Rome and Vatican City Recap
- Only A Plane Away
- Jun 13, 2019
- 7 min read
Updated: Jul 9, 2019
This is the first blog that we are writing about a group trip. Traveling with a larger group obviously has its challenges, but it also has the benefit of being able to share new experiences with friends and family. For this trip to the Mediterranean, there were eight of us in the group.
Once we arrived in Rome, we opted to take the Leonardo Express train from the airport to Termini station since our hotel was very close to Termini station. We purchased our train tickets at the airport once we had claimed our luggage and then hopped on the train to Termini. Once we arrived at the station, we made the ten minute trek to our hotel with our luggage. Keep in mind that cobblestone streets and sidewalks are common in Europe and can be hard on luggage wheels when walking extended distances. We had arrived late morning and were staying at a very small boutique bed and breakfast. Our rooms were not ready yet, and they didn't have staff 24 hours. They also didn't have a lot of space to store luggage. I think storing the luggage of 8 Americans who probably overpacked stretched them to their limits, but they made it work.
We left our luggage and headed to grab a bite to eat before our afternoon Colosseum and Roman Forum tour. We walked down one of the streets near our hotel in the general direction of the Colosseum and came across a restaurant that both looked good and was large enough to accommodate our group. They seated us in the lower level, which was probably a good idea, as we were all a little delirious from travel and acting a bit giddy at our new surroundings. We ordered a sampler of all kinds of Italian delights including burrata with sardines and sun dried tomatoes, porcini mushroom risotto, and of course, wine.
After lunch we made our way to meet our small tour group that we had booked through Viator in advance. (You can book the same tour here.) We opted for this instead of waiting in line since we knew we would be jet lagged from the long travel day. Based on our Google maps, we knew we were getting close...but then BAM there it was, the Colosseum! It really is right there in the middle of the city, and we were all completely gobsmacked when we turned the corner and saw it for the first time.
We took some pictures outside the Colosseum before meeting up with our tour group. We were given audio equipment so we could hear our tour guide among the crowds inside the Colosseum. Despite that, our guide was still a little hard to hear at times, but it was nice to be able to explore a little bit on our own. We did learn quite a bit from the guide including that many of the holes in the Colosseum were caused by the Barbarians removing the bronze pieces when they conquered the area. Our tour guide changed up her normal route a bit because a huge storm rolled in and it started pouring rain. She tried to keep us in the covered portions of the arena as much as possible.
After the Colosseum tour, we met up with a new tour guide for the tour of Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum that was booked as part of our overall tour through Viator. The first entrance had an extremely long line so we went to a second entrance where the line seemed to be moving much quicker. Palatine Hill is the ruins of the emperor's palace and has great views of Rome.
We walked down the hill to the Roman Forum, which was one of the most impressive parts of the tour. It was amazing to see so many ancient ruins in such a small area. The whole tour totaled nearly 4 hours of walking, and after the earlier rain showers, it ended up being quite warm that day. We were all pretty tired since we had just flown in that morning and had only had a few hours of interrupted sleep on the plane, so we decided to head back and grab some dinner.
There were a lot of restaurants near our hotel, so we decided to walk down the street until we saw a menu that got our attention. We stopped at a restaurant that had a great outdoor seating area under a canopy. Pro-Tip: Smoking is allowed outdoors in Italy, so don't sit outside at a restaurant if smoke bothers you. Before we even got our drinks, another thunderstorm moved in and it started pouring. The canopy did a pretty good job of keeping us dry, but a few people around the edges got wet.
Spritzes seem to be very popular in Europe and we've seen the traditional Aperol Spritz, but they had something called a Passoa Sprtiz which was made with a passionfruit liqueur and was garnished with fresh currants. It was quite tasty. The food was just okay though. We got ricotta with honey and walnuts, lasagna, and chicken stuffed with cheese and mushrooms. None of our dishes at this restaurant blew us away.
After the rain calmed down, we decided to head back to the hotel since everyone was pretty tired. On the walk, we decided to pop into a small convenience store for a bottle of wine to take back to the hotel. They had a pretty good selection of affordable wines so we picked up a bottle of Italian white table wine for about 5 euros. Back at the hotel, we gathered in one of the our larger hotel rooms to share the wine, play some cards, and recap our thoughts on the day. We should have stopped at one bottle of wine because the next day we had an early train to Venice, but we'll write about that in a separate post.
Once we returned to Rome, we decided to do a bit of walking and headed toward the Pantheon from our hotel. On our way, we stumbled across the Complesso del Vittoriano and a really beautiful church called Chiesa di Sant' Ignazio di Loyola. It's amazing how many beautiful sites there are spread throughout the city.
After spending a few minutes at both of these sites we headed on to the Pantheon. The Pantheon is nearly 2000 years old, but it has been in near continuous use as a temple and a church, so it's in extremely good condition for it's age. The building is known for it's concrete dome that is open in the center, and it's a pretty amazing feat of engineering considering when it was built.
After the Pantheon, we continued our walk onto the Trevi Fountain. The Trevi Fountain is a relatively new attraction as far as Roman sites go. It was built/completed in 1762, and is a bit of a tourist trap. Unless you go early or late in the day, there are tons of tourists gathered at the fountain. Be sure you throw a coin in the fountain to ensure that you return to Rome in the future. There were lots of shops and even a little flea market type area near the Trevi Fountain. Some of our group checked out the shops and others tried some gelato.
Our next stop was the Spanish Steps but after all the walking we'd been doing, we opted not to walk up them and just took a few photos instead.
On the walk back to our hotel we decided to stop for a bite to eat and found a cute little restaurant along the way. We shared some pizza and opted for a Negroni Spritz this time. As I mentioned before, they love their spritzes in Italy, so when in Rome...
The next day we would be disembarking for our cruise but had a tour of the Vatican booked for the morning. Rather than transporting our luggage, we opted to leave it at left luggage at Termini Station where we would be catching the train later to the port of Civitaveccia. The process was pretty easy and the line was short because it was early in the morning. From Termini Station we caught a subway to Ottaviano station and from there just had a short walk to the Vatican. We again had booked a small group tour which also meant we got to skip the long lines. Since there were eight of us, we were put in a group by ourselves, so we basically got a private tour of the Vatican Museum. The guide did not enter the Sistine Chapel with us though because it is supposed to be silent in there.
The only downside was that we had booked our tour on a Wednesday so St. Peter's Basilica is closed in the morning for the Papal Audience. We could have gone in later, but because we had to catch the train to the cruise ship, could not make it work that day.
When we returned to Termini Station, we were a little worried because there was a very long line at the left luggage station. Luckily the line was people dropping off luggage and they had a separate line for picking up, so we did not have to wait long at all. We gave them our tickets and paid the fee (it was 6 Euros per bag for up to 5 hours and then 1 Euro per hour after that). Pro Tip: They do also have luggage storage at the Vatican. So if necessary, you can also store baggage there. It was just more convenient for us to do it at the train station. From Termini we caught our train to the port of Civitavecchia to board our cruise ship. We will talk more about our cruise in a later post.
After our cruise and spending some time in Naples. we had one last day in Rome. We checked back into our same hotel (The 95 Rooms) and had lunch at the restaurant right downstairs. We tried some delicious Sicilian wine with our lunch. For the afternoon we decided to head back to Vatican City and check out St. Peter's Basilica since we had missed it our first time through. We bought skip the line passes for about $20 per person which were especially worth it because we would have had to wait in line in the rain. (You can book the same skip the line passes here.)
St. Peter's Basilica was beautiful, as to be expected, and just absolutely massive. For being a bit churched-out with our recent European travels, it was still very impressive. Michelangelo's Pieta sculpture was a definite highlight.
Afterwards, we went back to the hotel to dry off a bit then went to dinner and were very happy with the place we stumbled upon. Then we headed to check out the Colosseum at night to get some pictures. We walked all of the way around the Colosseum and then headed back to our hotel.
We opted to order an Uber van to take us to the airport. One person from our group had to fly back early, so with seven of us, we were able to fit in one van so it was about the same price as it would have been for seven tickets on the airport express train. We arrived at the airport in about 45 minutes and were on our way back home.
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