hotel for sleep until the free lemonchello shots at the restaurant really enlivened the group! Instead of a reasonable sleep time we spent the evening having negronis late into the night overlooking the pantheon - when in Rome!

After a too short sleep, we ventured over to the Vatican to visit st. Peters basilica! Beautiful as always, we took in the many sites and even happened to walk through the Holy Doors (open only once every 25 years on the Jubilee year). Unfortunately the doors did not heal Igor, who parted ways while the other three of us decided to climb to the top of the dome of the basilica. We felt quite winded but it was worth it for the views!Read more