Day 9 - When in Rome
Because we had the first flight out of Santorini we ended up arriving in Rome before noon. The Leonardo Express train took us straight into downtown from the airport. At 12 euros a person it’s definitely the easiest way to get to town. The main train station in Rome (Termini) is about ¼ mile from our hotel, the St. Regis, so it was quite convenient.
It was pretty early before check-in but we decided to try anyway since it was really warm in Rome and we were tired of carrying our bags around. (Warm? No, it was hot. 95 degrees and we had on jeans. I swear when we checked the weather forecast a day ago it was projected to be in the mid 80s. Where did this crazy heat come from? – Mer) As soon as we arrived at the St. Regis it was pretty clear we were well out of our league. Everyone was wearing suits and the inside lobby looked like a museum. Fortunately, they had our room almost ready. What’s up, Starpoints!?
Julie and Duffy were kind enough to have a fruit basket for us in our room. That was very thoughtful of them and it was a nice treat with the heat. We headed out to wander over to a few spots to see what we could accomplish the first day. We stopped in a pizza place that was supposed to be good and ordered a few pies and pints. The crust was super thin. We got one with prosciutto and one with anchovies. Both were very tasty but so thin you had to fold them just to pick them up.
A word about pizza in Rome. Every single food place in Rome has the word pizzeria, ristorante, gelateria, or birreria in the name. I’m not kidding. Within one block you might have 10 different places with almost the same name. We quickly were overwhelmed with the sheer volume of them and the nearly identical names. Because of the large amounts of people everywhere you went it became somewhat difficult to discern between the good places and tourist traps. There are a crapload of tourist traps but a lot of them are easy to avoid because they are right by the places that sell all of the generic trinkets.
We headed over to the Colisseum and Roman Forum area. The Colisseum is fascinating, especially when you consider its deadly and violent purpose. It’s a massive stadium and a phenomenal structure given that it was created some 2000 years ago. Our visit there was slightly weird since they were putting up a stage and lights show for some performance inside it. I’m pretty sure the ancient Romans didn’t have strobe lights.
Afterwards, we wandered around the area and saw the UEFA Champions Cup on display. We didn’t know that the final game is on May 27 in Rome. There were lots of soccer related festivities going on in the area. We then headed over to the see the Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps. Both were jam packed with people. We had hoped May would bring few tourists but it was quite crowded. Interestingly, though, it seemed like just as many Italians were down in the area as there were international tourists.
We stopped off for gelato at San Crispino, which Mer had heard was the best in Rome. It wasn’t bad but fairly mild flavors made it nothing to do backflips over. (Chris didn’t love his gelato but I had the San Crispino flavor, which is made with Sardinian wild honey, and it was incredible. – Mer) There was a store around the corner that was doing free limoncello tastings so of course we enjoyed that. Another interesting thing about Rome is that they have little drinking fountains everywhere that are nothing like American fountains. These are ornate stone and metal objects with cold water running from them constantly. You can dip a bottle underneath or just fill up your hands with cool water. You can jam your hand underneath it and the hole in the top of the spout becomes a drinking fountain. Not the most sanitary idea but the constantly running water probably minimizes the impact.
We decided to head over to dinner at a place Mer read about, Il Gabriello. It was down below in a cellar like area and had an interesting vibe. We stuck with our trend of ordering inexpensive house wine and as usual, it was quite good for the price. Ordering in Italy is a bit different that Greece. They like to break out their menus into antipasta, insalata, first dishes, secondi dishes and dessert. You usually need to order something from each to have the meat and the pasta together so it takes a bit of adjusting. I had veal and wine sauce and it literally came out as three small pieces of veal on a plate and nothing else. Meredith had some pasta and we finished off with some cappuccino.
In general, the food was good but nothing spectacular. This was dampened by the fact that every person in there was American and this place was in the Rick Steves book. Some Americans next to us were nice enough to have a conversation although I wasn’t that interested until they said they found a place in a nearby alley that had cheap beer and was mostly locals. Now I was excited. (One of my favorite things about vacation is that fellow vacationers are always interested in striking up conversations during meals. In the US, people generally tend to keep more to themselves, but vacationers are always willing to talk about their trip and offer recommendations. We’ve found some really cool places this way. – Mer)
We headed over there afterwards and this place was awesome. It was totally Italian and we were the only Americans in the joint. It was fairly confusing at first since it’s common to have to order at the cashier and then take your receipt over to the bartender to actually get your beer. Once we got a table we ordered some snacks and had a few more beers and grappa. It was a nice end to the evening.
It was pretty early before check-in but we decided to try anyway since it was really warm in Rome and we were tired of carrying our bags around. (Warm? No, it was hot. 95 degrees and we had on jeans. I swear when we checked the weather forecast a day ago it was projected to be in the mid 80s. Where did this crazy heat come from? – Mer) As soon as we arrived at the St. Regis it was pretty clear we were well out of our league. Everyone was wearing suits and the inside lobby looked like a museum. Fortunately, they had our room almost ready. What’s up, Starpoints!?
Julie and Duffy were kind enough to have a fruit basket for us in our room. That was very thoughtful of them and it was a nice treat with the heat. We headed out to wander over to a few spots to see what we could accomplish the first day. We stopped in a pizza place that was supposed to be good and ordered a few pies and pints. The crust was super thin. We got one with prosciutto and one with anchovies. Both were very tasty but so thin you had to fold them just to pick them up.
A word about pizza in Rome. Every single food place in Rome has the word pizzeria, ristorante, gelateria, or birreria in the name. I’m not kidding. Within one block you might have 10 different places with almost the same name. We quickly were overwhelmed with the sheer volume of them and the nearly identical names. Because of the large amounts of people everywhere you went it became somewhat difficult to discern between the good places and tourist traps. There are a crapload of tourist traps but a lot of them are easy to avoid because they are right by the places that sell all of the generic trinkets.
We headed over to the Colisseum and Roman Forum area. The Colisseum is fascinating, especially when you consider its deadly and violent purpose. It’s a massive stadium and a phenomenal structure given that it was created some 2000 years ago. Our visit there was slightly weird since they were putting up a stage and lights show for some performance inside it. I’m pretty sure the ancient Romans didn’t have strobe lights.
Afterwards, we wandered around the area and saw the UEFA Champions Cup on display. We didn’t know that the final game is on May 27 in Rome. There were lots of soccer related festivities going on in the area. We then headed over to the see the Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps. Both were jam packed with people. We had hoped May would bring few tourists but it was quite crowded. Interestingly, though, it seemed like just as many Italians were down in the area as there were international tourists.
We stopped off for gelato at San Crispino, which Mer had heard was the best in Rome. It wasn’t bad but fairly mild flavors made it nothing to do backflips over. (Chris didn’t love his gelato but I had the San Crispino flavor, which is made with Sardinian wild honey, and it was incredible. – Mer) There was a store around the corner that was doing free limoncello tastings so of course we enjoyed that. Another interesting thing about Rome is that they have little drinking fountains everywhere that are nothing like American fountains. These are ornate stone and metal objects with cold water running from them constantly. You can dip a bottle underneath or just fill up your hands with cool water. You can jam your hand underneath it and the hole in the top of the spout becomes a drinking fountain. Not the most sanitary idea but the constantly running water probably minimizes the impact.
We decided to head over to dinner at a place Mer read about, Il Gabriello. It was down below in a cellar like area and had an interesting vibe. We stuck with our trend of ordering inexpensive house wine and as usual, it was quite good for the price. Ordering in Italy is a bit different that Greece. They like to break out their menus into antipasta, insalata, first dishes, secondi dishes and dessert. You usually need to order something from each to have the meat and the pasta together so it takes a bit of adjusting. I had veal and wine sauce and it literally came out as three small pieces of veal on a plate and nothing else. Meredith had some pasta and we finished off with some cappuccino.
In general, the food was good but nothing spectacular. This was dampened by the fact that every person in there was American and this place was in the Rick Steves book. Some Americans next to us were nice enough to have a conversation although I wasn’t that interested until they said they found a place in a nearby alley that had cheap beer and was mostly locals. Now I was excited. (One of my favorite things about vacation is that fellow vacationers are always interested in striking up conversations during meals. In the US, people generally tend to keep more to themselves, but vacationers are always willing to talk about their trip and offer recommendations. We’ve found some really cool places this way. – Mer)
We headed over there afterwards and this place was awesome. It was totally Italian and we were the only Americans in the joint. It was fairly confusing at first since it’s common to have to order at the cashier and then take your receipt over to the bartender to actually get your beer. Once we got a table we ordered some snacks and had a few more beers and grappa. It was a nice end to the evening.
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