day 1 :

tuesday, 15 may

We arrived at Rome's Leonardo Da Vinci (Fiumicino) airport around 9:30 a.m., took the train to Roma Termini, and walked to the relatively nearby Aberdeen Hotel on Via Firenze. We were both pretty tired from losing the previous night's sleep, so we reenergized with a noontime siesta (setting our alarm clock to force ourselves awake after a couple hours - we were soooo tired!). We woke up and had a late lunch around the corner in the galleria, but weren't very impressed with the food.

We set off for the Coliseum, which took about a half hour to walk to. For some reason, it didn't seem as big as we expected, but it was quite impressive nonetheless! Afterwards we walked through the Forum, and got a few good pictures of the ruins. It was kind of strange to see buildings, toppled columns, and old staircases from thousands of years ago right next to modern paved roads and scooters zooming by.

We meandered back to our hotel, where we took a break for a little bit and then decided to take a walk before dinner. We explored for a bit and then stopped at a cafe on Via del Tritone and enjoyed a fresh berry tart and some coffee. Mmmm!

Dinner was at Hosteria Romana, recommended in our Rick Steves guide book. We quickly noticed that everyone in the restaurant was speaking English, including the wait staff, the menu was mostly in English, and the food was not very good. After that, we vowed to look more carefully for restaurants filled with locals. We'd much rather struggle a bit with our Italian and get an authentic meal!

We made up for the lackluster dinner by stopping at the neighborhood gelateria/pasticceria for dessert. Ah, gelato.