As usual for our travels, we are blogging at the end of a long day. It is 10:00 PM here in Rome. We started this travel-day about 27 hours ago, arriving at GSP to take the first leg to Washington, DC, then boarded a plane for our 8 hour flight to Rome. Despite our best efforts, we did not get much sleep on the overnight flight, maybe dozing off and on. We arrived in Rome at 8:00 AM (Italy time); unfortunately about a million (maybe an exaggeration) other travelers arrived at the same time, making a long,slow line through passport control. After collecting our bags, which arrived unscathed, we went out of the terminal to find our ride. It was already hot and humid, we thought we were back in SC. We drove through the morning rush hour traffic and finally made it to the hotel around 10:00. Even though it was early, we were hoping we could check in early…no such luck. We were given the option of changing clothes in one of the bathrooms and storing our luggage until later, which worked out OK (if you enjoy rooting around in several pieces of luggage to find the clothes that you want to change into in a small bathroom).
We decided to try to see some areas of Rome that we did not visit last time so we headed for Trastevere. Trastevere is the 13th rione of Rome, on the west bank of the Tiber, south of Vatican City. Its name comes from the Latin and means literally “beyond the Tiber”. In Rome’s Regal period (753–509 BC), the area across the Tiber belonged to the hostile Etruscans: the Romans named it Ripa Etrusca (Etruscan bank). Rome conquered it to gain control of and access to the river from both banks, but was not interested in building on that side of the river. In fact, the only connection between Trastevere and the rest of the city was a small wooden bridge called the Pons Sublicius (Latin: “bridge built on wooden piles”). By the time of the Republic c. 509 BC, the number of sailors and fishermen making a living from the river had increased, and many had taken up residence in Trastevere. Immigrants from the East also settled there, mainly Jews and Syrians. The area began to be considered part of the city under Augustus, who divided Rome into 14 regions – modern Trastevere was the 13th Nowadays, Trastevere maintains its character thanks to its narrow cobbled streets lined by ancient houses. At night, natives and tourists alike flock to its many pubs and restaurants, but much of the original character of Trastevere remains.
Bridge from the city across the Tiber River to Trastevere
Cheese Shop -smelly!
Creatures of habit as we are (especially when eating in Italy), we had caprese salad and pizza for lunch at an outdoor cafe and then found the first of our gelato stops for dessert.
Maybe because it was so hot, but this was the best gelato we have ever had
After a slight detour on our way to finding the gelato shop (thanks to Google maps taking us in the wrong direction), we began the trek back to our hotel with the plan of retracing our steps from several years ago. We first came to Piazza Navona – Piazza Navona is one of the most famous squares of Rome , its shape is that of an ancient stadium, and has 2 large water sculptures, one of which is the Fountain of Neptune.
Its periphery is lined with shops and cafes and apartments, some with beautiful flower boxes.
Next stop was the Pantheon. (For some reason the picture will not load)
From there, we went by the very popular and very crowded Trevi Fountain, where Deb threw a coin over her shoulder into the fountain, which I think somehow guarantees that she will return again to Rome…or so the legend goes.
It was now after 3:00 and we were still a ways from our hotel, and the remaining mile was mostly uphill, so we did the most practical thing – we stopped at another gelato shop for gelato and Italian Coke Zero, which helped us make it the rest of the way back to our hotel, where our room was ready and waiting. There we crashed and took a one hour pre-dinner nap. We decided we had walked enough for one day, so we had dinner at the hotel restaurant which had seating outside along the Via Veneto, where we ate while watching cars,scooters,dogs, and people go by. We did walk along the Aurelian Wall (the remnant of the ancient wall built around the city) after dinner for a short time until the sun set. And now it is 11:00 and it is definitely time to go to bed.
Buona notte