🇮🇹 Our big Italian adventure~

We are almost two weeks home from our “big Italian Adventure”, I was originally calling “a little taste of Italy” and now for some reason little doesn’t seem appropriate! What. a. trip! Aye yi yi…VERY long post ahead, so buckle up! 😆

I am breaking up these posts because I don’t have time to spend two hours reading (or writing!) a super long blog post and I am sure you don’t either and honestly thought dividing it into cities made more sense! I will work on posting these every few days or so, so be sure to subscribe if you aren’t already, so you can read them as they are posted. Enjoy and shoot me any questions you might have!

(Note: the galleries are a slideshow, so look for the little arrow on the right side to scroll through the pictures!)

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How I prepared and planned this trip:

First a little context…we (my husband & I – but more so me) have wanted to visit Italy for a very long time. His maternal side of the family is originally from there. Of course kids and jobs got in the way (happily so) the past many years and with our 25th wedding anniversary looming this year, I started checking out airfare way back in early February. To my surprise, Aer Lingus had round trip tickets to Rome for a little less than $800/each, including all taxes, fees & we purchased a checked bag each, for there and back (which we never used) so we had to jump on that! 😍

After purchasing our trips, we had to start planning where we were going. And to be honest, I wanted to go to all the places that tourists don’t go to, so I will admit outloud, I wasn’t interested in all the big things everyone said we had to do in Rome (Colosseum, Vatican City etc.) but after spending an hour wandering through the Colosseum, I had a hard time leaving! And now, back home, I realize just how much Rome stole of my heart and I can’t wait to go back!

To keep myself organized, I starting collecting apps and created a folder on my phone with the apps I thought I would need. (see screenshots of those apps)

I also wanted to learn some of the language so I downloaded the Babbel app and truthfully, I didn’t really like using it and so I learned a few things and didn’t end up using it that much. A lot of what I learned, I found online on Instagram, YouTube etc. There are SO many resources out there! I listen to a lot of podcasts while driving in my car to and from showings etc. and some of my favorites are the Untold Italy, French People ARR. Rude, Kimberly’s Italy and I should have listened to more of CoffeeBreak Italian.

Speaking of which, I became a member of a couple Facebook groups that gave me a lot of ideas and information, one of which has since been deleted but the other was called Romewise and I was a great source to follow leading up to our trip. And YouTube has become one of my favorite channels and I watched SO many videos about traveling to Italy!

I started documenting trip details and ideas in my Notes app but then eventually moved over to the Wanderlog app. I loved how I could add in all the details of our trip, airline info, links to where we were staying and then you can add in places you want to visit etc. There is a map that integrates within your itinerary and you can see how far it is from place to place and adjust your steps to make sense as you walk through whatever city you are planning. The free version is great and I thought I would be upgrading to a paid plan just before our trip, but I ended up staying on the free version. You can share the trip with friends you are traveling with as well! 👏🏻

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First stop, Rome ~

Rome: We started and ended here…three nights in the beginning and one night at the end of the trip.

Ah Roma…in the beginning it was just items to check off our list. And now, looking back, it might be my favorite city of all we visited! We stayed in the Centro Storico neighborhood initally because it was like 20 minutes to the Colosseum and 20-ish to Vatican City. We fell in love with our little apartment, (see that HERE!) located just steps from some of the best food & cafe we had on our trip! And the end of our trip, the night before our flight home, we decided to stay closer to the Colosseum because we wanted to walk by it after dinner (so glad we did, it’s magical at night!) so we stayed just a little to the east of the Monti neighborhood. The loft-style apartment was adorable (see it HERE)

Here are some things they don’t tell you about Rome…first, you can pretty much walk everywhere and it’s encouraged (they tell you that) but if you are tired, there are modes of transportation you can use (bus-taxi) that get you to & from fairly easily, so don’t feel bad about doing that! Our last night in Rome we decided to stay closer to both the Colosseum and the train station, as we had to head out pretty early to start our travel home. The walk from the train station to where we stayed on paper looked to only be 15-20 minutes, but the reality was closer to 30 minutes and with a 20+ pound backpack on, that was not fun. So that morning, we called for a taxi. I used IT Taxi app and it worked great.

They tell you to avoid the restaurants that line big sites and we agree. I did have a handful of places on my list to try and eat at, so we didn’t do a lot of wandering for food (except right after the Colosseum & Palatine Hill/Roman Forum where we were starving and ducked into the first decent looking pizza place we could find-which we inhaled on the street!) and next time we go back, I want to do just that. We had dinner reservations one night and that was a fun evening (see food pics) and we did make it over to Trastevere and I would love to explore that area again on a future trip.

And we weren’t able to see/tour some of the places I really wanted to get into, so that was disappointing. Saint Peter’s Basilica closed for no apparent reason, literally ten minutes after our Vatican Museum tour ended and honestly, there was quite a bit of Saint Peter’s Square blocked off as well, so I didn’t really feel like we got that either. (although when you see all that on TV it seems so different than when you are standing in the middle of it all!) And when we got to the Pantheon, they were closing in ten minutes as well, and weren’t allowing any more entrances. All I can say, is be flexible and patient, or make sure you are booking the things you really want to see/do in advance. (I didn’t do that with everything because I wanted some flexibility in our very tight schedule)

BTW- my thoughts on buying tickets for some of the big sites in advance…we bought the standard entry ticket for the Colosseum, which included Palatine Hill & the Roman Forum and for our first time there, it was just fine. You’ll hear about “skip the line” tickets, underground, night etc. many of which are available through 3rd party sites and I wanted to be sure I booked our tickets directly from the Colosseum and Vatican sites. In the future, we might do one of those other tours, but for our first time, I wanted to keep it simple and ensure we got in. We didn’t wait in line for either place for very long, and booked both in the morning, so we could have the rest of the day to do whatever we wanted.

And you’ll see a picture in the slideshow of the famous (infamous) Trevi Fountain which we attempted to seek out after our Anniversary dinner and OMG. The crowds were stupid and we decided it just wasn’t worth standing in line, then paying to stand in line a little closer. I do feel a little bad about not being able to throw a coin into the fountain, to ensure I will return to Rome one day, but at the same time, I am a grown up and if I want to go back, I will! 🤩 (and I will be 💯)

And now let’s talk about the food…🍝🍷☕️🍕🍽️

Oh you know I wasn’t gonna leave you hanging there, was I?!

I was so excited to try all the foods that make Italy famous on this trip and I can say we did a pretty good job doing that! In Rome, it was all about pasta…but we managed to find some great pizza and sandwiches along the way. I had a few restaurants on my list that I wanted to visit for sure, and we had only one reservation for dinner, that was at Baccano for our Anniversary dinner. I also wanted to visit Roscioli and their two locations which turned out to be conveniently located just steps outside of our first apartment in the city. I had Emma Pizzeria on our list, because it was just a short walk from our apartment and we stopped there in the afternoon, (where I ate my weight in Mortadella, again!) after our Vatican Museum tour. Later that night we headed over to Trastevere where we had pizza at Ai Marmi and gelato at Otaleg.

☕️ Typically our mornings started off with a quick espresso while we got ready to head out and then we’d find a place for a cappuccino and a pastry of some kind. Then typically we’d swing back by our apartment in the afternoon and have another espresso before heading back out for the afternoon/evening adventures. I drank more espressos on this trip, then I would drink at home in six months! It was amazing and I miss it! Best thing I ate in Rome was definitely all the Mortadella (some with pistachios…some with truffles!) and charcuterie boards we had! So much delicious Italian meats & cheeses! 👏🏻 I can’t wait to go back and have already started making a new list of where to stay, what to see, do and EAT! 😍

Next stop was meeting our friends at the train station in Rome and a high speed train to Florence…stay tuned for that post soon!

Ciao! ❤️ Shawn