Fantastic 9 Nights with Rome "After Party" (6/19 - 7/3/25) - Now Complete!

[Disnsyncey]

1 July: Rome/Vatican

Today started super early, as we had to be at the Vatican entry by 7:15. We caught a bus from near the AirBnB and easily found the spot where we needed to wait. It was another LivTour (that's all we did in Rome - I got a "buy 3" discount back at Thanksgiving). This was another semi-private with a family that had 2 kids about DS's age.

The tour ended up being very long and even though we were inside for most of it, it was hot too. Nevertheless, we were some of the first people in through the gates, so the first hour or so, was not crowded at all. By the time we got to the Sistine Chapel though, it was very busy.

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The other good thing about the tour was allowing us to just pass over to St. Peter's and not have to go wait in another line (although there was a short line right at the church entrance).

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I was creep-ed out by seeing the embalmed popes...but I guess that's a thing.

By the time we finished, we were so tired that my plan for the rest of the day was kaput. We did make it to the planned gelateria stop at Old Bridge Gelato, but there was no way we were going to walk to where I had planned lunch, let alone walk back across the city to our AirBnB. The place we stopped at instead (Vinsanto) was cool - we got to watch a chef make dough while we ate.

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We caught a bus back to the AirBnB instead and just relaxed the rest of the afternoon. We walked over to where Julius Caesar was assassinated, and then got some excellent pizza by the slice for dinner (too soon?).

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Down these somewhere in that square, Caesar died on 15 March 44 BC.

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Pizza Florida - the place to go for pizza by the slice

I also went to Pasticceria Boccione, the 200-year old bakery (that doesn't even have a sign) to get the Jewish pizza. I walked in and there were still no signs inside, just lots of pastries. I would have liked to try other things, but I didn't know what to ask for. See the previous post for a picture of the Jewish pizza.

We also had (another) gelato stop at Il Gelato di Mastroiocco. I very much enjoyed their ricotta and nutella gelato. I also loved that a small gelato was only 3 euros.

Argentina! That was how we walked to our airbnb most days we liked the kitties

 

[Calantha]

2 July: Rome

I went super early to explore the Jewish Quarter, and got some great pictures of the empty streets.


Main street of the Jewish Quarter (the nameless bakery on the left)


Note the golden cobblestones - these represent inhabitants lost during the Holocaust.


The Turtle Fountain

Today we went to the Colosseum. Same the last two days, we caught a bus up to the location and waited for the LivTour guide to take us around. We were paired with an adult couple but DS was on his best behavior.

We had a weird hiccup trying to get in - they didn't like the pass our tour guide showed, so we had to step out of line while she went to talk to someone else and then came back with a different pass and it was fine.

For this tour, we went down to the arena floor, which was really cool but not really as exclusive as it seemed.





After walking around the Colosseum, the tour took us across the street to the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill. We visited a series of ruins including the Church of Saint Mary the Ancient.







Again by the end of a few hours, we were exhausted. DH carried DS through the last portion, as the heat and walking for the last two days had wiped him out. I had hoped that half day tours wouldn't be too much, and maybe if it hadn't been 98 degrees with no air conditioning, we would have done better.

Fortunately, our tour guide pointed us to a restaurant right across the street from where we exited the Forum - Il Giardino ai Fori, and it had beautiful flowers. Food was fine but nothing special.

We just missed a return bus to Largo Argentina, so stood in the shade about 15-20 minutes for the next one.

We just crashed in the AirBnB the rest of the day but tried a different street pizza place for dinner, Pizzeria Friggitoria. I thought Pizza Florida was better (and cheaper).

One last stop (or so I thought) for gelato at Il Gelato di Mastrofiocco closed out our night.

I didn't quite know how we were getting to the airport the next day because I had imagined (pre-trip) that we could store our luggage at the train station and explore the city for a few more hours before we caught the train to the airport. Ha.

I knew that was an impossibility at this point but I didn't want to carry around 150 (ish) lbs of luggage for even a minute, so we worked out a plan with the building superintendent to hold our luggage for 2 hours from the time we checked out until the taxi came at noon.

 

[Calantha]

3 July: Return Home Day

The building superintendent suggested we go visit Tiber Island in the morning, so we took his suggestion and walked around the island, enjoying the river and other ancient buildings.





At 10AM sharp, we left him with our luggage and went next door to Mimi & Coco, to have brunch (essentially breakfast at 10:15 and lunch at 11). We finally got to try some lovely croissants, as well as the pinsa pizza.



We had 10 minutes to driver arrival - and we got one last scoop of gelato from a place around the corner.

Our Uber driver (it was Uber black and I'm glad, because we needed the luggage space) arrived just before noon and we were off to the airport.

At the airport, we had some confusion with where exactly check in was located, but once it was resolved, we moved through that and the security line pretty quickly.

Then our final 'disaster' - we sat on the tarmac for over an hour due to 'high traffic around Rome'.

We arrived in Reykjavik about 15 minutes before our plane was due to depart, and the flight attendants told us not to worry but wouldn't say more.

So, we ran. And discovered 1. there was no one in the security lanes because we were so late and 2. once we arrived at the plane, about 30 passengers from our flight were also on the flight to IAD, and they weren't going to leave without us.

PHEW!

Two drinks and a few more movies, and we made it home...safe and sound.



Thanks for following along! I hope you enjoyed reading about our journey.

Happy to answer any questions about the excursions, etc.

See Ya Real Soon! (and yes, we'll probably try to sail from Barcelona in 2028 I suspect)