Rome

In addition to seeking out the best aperitivo in our neighborhood, our week in Rome included a couple days of walking… a lot. We trekked to the Colosseum from our Airbnb in the Pigneto neighborhood, which only took 45 minutes to an hour (when we are in cities and things are less than an hour away, we usually opt to walk there), and we figured we’d explore the center on foot the rest of the day. A friend from Athens (Georgia) recommended a pizza place in the Trastevere neighborhood, so we headed for that. Sometimes when I look at a map and I think something is fairly close… it’s not. It ended up taking us about an hour more than we thought to get to Dar Poeta for lunch, but it was worth it.

Trastevere was really charming and had some narrow alleyways with brightly colored buildings, which I love.

While heading in the direction of our apartment, I accidentally took us on a really long way back, and it took hours and hours to return. I have been wearing my Vans when we go on these 7-hour walking days, and they offer no support. I worry that it’s going to start affecting my feet (or knees), and am considering getting some Nikes or something to walk in, if I can fit them in my suitcase (unlikely). Or I could just wear the Mizunos I run in, but I feel like I should save those just for running. Is that dumb?

St. Peter’s Basilica… where is everybody?

Anyway, on another day, I stuffed my running gear in my tote bag and Jeremy and I took a tram to get to a park I read about, Villa Borghese. I wanted to run on the paths there since there were no cars allowed, and I hadn’t run in Pigneto yet. We tried to find a good area for me to run in Pigneto, but surrounding the neighborhood were lots of small streets with tons of speeding drivers, and no sidewalks. One day we walked for almost a mile in one direction (me with my running gear on), and felt so uncomfortable and unsafe that we turned around and went home. I thought I would have better luck at Villa Borghese, so we tried it, figuring I could run after we’d walked around to see some of the stuff we hadn’t seen yet. We decided to see that stuff first, then return to the park, I would run, then we would take the tram home. It was all very involved. Well, the walked ended up taking us 4-5 hours, and I was beat by the time we returned to the park. I didn’t run, and we headed back on the tram. So, I didn’t run at all during my week in Rome, but I got miles and miles of walking in. Oh well. Here are some more pictures from our walking expeditions.

Piazza Navona.

Piazza Navona.

I was really excited to see the Trevi Fountain, but alas, it was being worked on. Jeremy and I still tossed coins over our shoulders and into the work site, narrowly missing a construction worker. But it means we will return one day! And hopefully the fountain will be completed by then.

Capitoline Hill.

A park filled with feral cats and ruins.

National Modern Art Gallery.

Our Roman workspace.

The zoo in Villa Borghese.

Piazza del Popolo.

I was really blown away with the size of the Pantheon.

Spanish Steps.

More ruins.

Overall, I don’t feel like Jeremy and I got the most out of our week in Rome (I didn’t even take any pictures with my real camera!). Honestly, it was a little overwhelming. I like to think of myself as pretty public-transportation-savvy, but Rome’s system baffled me. The bus numbers don’t line up with the ones listed online, it’s not clear where buses stop, the trams and buses don’t have any information inside of them and nowhere does it alert you to which stop they are at, etc. One afternoon, we planned on going back to the Colosseum so I could get some pictures with my real camera, and didn’t feel like walking. It took us 45 minutes to find a tobacco shop to buy the tram tickets and figure out where the tram stopped, we finally got on one and after 20 minutes, all the Italians in the tram started crowding next to the driver and yelling at him. We didn’t know what was going on, and suddenly everyone jumped off the tram and it continued on, with us still on it. It turned around and went right back the way it came, back to Pigneto. We were hot and flustered, so we decided to just get off and go back to our neighborhood (and get some aperitivo). This actually happened again on our way to the train station to catch our train to Bologna, but we were a little more prepared for it. We had all our luggage with us, and when everyone jumped off the tram, so did we. We piled into a bus that was replacing the tram service, then everyone got off that one too. We jumped off also, then crammed into a different bus, then sat there while the bus waited in traffic for a long time, just hoping it was going to the train station. Thankfully it did, but it was stressful.

I don’t mean to sound like I didn’t like Rome; I definitely did. I just think next time we should stay closer to the center and try to see the things we didn’t get to this time around. It’s a huge city, after all!

One more picture: everywhere in Italy you have to use a plastic glove if you want to get produce. I really loved this actually. So hygienic!

Rome, we will meet again one day!

At the end of our week in Sarzana, it was time for Jeremy and I to continue our travels, while my parents headed back to Paris and London and eventually back home. Jeremy and I decided to visit Rome, since neither of us had ever been. We chose to spend the night in Pisa, to break up the train journey. For some reason we were exhausted by the time we got to Pisa, so we just walked around town and to the tower, then made it an early night to get some rest.

Sandwiches from a place called L’Ostellino in Pisa.

It's really leaning! I also tried to get some pictures of people "holding" it up. It was pretty funny to watch.

It’s really leaning! I tried to get some good pictures of people “holding” it up. It was pretty funny to watch.

This lady really got into it.

Pigneto Neighborhood in Rome

One of my favorite things about staying in Airbnbs is that you get to temporarily live in a neighborhood you may not have even visited otherwise. A lot of the places that we stay don’t even have hotels nearby, and we get to feel what it would be like to live in that city, away from the main tourist attractions. In big cities, staying in the center is also just too expensive, for the most part. This was especially true in Rome; the affordable options were pretty limited, and since neither of us had ever been, it was hard to know what the best location would be. We also only rent places with wifi so we can work remotely, and I wanted an apartment with an air conditioner… I have enough sleeping problems as it is, and being hot at night pretty much guarantees very little sleep for me. I saw the Airbnb Neighborhood Guide for Pigneto, and found a reasonably priced apartment with A/C in walking distance of the pedestrian strip that looked interesting. It turned out to be a great decision, and we spent most of our time in Pigneto, trying different restaurants and bars and visiting the farmers market that happens every day. It reminded us of the Alberta Arts District in Portland, if anyone’s ever been. All of the bars on the main street would show the World Cup matches also, and people would crowd in the street to watch.

It looks like I’m doing a weird sorority-girl-arm thing, but I swear I’m not.

As travelers that try not to spend too much money on going out to eat and instead cook at our accommodations (which we failed at in Italy), we had done our research on good aperitivo places since it was supposed to be pretty cheap. Aperitivo is similar to happy hour, although it happens later than in America (around 7pm), since people in Italy eat dinner at like 10pm. Some bars/restaurants will offer a buffet that you can visit with the price of a drink, or you can order off an aperitivo menu, which is always priced really well. Some just bring food to your table after you order a drink. This was basically a dream come true for us. It was a light dinner that we could eat early, and not drain our wallets. And all the food was crazy delicious. It’s actually hard for me to post these pictures because it makes me want them again so badly. Here are some of our favorites: