Rome - Wandering Rome

April 2006

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As is often said, "Rome was not built in a day", neither can it be visited in a day or even just a long weekend, there is just so much to see, explore and take in. As I had never been to Rome before we decided to spend a long weekend exploring some of this ancient city.

We arrived in the middle of the day so decided to walk from the train station to our hotel, "how difficult can that be"?! We knew we were heading in the correct general direction of our hotel but our basic map was not being of much help. We were about to start looking for a taxi when we came across the extremely sumptuous Savoy Hotel (next door to the even more luxurious Eden Hotel, neither of which we were staying at). They very kindly provided us with a map and showed us we were not far from the Spanish Steps which were just a stone's throw from our hotel.

We continued our walk on to the Spanish Steps and, as all good tourists should do, we admired the steps and the view from the top, walked down the steps taking a few photos as we went and sat on the steps at the bottom. We found it quite amusing that the steps, which are one of Rome's biggest tourist attractions, were designed by the French and named for the Spaniards!

After checking in to our hotel we went on our first exploration of the general area seeing some amazing buildings and monuments, mostly the less famous ones such as Piazza Colonna, Palazzo Montecitorio (the Parliament buildings), Temple Adriano, and various other unnamed buildings. We then spent quite a while in awe of the Pantheon, what an amazing building! We read that, on the odd occasion that it snows in Rome, it is a truly magnificent sight to watch the snow falling through the round opening at the top of the dome onto the floor of the Pantheon. We treated ourselves to Rome's BEST ice-cream and sat and looked at the Pantheon while watching the world go by. We also walked through one of the main Piazza's, Piazza Navona where all of Rome's beautiful people hang out and then made our way back to our hotel via The Trevi Fountains, the first of many visits to these beautiful fountains. That evening we ate at a pizza restaurant called Pizza Cir, recommended by one of our guide books which was great, frequented by locals and tourists alike, we were served by a really amusing waiter who decided on some of our meal for us including an after dinner liquor. Definitely worth a visit when in Rome.