My first trip to Rome was when I studied abroad back in the spring of 2008. I was taking business courses and definitely should have taken a tiny bit of time out of my schedule to study the basics in Italian. You feel so much more comfortable when you travel if you know the basics of the language! In 2008, I loved the time I spent there - minus a few major apartment-mate issues.
My apartment was situated in Monte Verde near the Trastevere region.
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| A few of the roomies on a cold walk to our apartment! |
It is pretty cold and dreary in Rome the first few months of the year. It held a certain life, though, and I came away with some great memories. It all started with my extremely last minute decision to study abroad from Baylor University. I believe it was the day after the deadline for applications when I saw the advertisement and spontaneously decided I was going to Rome. I hurriedly ran it past my parents, contacted one of the administrators, and set the paperwork in motion! I would be going completely on my own. I didn't have any friends going with me, and I knew absolutely no one from the group. Oh well, this was an adventure!!
When I arrived in Rome, I met my future housemates. I came to like all of my roommates except for two, who were just not my kind of people. Excluding the disasters they caused, the house got along pretty well. We had one shower for eight girls, a tiny kitchen, and four small bedrooms on the fifth floor of the building - I believe. Fifth in Europe means sixth in the United States because the ground floor is just that - ground. Including the stairs up to our floor, we all had to trek over 600 stairs one way to go to school. That means a ton of blisters for me.
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| One very small excerpt of the daily hike. |
One of our very first (good) eating adventures was on Trastevere. We were called inside by the restaurant workers, who ushered us to a table and exclaimed they had amazing pizza. Of course, we had to try a pizza in Rome! I don't think we knew we would be faced with a personal, medium-sized pizza when we asked for it. They were right about having good pizza, but our untrained American bellies couldn't quite stomach a full pizza just yet.
Of course, after that, we found several different delicious places to try and even made a friend at
Le Fate Restaurant from our many cooking classes. Andrea Consoli is an amazing chef and an entertaining teacher. He hosts cooking classes in Rome at his Trastevere restaurant for all who are willing to sign up. I would highly recommend his cooking experiences to anyone who is going to Rome. It is a day you will never forget, and you have the recipes, as well as the memories, with you for the rest of your life! Check it out here:
Cooking Classes in Rome.
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| A few cooking class excerpts! |
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| Campo de Fiori market for ingredients. |
With the class you get a full four- or five-course Italian meal (that you made yourself!), a potential excursion into the open air markets for hand selecting your ingredients, picture documentation of your experience, the recipes to take home, knowledge of local cooking traditions, and even new friends.
During breaks from our classes, we definitely made sure to explore the typical tourist spots and take advantage of the off-season. There were virtually no tourists (amazing if you think about how crowded Rome is during the summer) and we got to explore on our own time.
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| A few of Rome's top spots! |
There are more than a few really cool places to shop around Piazza del Rotunda and the Pantheon. Some are touristy and some aren't. Of course, if you are a coffee lover, Italy is the place to be and you can get amazing coffee from pretty much any cafe. One of the most famous ones, though, is in Piazza del Rotunda. I bought my parents some of their coffee for home use when I was there, and when I brought them back to visit just this past June, they really enjoyed hanging out there while my sister and I went exploring.
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| Cafe Tazza d'Oro has some pretty delicious coffee. |
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Another cool place to stumble upon - for amazing gelato near the Pantheon.
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Giolliti is often crowded and not directly around the corner from the Pantheon, but if you visit and want some incredible gelato,
definitely check it out.
Piazza Navona is another one of my favorite hot spots in Rome. Usually filled with cheap artists, street performers, and sometimes music, the original place of the Stadium of Domitian buzzes with life and I love looking at all of the art offered there. It may not be the best quality, but I have found a number of beautiful pieces during my visits. The most recent visit produced an incredible acrylic street scene of a small Italian town... I can't wait to get home and frame it!
Of course, if you visit Rome, you have to make the obvious stop over to Vatican City to see one of the biggest art collections in the world at the Vatican Museum. Make sure to dedicate a full day to the Vatican, because it is exhausting and there is so much to see! I had no interest in climbing to the top of St. Peter's Basilica because of the massive lines, but that is also an option which I hear has incredible views. The Basilica itself is incredible and the massive columns and intricate artwork throughout truly takes at least a good hour or more to take in.
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| St. Peter's at sunrise |
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| The Altar |
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| A cupola inside the Basilica |
The Vatican Museum is where you really get overwhelmed. The name of the game must have been intricacy, because it completely blows your mind when you try to wander through the multiple sections, culminating in the Sistine Chapel. I definitely recommend a guided tour, as you can skip the ridiculous line (hours long during peak season) and you can learn a lot more history than you would have on your own.
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| This is someone else's photo. |
When you are in the Sistine Chapel, you are not allowed to take pictures or speak, so I borrowed this from somewhere years ago. Unfortunately, many people don't care about the Sistine Chapel being regarded as a holy place, so they gab on and on and ruin the atmosphere by taking illegal pictures. If you go, I hope you preserve the environment and the artwork and keep your mouth shut and cameras off.
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| The spiral staircase at the end of the museum. |
One really amazing thing that most people do not get to experience is a nearly silent street, empty of tourists, a sunrise chasing you as you run through this city. If you enjoy distance running, it is definitely worth the early morning start. Of course, you will get called "crazy" for taking a four a.m. run around Rome, but it is definitely worth it to enjoy the entirety of the sites in their full glory - without the tourism cheapening it. We began at the Vatican, and ran in a large circle hitting the top spots around Rome as the sun was slowly coming up. When the sunrise is in its most beautiful state, you end your 9-mile run by crossing Ponte Sant'Angelo (with incredible angelic sculptures) to Castel Sant'Angelo and turning to view the Vatican, still silent in the sleepy morning, and the sunrise casting pink and gold hues on St. Peters. I have run this route twice now, and the views are breathtaking. Here is a quick link to the running route for those of you who might be interested:
4 a.m. Roman Running Tour
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| The pre-sunrise sites |
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| Sunrise sites |
So that's plenty to read right there - I hope you can travel to Rome and enjoy it the way I was able to with my family! I will continue this post at a later date with our trips to Pompeii, Sorrento, Capri, Naples, Tuscany, and Milan. Ciao!
