My father has grown up in Albania during the communist dictatorship. He was one of the "lucky ones", since he was in the military and had some kind of privileges. Still now, we some time argue, since he is still nostalgic of the old days, and this really gets on my nerve. But at the end, I don't blame him, he was raised with that mentality and changing your point of view after a certain age is not easy at all (actually it is never easy).
After the regime ended, due to some economical problems he decided to move in Italy in search of new opportunities and me and my mother followed him. He has always been a hard worker, also now that he is 63 years old, he works as a truck driver all the week, and then on Saturdays he has a secondary job even though we don't need at all those extra moneys. He says that he can't stay at home, that he gets bored and so he prefers working also on the week ends 😅.
Me and my brother are always trying to convince him to take and break and go on a vacation, but he has never agreed on this. The only times he takes some holidays is for going back to Albania.
So this year, we decided to force to come on a vacation with us, we booked the hotel in advance and then we told him, so he was forced to come otherwise we would have lost the money (yeah I know this is dirty, but it was the only way to convince him 🤣).
And since I wanted for him to enjoy it and have a good time, I choose as a destination the Eternal City: Rome.
We had our hotel near Vatican City, so the St. Peter's Basilica was the first thing we went to see.
Of course we went to have a look also when we got back to the hotel later that day, and seeing the basilica illuminated at night was really beautiful.
I have already been in Rome other times, but it is amazing how every time that I come back I still find myself overwhelmed by emotions. This time it was even more emotional, since neither my father neither my brother have never been to the capital, and watching their reactions was priceless.
I could clearly see how my father was really impressed by what he was seeing, and he also started asking questions on when it was built and how much time did it take. Of course I didn't know the answers so I had to check on Google to reply him 😅. One thing that has always fascinated me about my parents is that they have a very uncomplete knowledge of history and historical facts, since they were taught about those things during the regime, and of course everything was manipulated and adjusted to their interest. So, when I talk to my father about how the Roman Empire was created, how vast it was and for how much it lasted I can clearly see that he is really interested and somehow surprised since he didn't know about all this stuff (or he knew but in a very superficial way).
Very near to Vatican City there is Castel San't Angelo, also called also known as Hadrian's Mausoleum, is a monument in Rome, located on the right bank of the Tiber opposite the pons Aelius (now the Sant'Angelo bridge).
As before, since the castle is near to the Hotel, I took some photos of the castle both during daylight and at night.
Continuing to the left from the Castle, along the bank of the Tiber, you can see the Palace of Justice and the Sacro Cuore del Suffragio Church (The white church in the picture on the right).
We walked for almost 1 hour (my father was quite exhausted) and we arrived to Villa Borghese, which is surrounded by a very big park.
After reaching the famous Terrazza del Pincio, you can have a quite nice view on Piazza del Popolo.
From there it is possible to start a nice walk inside the park, which is really nice (especially because it is basically in the city center of Rome and so also a little bit unusual).
Then we headed to the Temple of Asclepius, dedicated to the god of Medicine.
When we left the temple it was getting late and so we decided to head back to our hotel, but since we decided to walk, there were still a few more places that we could see during our trip.
Our first stop was at the Fontana di Trevi, one of the most famous monuments in Rome, and there was a clear proof of this from the amount of people that were present. It took me at least 5 minutes to get near and be able to take a decent shot of it with my phone (and from the side, since in front the number of people present was even higher 😅 and I ha to wait even more).
But it was really worth it, since my father was really impressed by the fountain and also after some days he told us that it was the thing that he liked the most (and we saw some pretty good stuff in those two days).
Then we moved to another amazing monument, the Pantheon, which is really impressive when seen from below.
From there we moved to the last place, Piazza Navona. Also here there were a lot of people as well, which is quite understandable since it was really close to the Christmas holidays.
Here there is also the Fountain del Moro (on the right in the upper photos, while on the left there is the more famous Fountain of the Four Rivers), which was strangely enough not so crowded, so we decided to take some photos together.
The day after we woke up early, since we had to drive back in the afternoon to come back home (it takes almost 4 hours from our home to come back from Rome).
We headed towards Trastevere, which is really famous for his nightlife, and it is really nice area where to take a walk after dinner. Unfortunately we went there during morning, and the atmosphere was really different from what I remembered. On the ground there were still the signs of the night before, there was a lot of junk and very few people.
So after seeing the Piazza di Santa Maria in Trastevere, we headed towards the area of the Colosseum.
We stopped to see also the Foro Boario (a sacred and commercial area of ancient Rome) and the famous Mouth of Truth (Bocca della Verità), that according to the legend, will bite off the hand of any liar who places their hand in its mouth (I didn't try it, since I don't always tell the truth 😂).
After that we moved to the Circo Massimo, and here it was the turn of my brother to be amazed, he was really impressed by the dimensions of this ancient Circus, where ancient Roman went for chariot-racing stadium and mass entertainment venue.
Very near to the Circus Maximum there are also the Baths of Caracalla (Terme di Caracalla), one of the greatest examples of imperial baths in Rome, still largely preserved and free of modern buildings.
And then finally to the main attraction of the city, one of the most famous monuments in the whole world: The Colosseum.
Also here I saw my father really impressed, he asked my brother and me how they were able to build such a huge building, and we gave him an answer which somehow stunned him: they used thousands and thousands of slaves and prisoners of war.
Conclusion
This was not my first time in Rome, but it was for sure a really special one. First of all because this was the first time, after I don't remember how many years, that I made a vacation with my father. Moreover it was really interesting to see the reactions of my father and brother when they were in front of some of the most monuments in the world (and I am pretty sure that they really enjoyed everything).
I am sure that from now on, there will be plenty of occasions to make other family trips like this one, and this makes me really happy 😁.
