Last Day in Italy

After some deliberation, on our last day we decided to explore some additional ancient ruins in and around Rome (as opposed to a day trip to Naples/Pompeii) since we enjoyed what we saw so much on the previous day. Before this though, we tried out Italian McDonald’s for breakfast. As in other European countries that I’ve seen, McDonald’s tends to be much nicer than in the US, and is more of a cafe with pastries and espresso drinks. They only had one breakfast sandwich (eggs, bacon, and cheese on an English muffin), and one other uniquely Italian sandwich (an inside out toasted bun with prosciutto and cheese) that we tried.

We first saw the remains of a Roman bath complex called the Baths of Caracalla, a little further away from the city center. We decided to take the metro there, as the extensive walking has started to add up. The metro system in Rome is not as extensive as you would expect for such a large city. This is because the city is so old that it has been rebuilt many times on top of itself which means there are old ruins basically anywhere you dig (exemplified by the multi-layer church we visited yesterday), so it’s impossible to construct and underground subway line.

Because the bath complex is a bit far away, it was not busy at all, but people are missing out because it is quite incredible. The complex is absolutely massive, and the main walls of the 2nd century buildings are largely in tact along with some marble and tile floors. We rented a VR headset guide which was actually pretty neat; in addition to being a regular audio guide, you could go into each room in the complex and then look at a reconstruction of the what the room would have looked like using VR. It’s nice to see this kind of technology being put to good use (this is Davis if you couldn’t tell)! We saw various rooms that used to be gyms and swimming pools where Romans would exercise and relax. On edge of one swimming pool, you could see an ancient Roman board game carved into the marble where they used to sit along with some jokes written in Latin which was funny to see.

We next continued on the metro to an even further edge of the city to an aqueduct park nicely tucked into a suburban neighborhood. It was just like a normal park – you could freely walk in and there was plenty of green space. It seemed like a popular area for runners and walkers. However, the park is quite unique as it’s littered with a number of ancient aqueducts that used to supply Rome with water. Some of the aqueducts are nearly fully preserved and it was amazing to see the ingenuity that the Romans employed in their civil engineering. Allie had been insistent on seeing aqueducts even before we arrived in Italy, so she was ecstatic to finally get to see them. She says “seeing aqueducts in the flesh….was amazing”.

We wrapped up the day by traveling back to the city center and getting some shopping done (another things Allie was insistent on doing). The city center has a ton of shops and everything was nicely decorated for Christmas with lights and trees everywhere. Throughout the trip we had also noticed many signs for Black Friday or even “Black Week” sales in Italian shops, so I guess this American tradition has become popular internationally.

We tried some more traditional Roman dishes for our final dinner. Allie had ravioli while I had oxtail and artichoke. The oxtail (which is just bits from the tail of a cow) really just tasted like normal roasted beef with a lot of bone to avoid. Artichoke is very popular in Rome and in season right now; it was heavily soaked in olive oil and not my favorite thing, but to be fair I’m not usually that fond of them.

Yesterday we made the long trip home which involved basically every mode of transportation possible (taxi, plane, bus, train, and an Uber). Though it seemed like the longest day ever, we have finally made it back to LA. This trip has been amazing for us, and we hope you enjoyed following along!

Roman baths

Roman baths

Aqueducts

Aqueducts

Ravioli

Baths.

Baths

VR Guide at the Baths

aqueducts

McDonald’s Breakfast

Sleeping Beauty on the way home

 

Exploring Ancient Rome

Our favorite day of the trip so far was spent exploring numerous ancient ruins in Rome. The day started off leisurely (Allie was sleepy) and we ate breakfast and meandered to the main ruin area. The first site we saw was the Coliseum. We bought the audio guide and wandered around with the rest of the tourists to see the sites. It was pretty cool to see- it was in more ruins than we expected but still very large- who knew they could potentially fit up to 70,000 people in the building at once. We were very glad we went on a random Wednesday in December as it was still packed. After this we went to find food- Allie ate a large pizza as seen in the photo.

The second stop we made was the Roman Forum. This is a collection of buildings (lots of basilicas and various churches) from ancient Rome 200 BC-400 AD that made up the ancient center of the city. We also bought the audio guide for this but they limit you to a two-hour rental and we felt rushed. There is lots to see here and it was all really interesting! The forum was a lot bigger than we thought and there were many active archaeological excavations occurring.

The third stop was Palatine Hill which is just off of the main Forum area. Unfortunately, because we were so intrigued by the Forum (and only really saw half of it) we did not have much time left for this part because the sun was already setting at 4 PM. They had gardens and ruins of many emperors including Nero’s palace. Lots of things were also in tact here including a horse training area, underground tunnels leading to rooms in the palace, and many other things that apparently were very extravagant for the time but today just appear to be brick walls/arches.

The fourth stop was to a church that our pasta chef from last night recommended- it was a three level church:

1. First floor was the current church built in 12^th century
2. First level underground (-1) was a church built in the 4^th century but it was not discovered until the 19^th century and had the tomb of St. Clement
3. Second level underground (-2) contained some buildings from the 1^st century that had flowing spring water and and housed the cult Mithros before Christianity became a thing

It was cool to see all the layers as the street level has changed over the years. And because the older levels were buried underground, they were all very well preserved and we could walk around each floor in its entirety. After the church, we made the long trek back to our house to find where we wanted to eat dinner. We went to the Trastevere neighborhood which was just across the river on the south west side of the city which is supposedly the cool new upcoming place in Rome. We had a nice pasta dinner (of course) and ended the night with some gelato as we deserved it (we walked over 13 miles).

Coliseum

Audio guides!

Big Pizza

The Forum

The Forum

Coliseum View from Forum

View from Palatine Hill

Pasta….yum

Vatican City and Pasta Making

We started our first full day in Rome with an extremely early tour of the Vatican. They allow guided tour groups to come in earlier than the general public, so our tour which met at 7:30am got to explore many of the main attractions with relatively few people around which was great. Our tour guide was also extremely knowledgeable and had even written a book on various pieces of art within the Vatican. We weaved through buildings looking at many historic statues, paintings, and tapestries. Finally, we reached the Sistine Chapel to see Michelangelo’s masterpieces. The Sistine Chapel is in its own building (I had thought it was part of St. Peter’s Basilica, but this is not the case) and is absolutely covered in amazing frescoes including very famous ones like The Creation of Adam. It is still considered a holy place so we were not allowed to talk our take pictures. For part of the time, there was even a priest leading some prayers and offering confessions.

The last stop on the tour was St. Peter’s Basilica, the massive main church of the Vatican. It was absolutely stunning. We’ve seen many many (many) churches on this trip, but this one made our jaws drop immediately and stands out from the rest. It is absolutely enormous making it hard to fathom – it makes you feel so tiny. Allie described it as majestic and awe-inspiring. There are many different sections and chapels inside that were interesting to see. We saw more masterpieces by Michelangelo and went down to the lower crypts of the church where the tombs of many Popes are kept. Just outside the Basilica is the main plaza of Vatican City. It was being prepared for a public appearance by the Pope which was happening the following day. Apparently, he does this most Wednesdays and every time the main square is nearly full and can even spill out into the streets of Rome.

After visiting the Vatican, we hit a number of big sites in Rome throughout the afternoon. We saw the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, and more. We definitely got our steps in for the day as Rome is relatively walkable.

In the evening we took a cooking class and learned to make some classic Italian dishes which we enjoyed for dinner. Us and 4 other people went to the apartment of our host and teacher, Alessandro, who lives very close to the Pantheon. He was a lively guy with a very interesting background (he was a professional chef that had worked at a Michelin-star restaurant and been the private cook for the Mercedes-Benz CEO, he was also an olive oil sommelier, and before that was a world-champion diver). We made ravioli and fettucine from scratch and he showed us how to make a classic Roman dish called carbonara. Carbonara is a very traditional Roman dish which contains spaghetti or rigatoni mixed with egg yolk, guanciale (pork cheek which tastes a bit like bacon), cheese, and a ton of black pepper. We left extremely full and inspired to get our own pasta maker when we get home.

At the Vatican

At the Vatican

Vatican City

St. Peter’s Basilica

The Pantheon

Trevi Fountain

Spanish Steps

Ravioli

Ravioli

Fettucine

Road Trip to Rome

We’re a few days behind on blog posts, so this was actually a few days ago. We’ll try to catch up soon – there’s just so much stuff to see!

Today was mostly driving down to Rome from the San Gimignano area, which was mostly uneventful, but we did make a few fun stops along the way. We really loved our little winery cottage, and were sad to leave, but definitely we’re excited to see all the great things in Rome.

Our first stop of the day was another medieval town called Volterra situated on a hill in the countryside, quite close to San Gimignano. The little town was actually quite similar to San Gimignano as I believe they peaked at around the same time in history. But Volterra did have some very neat first century Roman ruins that you could get a panoramic view of from the city walls. This included a large amphitheater nestled into the hillside with a stage that looked over 2 stories tall, all of which was actually in pretty good condition. It seems crazy that these kind of things could be built so long ago, and it’s really making me excited to see the ruins in Rome.

We next made our way down to the west coast of Italy and stopped in Castiglione della Pescaia, a seaside town that contains a medieval fortress. The fortress was largely similar to previous medieval towns but was located on top of a hill that gave spectacular views of the ocean and surrounding areas. The city was basically a ghost town, we concluded it’s more of a summer beach town, so not many people hang around in December. But it was nice as we got the fortress to ourselves (besides a few stray cats). We managed to find the only restaurant open in town for lunch and enjoyed some delicious pasta (to continue our streak of pasta every day since we arrived). I got some delicious spaghetti with clams in the spirit of the seaside town, and Allie ended up with a spaghetti bolognese after an exchange in Italian with the waitress that we didn’t really understand. Our Italian has improved slightly, but definitely not great… Either was it was tasty.

The rest of the afternoon was driving down to the Rome airport to drop off the car. We’ve concluded that the drivers here are on the whole not great.  I got passed on the shoulder a number of times which can’t be legal, but I guess I’m not sure. To be fair the roads don’t help a whole lot; the main highway to the airport which was about 4 or 5 lanes wide had no lane markers at all for many kilometers. But it was fun to try and see how things are different here, albeit a bit stressful.

After a train to Rome and a subsequent taxi ride (in the pouring rain) we arrived at our Airbnb where we’ll be until we leave. It’s an incredible apartment, definitely the coolest place so far. It’s on the top story of a building built in the 16th century and is way bigger than you would expect for a big city like Rome. Being on the top floor, the ceiling in the family room and bathroom is pitched which is terrible for my head (this is Davis writing) but it does look cool.

Quiet Day in San Gimignano

Today was a rather quiet day in the Tuscan countryside and the medieval town of San Gimignano. We started out this morning by discovering the incredible view from our Airbnb room located on a local winery. The property sits on a hillside overlooking the nearby town of San Gimignano which contains 7 large stone lowers that rise above the countryside full of vineyards (apparently there used to be many more towers in the city in the 13th and 14th century, but now only 7 remain). We enjoyed a wonderful breakfast prepared by our Airbnb hosts of bread, cheese, jam, and croissants while taking in the view.

We decided to take it a little slow today and enjoy the Italian countryside. In the morning and afternoon we went into the town of San Gimignano and saw I think every museum that it contains. We climbed 200-some steps to the top of the largest of the 7 towers (Torre Grossa), and saw many beautiful fresco panels in multiple churches within the city. Italy has a lot of churches turns out. This town, which is end-to-end walkable in 10 minutes, contains at least 4, all of which are hundreds of years old. We enjoyed a classic Italian lunch of paninis (which really just means sandwiches with some sort of meat and cheese, not the toasted version we expect in the US) and of course had to get some gelato afterwards.

In the late afternoon we came back to our Airbnb winery and did a wine tasting with a sommelier that works on the property. It was probably the best wine tasting I’ve ever done, not only because the wine was good, but because it was very personal and fun. We sat at a table with our host and chatted while enjoying the various wines, cheese, bread, and olive oil (which they also made here). He has never been to Napa and Sonoma before! So we told him about our experiences there and how it seemed to compare to Italian wine country. This region is very well known for a white wine/grape called Vernaccia, which I had never heard of before, but is really good and it’s quickly becoming one of my favorites.

We had dinner at a quiet restaurant back in San Gimignano which was located in a kind of cozy underground stone cellar, and now we’re in the process of planning our journey to Rome tomorrow where we’ll be spending the remainder of the trip. It’s a relatively long drive, but we plan on making a few stops to see some more ancient towns and interesting seaside cities along the way.

View of San Gimignano from our Airbnb.

Breakfast.

View from Torre Grossa

Paninis.