“Rome is the city of echoes, the city of illusions and the city of yearning” -Giotto di Bondone

When planning your Italian vacation, Rome has to be on your list of places to visit. Rome wasn’t our favorite stop but I am glad we did because the history and food was amazing! Everyone should experience it at least once in their lifetime!

Colosseum and Roman Forum

We booked our tickets for the Colosseum and the Roman Forum in one tour in advance on TripAdvisor. We had a hard time finding our starting place to meet our tour guide but thankfully we found it right before the tour started. We had little head pieces to hear our tour guide while we walked around both locations. It can be hard to understand them depending on your tour guide because some of their accents are so thick. It was so amazing to see all the ruins of the magnificent ancient Roman Empire. The architecture truly is a masterpiece and to think back on how much time these buildings have stood through really takes your breath away. I would suggest buying your tickets in advance because their were so many people who wanted to be apart of the tours but did not have tickets. The Colosseum was built in the year 69-79 AD and was completed in the year 81-96 AD. It is the largest amphitheatre ever built and it is still the largest standing amphitheatre in the world today. The Colosseum has holes all over it because there use to be iron clamps in it that held all the blocks together. As the centuries went on and the Roman Empire collapsed, people began to steal the highly desired iron clamps and melt it down to make weapons, gates, doors, etc. A day in the life of someone visiting the Colosseum in Ancient Roman times would look something like this. In the morning there would be hunting spectacles that involved exotic animals. This could be between exotic animals fighting each other or men fighting the animals. Around midday is when they would perform the public executions of criminals or people they believed were criminals. A lot of the times they would let the exotic beasts kill the criminals. Towards the evenings is when they would have the gladiator events which were similar to today’s boxing matches. This happened every single day, all day long at the Colosseum. So you can imagine the amount of blood and death that occured here. It also played a role in their politics because politicians would buy out the Colosseum for months at a time and allowed everyone in the city to come and watch the games. This would boost their votes if an election was coming up because they were providing the main source of entertainment to the people.

Food

We were told that different regions of Italy are known for different types of food. Rome is known for their Carbonara and for pasta in general and boy oh boy they were correct! We stayed at the Hotel Virgilio (which was walking distance to all the main attractions in Rome) and they told us that we got a discount if we ate at their sister hotel’s restaurant that was just a few blocks down the road. We had the BEST food at this restaurant the whole time we were in Rome. We would try other resturants people recommended online but we kept coming back to this one restaurant (Unfortunately I can’t remember the name of it). They had the best lobster pasta, ragù gnocchi, carbonara and seafood pasta. So when in Rome, eat ALL the pasta you can because it will be the most life changing pasta you will have in your life!

Desserts

Rome also had some great desserts that I have to tell you about. Get gelato every chance you get and if you only want a little bit of gelato, well too bad you are going to get a ton! I would only want to get a little scoop so I would order the smallest container or cone and they would just pile it on to make it an extra large in an extra small container. But it is soooooo good so just eat it all, all the time, your on vacation! When in Rome, you have to get tiramisu at Two Sizes. They had all sorts of different flavors of tiramisu and it is the best tiramisu I have ever had. We had an original, caramel and strawberry flavor and we loved them all.

Trevi Fountain

We had to visit the Trevi Fountain to make all my Lizzie McGuire Movie dreams come true. We had read online to wake up super early and visit because there are way less people then in the afternoons/evenings and I am so glad we listened to this advice. We got there at 6:00am and only a few people were there so we were able to get great up close pictures and throw our coin in the fountain. It’s so strange seeing the Trevi Fountain in pictures and then walking towards it in real life because in real life it is in an ally way and buidlings surround the whole fountain. It was super dirty walking to the Trevi Fountain and the ally ways were filled with trash bags and glass bottles, it must have been trash day (I’m hoping). A van drove past us very fast and shattered a glass bottle. One of the pieces flew over and cut the back of my leg, but thankfully it was just a small little scratch.

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Rome truly was beautiful and full of so much history. If you are a history geek you really need to spend a few days here. As for us, we did enjoy seeing all the sights and the food was delicious but with how dirty the city was and the heat I think it was a one time stop for us. How was you’re experience visiting Rome?