Week #4 -- Tivoli

Saturday, February 16
DAY TRIP! We decided to take a day trip to Tivoli to visit the famous Villa d'Este (its the garden of fountains in the Lizzie McGuire Movie). We had to walk to the Metro stop at the Colosseo, then take a bus from the end of the line to Tivoli. The bus ride took about 45 minutes, and it was really stressful because the stops are not marked and we had no idea where we were supposed to get off. But we made it! Also, there was an unexpected entrance fee of about 6 euro, but the hastle was definitely worth it! The gardens are BEAUTIFUL--by far the mnost beautiful place I've been to thus far. It is like a maze of foutains within the gardens. It's so pretty! I could have stayed there all day, but we decided to come back and take a nap--mine lasted 3 hours, but I guess I have an excuse: I have been coming down with a cold after all. Haha. Dinner at Pascucci and all is well: 2 oranges today--I need my vitamin C. A great excuse to eat as many oranges as I can get my hands on: I just can't get enough the oranges here. They're so good!

Review of the past week's events:
On Monday, Jess and I walked across the river to visit the churches of Santa Cecilia and Santa Maria in Trastevere. Of course, they were both beautiful, although Santa Cecila was rather small and much more modern than the other churches we have been visiting.

Tuesday evening everyone in the program had to watch the film "The Garden of the Finzi Continis" which is a film based on the famous novel by Giorgio Bassani. I was not at all impressed.

Wednesday, Jess and I climbed the Vittorio Emanuele Monument. The view from the top of the monument is fantastic, and the stairs on the left side are a great place to sit in the sun and do homework. A new favorite spot!

Thursday...VALENTINE'S DAY!
We got a treat at the Tiziano for dinner: a bottle of red wine for each table. To celebrate the holiday, the five of us walked to la Panizzaria after dinner to get a cake only to discover that it was closed. No worries though, we just went to Nice Ice instead and got nutella crepes...Im officially addicted.

Friday...and the weekend begins!
Friday was a long day. We started our journey after lunch at the Hotel say around 1:45. First, we went to the Church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin to take pictures with our hand inside "The Mouth of Truth" or in Italian "La Bocca della Verita." Legend has it that if you stick you're hand inside the mouth of truth and tell a lie, the flesh will be eaten off your hand! Ewww...This is famous because of the scene in the film "Roman Holiday" with Audrey Hepburn. We then walked to il Giardino degli Aranci, literally "Garden of Oranges", which was a really pretty, quiet place to relax and people watch. The garden also has one of the best views of Rome. After picking some oranges for the road, we continued on to la Piazza Cavalieri di Malta to look through the famous keyhole. It was really cool--kind of reminded me of "The Secret Garden." When you look through the keyhole, there is a row of trees on either side of a pathway that ends in an archway through which you can see the dome of St. Peter's Basilica. This didn't show up in the picture I took, but just imagin it. Haha. We left the Piazza dei Cavalieri and began making our way to Piazza del Popolo to watch the sunset at il Pincio (a balcony overlooking the Piazza from the park at Villa Borghese). On the way, we stopped at Circo Massimo and then at Gelato di San Crispino near the Trevi Fountain for a snack. San Crispino's is supposed to have the best gelato in Rome, and I definitely agree! I will for sure be going there again. Moving on, we climbed to the stop of the Spanish Steps and made it to il Pincio in Villa Borghese for the sunset around 5:30. I would just like to say that I like the sunset much better than the sunrise, probably mostly because it is not as early in the morning or as cold..haha. When we finally made it back to the Hotel, we were all exhausted and settled in to watch the Lizzie McGuire Movie, which of course is set in Rome. Ti amo, Roma! ("I love you, Rome")

Saturday...as I already described, we went to Tivoli to visit the gardens at the Villa d'Este.

Sunday, February 17th == The Best Day of My Life (maybe a little exageration involved here)
FOOD DAY!!
Before mass, we walked to il Panizzeria to get some of the best cornetti in Rome (in our opinion). We went to mass at Santa Maria in Trastevere followed by lunch at Cavecanem Pizzeria. I ordered a pear, gorgonzola, rosemary pizza--the pizza in Italy is much more interesting than back home. It was a whole pizza, like a medium sized pizza from Dominoes, all to myself for only 6.50 euros. An excellent lunch! We then went back to the chocolate place (I don't remember the name right now) and I got a canolo (singular of canoli) and a huge piece of fondente chocolate which is a really rich dark chocolate (100 grams of it to be exact). That place is amazing...
A short break before dinner and then:
we took a bus to the Hard Rock Cafe Rome on Via Veneto across from the US Embassy. That was an adventure itself because we never take buses anywhere, so we literally missed 4 busses before we finally figured it out! haha....losers I know. Anyways, we waited 1.5 hours efore being seated, and it was absolutely worth it! From teh ISIC menu (a discount we get for being international students), I ordered a cheeseburger which came with fries and a pop--a rare delicacy in Rome for poor college students. Desert was also included in the deal: ice cream of my flavor of choice..chocolate of course. It was delicious! I also ordered a drink from the bar: a Bahama Mama. Ingredients: banana liquer, rum, Malibu, pineapple juice and some other stuff...haha. It was absolutely amazing, quite possibly the best drink I have ever had, and rightfully so because it cost me almost 8 euros! OUCH...but definitely worth it. So all the food we got (free refills on the pop) cost under 12 euros--thats the best part! By the time we finally left, it was already 11:20...talk about late dinner. The Hard Rock was like little USA in Italy--Oh how the tables turn when you're abroad. It was a nice American relief. A great ending to a spectacular FOOD DAY!

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