Maria and I visited Italy for the first time ever this past weekend. She is the perfect travel buddy. So casual, so easy, loves to shop and eat and walk and lounge. We did like the Romans!
Rome is amazing. I can only describe it as grande. Everything has such grandeur and drama. The marble monument for the unknown soldier managed to take my breath away over and over again (I lost my shoe running across that insane round-a-bout)! We visited the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain and of course, the Coliseum. And we spent more time browsing the beautiful shops than we did in museums — which I think is a perfect way to spend a rainy afternoon in Rome. We bought fresh roasted chestnuts on the streets and had latte and pasta and gelato all day long. It was as much about the food and the laziness of it all, as it was about the Vatican and the squares and the history of the place.
We took a day trip to Florence and I had nearly forgotten that the David is in Florence! Crazy! Just off Ponte Vechio, we found a small family run leather shop where we bought cute little key chains and coin purses for our girlfriends and mums. And we had the most ginormous scoops of gelato in Florence – and they cost us a whopping 16 euros! That’s like 8 buckets of ice cream!
The Vatican was grande. Daunting, a little over-the-top but beautiful. We managed to walk through the Vatican museums and libraries in an hour! Saw the Sistine Chapel and all the other crazy beautiful art there.
The best part of the trip was the free spiritedness of it all. We had no schedules, no plans, no real idea of where we were going to be and when. We would just go to the train station and see where we could go. We’d wander the streets, find little coffee shops around the corner and spend an hour there trying to perfect our Italian.
Mmmm, here is to Italy. La dolce vita!
