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May 28
Today we needed to meet with the manager of the place we’re staying at at 10am so we slept in and then got a bit of a workout in. When we checked in, we had agreed to move to a different room on another floor so that a group coming in that had 2 rooms could all be on the same floor. The room we were moving to was one that you would actually have to pay more for because you have your own bathroom, although it’s still out in the hallway, not in the room. However, there wasn’t really a kitchen up there, and we liked the room less, so we were disappointed that we had agreed to move, even though they ended up giving us 10 Euros back for our trouble of moving.
We have stayed at 4 different places so far with 4 different bathrooms, and it appears there is a standard shower size of 3x3 feet with sliding doors, which makes it really hard wash to certain parts of a body like feet without touching the walls. The only possible way to wash feet is to stop the water, open the sliding door, stick
legs out of the shower, apply soap, close sliding door, turn the water back on, and rinse. Let me tell you, it is a feat.
Then at noon, we went out to the downtown area and decided to stop first at a place called L’Insalata Ricca. It is a local chain that is supposed to have some vegetarian and vegan options according to what I have read. Their menu is in Italian and English, and I believe they also have menus with other languages available as well. This was good, but the wait staff does not speak much English, aside from being able to take your order, so it was much harder to try to ask if they pasta was made with eggs. We were able to communicate enough though so that I knew which items were okay, and which were not. By the time we finished eating, it had begun raining. It had been cloudy when we set out for the day, but the forecast had shown little chance for rain and just predicted cloudy skies until about 5pm so we hadn’t brought our rain jackets, or an umbrella. We stayed under an overhang for a few minutes, but
L'Insalateria
Our favorite restaurant in Romedecided since it was a light rain, we didn’t want to waste all our time waiting around in that one spot. We walked through Piazzo di Fiore and through a Jewish district on the way to the Colosseum. We walked around and read a lot of Roman history about the Colosseum, where the last performance was held 1500 years ago. Then we stopped for a drink and went on to the Palatine Hill and ended at the Roman Forum. It was so interesting to go from all the lavishness of the Vatican to the simplicity of these pagan structures. The fact that these buildings are still standing in some places, 2000 years after being built is just amazing. Also, all the things that they know of the history of these places is impressive.
After stopping back by our room we decided to try a new place that I found online called Rewild. It is the only all vegan place near Rome that I found in my searches, so I was really looking forward to it. Plus, all the reviews I read just raved about the place, from the food, to the people, to the atmosphere, everything I read was positive.
And this is where my “I have a story about Rome…” tale begins.
We had been walking everywhere we went up until this point, even though everything was so spread out. However, Rewild was a bit more out of town, so we finally decided to take the metro, as it would take over an hour and a half to walk there, and through unfamiliar areas. Because we were getting such a late start to the evening, we didn’t get to the metro stop near the restaurant until 9:45pm. We knew this wouldn’t be a problem for the restaurant since there hours are 8pm-2am. We thought we knew how to get there, but the street names are not always there on every street, and somehow the maps don’t always represent the streets how they really run. So we didn’t know where we were in relation to where we were going within 5 minutes. We asked some guys across the street if they knew of the restaurant, or the street that it was on. They didn’t know either of these things, so we decided to go back to the metro station since that had a map. We looked at the map, and
Ancient Rome
There were a few arches like this around the colosseum, palatine hill, and the roman forum. looked at where we had gone and figured out what we needed to do differently, and then we went back out. We still got lost. There were turns in the road that weren’t on the map and we couldn’t find any of the streets we had been looking to turn on. So we walked around for a bit, turning here and there. Finally I thought of one last way that we could have gone from a certain point where we started to get lost and we found one of the streets we were looking for along the way. We got lost again, but somehow magically found the street and then found the restaurant. By now it was probably 10:30, so we were ready to eat. The menu is all in Italian, but the guy helping us said if we needed anything translated, to ask him. We ordered our drinks and decided to start with some bruschetta. We were eating our appetizers and had been deciding what to order. The guy never came back though. It seemed there were 2 people working, and it could be that they are also the owners. They had a couple friends there, so they were
just sitting down chatting with them, and looking at things on the computer. When we finished our bruschetta, he came over and cleared our plates, but was gone before asking if we wanted anything, and then a few minutes later, the same thing happened with our drinks. So we were just sitting there, with no food, no drinks, and no service. For like 10 minutes. Finally, Filip got his attention and he came back over, and we asked if we could order more. We weren’t really sure we wanted to stay, but were still hungry so I got a sandwich and Filip ordered a salad. Fortunately, our food came quickly. Again it was great, but it just wasn’t worth that service, and then again we had to wait to try and get our bill. I had really hoped to get some dessert since they had so many options and I just don’t know if I’ll find another vegan place on our trip, but there was no way either of us wanted to spend any more time there. There were also these annoying little gnats flying around and few of them were apparently thirsty and landed in our beers.
By the
Fountain in Palatine Hill
Nature has taken over since the fountain is not being used. time we had paid it was 11:50. We weren’t sure how long the metro stayed open, but Filip said that in Prague it shuts down at midnight, so we hurried back to the station. We made it there before 12, however there was a security guard there telling people they couldn’t go in. We asked if the trains were closed for the night and he told us to listen to the announcement. It said that the trains were experiencing some problem and were not functioning at this time. We would have to take the bus. So we went over to the bus stops near the station and tried to figure out which one we’d take, but it said they all stopped at 24:00, and it was now past midnight. We realized our only option was to start walking back. It was a long walk through some unfamiliar industrial area. Fortunately, we stumbled upon tram line that was still running, which took us back downtown, where we found a night bus, which went directly to our hotel. We came back to our place at 1:30. It was a long night.
-Molly & Filip
May 29
Our plan was to see
Mosaic
This was part of the display of roman history in the colosseum, discussing the gladiators. the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel today. The museum was only short walk from our apartment. When we got there around 11 am, the line was going around the block and it wasn’t moving very fast. Fortunately there were musicians playing accordions and entertaining the crowd, which made the wait less unpleasant. Once we got inside, the museum was still really crowded. There were a lot of exhibitions that we skipped like Egyptian museum and Etruscan museum, and it still took two to walk through. The hallways were completely covered with paintings depicting various historical and biblical events, maps, and other art pieces. It was impossible to absorb it, pretty overwhelming indeed. We made it all the way to the Sistine Chapel. The chapel was kind of dark supposedly to keep the paintings intact. It is impressive that one guy could paint such a huge area by himself. It doesn’t surprise me that it took Michelangelo almost 30 years to finish it.
When we made it back out, it was time for lunch, and we decided to go back to our favorite restaurant in Rome - l’Insalateria - for one last time. The food and the service were great
again. After lunch and a short break in our apartment, we walked to the Castle Sant Angelo, then across river to Piazza Navona, Fontana di Trevi, and Spanish Steps. Some spots in Rome with Spanish Steps among them are filled with peddlers who aggressively try to sell roses and they are sneaky. When they see a couple like us, they offer roses to a lady first as a “gift or present” and if she accepts them, they start asking for money from a man accompanying her. They don’t take “no” for an answer, so Molly and I had to be on a lookout anytime we would enter certain areas and avoid these maniacs. It’s a shame, because they can ruin otherwise perfect place for relaxing. Molly also managed to drop the camera on Spanish Steps and it tumbled about five steps before a kind young man was able to catch it. Fortunately, we were already sitting down when it dropped, so the camera survived this incident without damage and we can keep taking pictures with it. After Spanish Steps, we decided to walk to another Vegetarian restaurant - Arancia Blu - near Roma Termini train station. It was a longer
walk than we expected, and Molly's feet were starting to hurt from the 20+ miles we've walked around Rome, and when we got there we found out the restaurant was no longer there and that it moved somewhere else. This part of Rome had a strange vibe. There were layers of graffiti everywhere. It was a little run down and seedy, yet we felt safe. It looked like a party neighborhood judging from the number of bars we saw there. I think it was pretty close to the University. I have never seen so much graffiti anywhere else in my life. We were able to catch a tram and a subway back to our apartment and we found some place to eat in our neighborhood. It was nothing special, but at that point we were not willing to go anywhere far. We have to wake up early tomorrow and take a train to Florence.
-Filip
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Kate
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Gorgeous photos Molly! Looks like you guys are having a ball!