The Roman Holiday

I can't even begin to explain how great it is to be able to decide you want to go to Rome the following weekend. And then just go. Ahh, the advantages of living in Europe.

So we began talking sometime in January about what we would do for Jason’s upcoming birthday (Feb 12). We came up with a few ideas and were leaning towards a giant, indoor water park/spa/beach called “Tropical Paradise” in Germany, thanks to a recommendation by one of my students. Going to a place where we could literally camp on the beach in the middle of a snowstorm did sound pretty appealing, but then we remembered that we’re in Europe and there are a lot of amazing destinations only an hour away. So we looked into flights and settled on Rome. I had been there about 10 years ago and Jason 9 years ago, so we were both excited to go back and see it again after so long.

We left Friday morning and arrived at our little B&B next to the Vatican by about 3:00 pm. When the owner of the B&B saw in Jason’s passport that it was his birthday, he gifted us a bottle of champagne. Nice! We couldn’t think of a better way to start our sight seeing around Rome. We poured ourselves (and the owner) a couple glasses plus one for the road and headed out on the town.

First stop was the Spanish Steps, which looked beautiful in the late afternoon sun. I tried to recreate a picture of me from 10 years ago on the Spanish Steps (in which I was trying to recreate the famous scene of Audrey Hepburn in the same spot). We headed on to the Pantheon and were amazed by the perfect semi-circle ceiling.

After some wandering around and looking for some recommended restaurants and gelato places from friends, we visited the Trevi Fountain, along with every other visitor in Rome, to throw a coin over our shoulder and take a cute couple pic. By that point it was getting late and we were starting to get cold in the night air, so we made our way to a little tratoria that looked appealing and ordered some wine and pasta. Great food, great wine, and great atmosphere. Perfect for a birthday dinner. Later, we wandered back to our neighborhood and found a (disappointing) gelato place for dessert.

Saturday morning we woke up early and headed over to the Vatican, where we spent most of the day. We heard horror stories about the 2+ hour wait to get into the Vatican Museums, so we were pleasantly surprised when we only had to wait about 5 minutes. We meandered through all of the museums and sat in awe gazing at the Sistine Chapel. It’s just as beautiful as I remember it! We walked around St. Peter’s Cathedral and visited in the catacombs, including the tomb of the late Pope John Paul.

That evening was Jason’s special birthday present. Being the big soccer fan that he is, he of course decided to check the schedule for AS Roma as soon as we started to plan our trip. He was very pleased to find that they had a game scheduled for Saturday evening against Palermo, a team from Sicily. We headed to the old Olympic Stadium and sat with the fans and cheered on Roma to their 4-1 win over Palermo. It was a great game, but I was absolutely frozen by the end. Our goal (haha.) for that night was to find a very local restaurant for dinner, where we would hopefully be the only tourists around and have a chance to eat the ‘real’ Italian food. We decided that the area around the stadium was sufficiently un-touristy, and found a really great little restaurant where we were indeed, the only foreigners. More great food, great wine, great atmosphere.

We spent Sunday (Valentine’s Day) walking all around the entire city and saw an incredible amount of famous sites: from the St. Angelo Castle, Vittorio Emanuelle Monument, Colusseum, Roman Forum, famous piazzas, etc. Jason gave me a beautiful rose on the Spanish Steps for Valentine’s Day, which I carried around all day long. We ate a tasty lunch, wine included, sitting outside in the beautiful weather of the Piazza Navona. For dinner we found an even less touristy, more delicious restaurant, just around the corner from our hotel. I got exactly what I had been craving our whole time in Italy: frutti del mar pasta and an artichoke (in CZ, artichokes only exist on pizzas). Bellisimo!

Monday, our final morning in Rome, before heading right back to Prague and back to work, we returned to the Vatican one last time. Before this trip, we didn’t even know that it was possible to go up on the roof on St. Peter’s and all the way up to the top of the Cupola. We went up at about 8:30 AM and were fortunate to be virtually alone atop the giant cathedral. The views were incredible, although a little smoggy, and looking out across the city from on high was the perfect way to end the beautiful mini vacation. I can think of nothing better…

Rome pictures posted here.