As I told in my previous post I'm going write about our adventure in Italy. Here is Part 1. of the posts.
The trip started from Rome, where we spent the first couple of days just to relax after the long period of working and saving money back in Finland. We wanted to have some quality time together, which really is luxury for us, before starting the volunteerwork in the countryside.
We had booked b&b accommodation from a district called Trastevere, that is near the central of Rome. We wanted to stay fairly close to the sights and lively piazzas, so that we were able to see the most of the interesting places in such a short time. We also wanted to avoid the most crowded and touristic areas at the same time so this was a perfect location for us. Everything (the most famous sights) located in walking distance of few kilometers and we still had some quieter areas and alleys nearby to discover.
Although we love to see at least some of the famous cultural attractions in every place we travel, we aren't too interested in any tourist trips or queueing in museums and such even if they are the must see places to visit. Shopping isn't either on our to do list if we travel, unless there is something we really need at that moment. We love walking around, sensing the vibes of foreign places and exploring interesting but not-so-crowded places instead. Finding the best restaurants and hidden gem-kind of corners of the cities is our thing. That's why we don't usually read and follow travel guides like the Holy Bible (not that we would read the bible either). And if we for some reason read them, it's basically just to find out the locations of places and to avoid all the unwanted encounters with masses of Chinese tourists. Rome is BTW full of tiny cars, mostly Fiats. I have never seen so many cute old school Fiat 500's as in Rome.
The city of Rome is obviously full of famous ancient sights and almost everyone has heard at least of Colosseum and Pantheon. These two and all the biggest piazzas like Piazza Navona and Campo de' Fiori, as well as other sights like Vatican, Fontana Di Trevi (a biggest fountain in Rome), The Spanish Steps, Forum Romanum and Castel Sant’Angelo are fairly close to each other. So Rome is actually super easy city to discover (sightwise) in only few days. The center is not as tightly packed as in Florence for example, so it doesn't feel so crowded even though it is full of tourists during the high season (basically summertime-September). But the sights are obviously full of tourists.
As Rome is so beautiful and quite big as well, I recommend walking up to the Gianicolo hill to see the all of it's beauty. We walked along Passegiata del Gianicolo towards Piazzale Giuseppe Garibaldi and found a great viewpoint from where to admire the whole of the city. We also visited Villa Lante (The Finnish institute in Rome) on top of the hill, where my aunt lived with her family some years ago. I spent there couple weeks back then, so it was cool to show the place to my girlfriend and it brought back warm memories. There are many embassies up there as well and the nature is beautiful. It might be nice to go there for a run if you are not afraid of uphills.
The funny thing is, that we actually visited most of these places although we usually would avoid the fussiest places. Having said that, we didn't go inside Colosseum, because it would have been a nightmare to walk there in line with all the guided tourist groups and masses of people. We only circles around it and snapped some pictures as a memory.
What we enjoyed most in Rome was (as in other cities usually as well) walking around the quieter areas and smaller streets. Although I guess Trastevere is quite popular area nowadays, we enjoyed it. There was plenty of narrow streets between beautiful buildings packed with small shops and restaurants. We found there some nice places to eat and enjoy classes of wine in more calm atmosphere than in the busy city center. I still feel like we could have done a little more research where to go, in order to find the ultimate gems of restaurants. I blame the lack of time and the hunger that seemed to surprise us each time for that we didn't have the patience to walk even more in the evenings and look for something special. And since this was our first destination of the trip and we got to know some Italians only after that, we didn't have the tips from locals yet.
Waiting for a damn good plateful of pasta andprayingsmiling as I told her to. Lol.
Actually the best tip no matter where you travel is: get to know some locals if you don't already know some, so they can guide you and give the best tips for more authentic experience. We are lucky to know some now, so the next time we visit Rome, we are ready and prepared to search all the corners where the locals would go.
