Villa Borghese and Window Shopping

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Saturday, June 7-Villa Borghese and Window Shopping

After another lazy morning, we made it into Rome around 2:30. First stop was lunch. We stopped at a pretty touristy sandwich snack bar place but we were both starving! We also learned that you pay double if you sit at the table for a €3 sandwich that you could take to go. You live and learn I guess. We had gelato at San Crispino to make us feel better about the lack luster lunch. San Crispino is one of the best gelaterias in Rome, if not Italy. Their biggest competition is Giolitti. We were big fans of both!

After lunch, we wondered around window shopping and decided to walk up towards Villa Borghese. This area is a very ritzy area of Rome. We went through Rome’s version of Central Park and even saw guys playing bocce ball. It was nice to get away from the hustle and bustle all around us. There were park benches everywhere just asking for you to take a load off your feet and enjoy! Just after leaving the park we even found a Ferrari/Maserati store. We took a few pictures just for proof!

After our afternoon stroll, it was time for dinner. It’s about all we do here- eat. We’ve become pretty good at it, if only it didn’t take us forever to figure out where we were going to actually eat. You guessed it- Nicole had lasagna number 5 today and Ryan had ravioli with spinach and tomato sauce. He really wishes that he would have ordered something different but was afraid he wouldn’t like it! Although he did enjoy the ravioli, we still stopped to get him some pizza too. He was THAT hungry.

After dinner we stopped in a small snack bar. We wanted hot chocolate but the guy told us it was too hot in Rome in the summer for hot chocolate. This makes perfect sense seeing that everyone here has coffee in the middle of the afternoon every single day. We left the store and went back to get some donuts for breakfast in the morning. They were the first we have seen since we’ve been here. When we walked back in, he said “You’re back already?” We told him that we wanted to get the donuts and he also told us he’d make us hot chocolate. It was REALLY hot and very thick! We just don’t understand how they make it like that!

While drinking our hot chocolate, we headed toward Teatro de Marcello where the night before we learned that they held concerts here in the ruins. We didn’t want to pay the €15 each so we tried walking around to find a seat. The night before was a piano concert. Everything was set up outside so it would have been very easy to see. Tonight, this was not the case. They had a piano/symphony concert and nothing could be seen from the outside. We headed over to the Roman Forum instead to see what we have heard is one of the greatest moments in Rome- seeing the Forum lit up at night. We waited about 30 minutes for the floodlights to come on. Sunset starts around 8:45 or 9:00 here so we figured we’d give it some time. Unfortunately, this never happened. Instead, it was back to the bus! We made it back to the hotel and managed to get back just as the MTV Movie awards started. It really is nice to see and hear English on tv!

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Photos

The Coliseum at night from the Roman Forum
We're not really sure why the sky looks like it's daylight though.

The Roman Forum at night
(again with a lit up sky)

Ryan thought his wing span was larger than a Smart Car
WRONG!