June 2009

The first full day in Rome we did some walking around town, headed to the Vatican to see the museum, the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica. We spent most of the morning and the huge museum and the chapel and by the time we got to the Basilica the line was really long. The pope has an audience on Wednesday’s so the square was particularly busy. We opted to come back later in the day to see the Basilica.

We headed to a place called Al Jolly for lunch which was a recommendation of a client of Mike’s, it was a great place. I had homemade ravioli with a citrus marinara while Mike had a seafood risotto, both were very good. After lunch we did a little more walking and then headed to the hotel to rest the feet and freshen up.

We headed to the Basilica around 5:30, which was a great time to go. We walked up and there was no line at all. St. Peter’s is massive and we walked in and toured and then noticed a mass going on, we watched for a bit and took a few more photos. There is a recommended walking tour of Rome at night that takes you by quite a few of the major monuments that we did backwards, we started at the Spanish Steps and looked at all the high end shopping near it and then headed to the Trevi fountain, down towards the Pantheon and through a few more piazza’s and ending at Campo Di Fiori. We stopped just before Campo di Fiori for a trattoria that was recommended. It was very quaint and had decent service. I was pasta’d out so we shared a veggie starter and then both had steak. The steak was amazing, great crust, good flavor and of course way too much for me to finish. For the past few dinners we had been opting for the house wine and have been pleasantly surprised. After dinner we people watched for a while and then headed back to the hotel around 10:30.

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We got up pretty early, thank you church bells We headed to train station to catch our train back to La Spezia and then to Pisa. Since I had never been to Pisa we hopped off the train, grabbed a bus to the Leaning Tower took a few photos and headed back to the train station. Talk about a quick tour of the city!

We got back to Florence and headed back to the Grand Hotel to pick up our luggage and then head back to the train station for a 3:30 Eurostar train to Rome. They were having some problems with the tracks so our train was going to be about an hour late, we sat on the floor and read for a while. Thankfully it was only about 30 min late and we got on our way. This was one of the higher speed trains so we went from Florence to Rome in about 1 ½ , it worked well for us.

We got into Rome at the main train station which is bigger than some U.S. airports and lugged all of our bags to the taxi stand and headed to our hotel. We were staying at the St. Regis on points and this hotel is absolutely amazing. We got upgraded to a Junior Suite and the room is gorgeous, huge bathroom and sitting room. We got checked in and settled and then headed for a walk around Rome.

For dinner we went to a place near the Spanish Steps that Rick Steve’s recommended and we got the extravaganza. Which was 5 courses and all were great, we had an antipasti plate with meats, and smoked fish, a ravioli, a pasta with mushrooms, a white fish, a veal with oranges and a panna cotta for dessert. We did a little walking after diner and saw the Trevi fountain at night, and threw coins into the fountain to ensure a return to Rome. After a quick and crazy cab ride we headed back to the hotel to get some sleep.

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We had to have the rental car back by 10am so we were up early to get on the road back to Florence which was about an hour drive. We took the main highway so it was a less car sick feeling ride, just a straight shot. We were staying at the Grand Again and had planned on having a relaxing day, it was overcast , a bit rainy and quite cool at 20 Celsius.
The hotel was able to get us checked in at 10, to an upgraded room was once again was amazing. The one benefit of all of Mike’s travel is Starwood Points and FREE nights in absolutely amazing hotels. We wandered around the city, looked at all the shops on Ponte Vecchio, headed to lunch and just enjoyed the city. We choose a Rick Steve’s place (again) and it was really good, it was full of locals and tiny little trattoria. We shared some ravioli in a walnut cream sauce and a salad and then shared a main of beef stewed in a Chianti Wine sauce. All the food was really good and it was a decent value since we had a ½ liter of wine and 3 dishes for only 25 euros.

We headed back to the hotel to nap and relax for a bit, I ended up sleeping for 3 hours! It felt so amazing to just relax and do nothing. We tend to do a lot of sightseeing and a ton of walking wherever we are and rarely relax for an afternoon. Mike woke me up at 6 to make sure that I would still sleep later on and we packed for the Cinque Terre. We only wanted to take our small backpacks to make it easier so we condensed bags and got packed up. Around 7:30 we headed to dinner, early for Italians but we had to get up at 6:45 to catch our train.

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