Eternal Rome
"Rome, and only Rome, this city will remain in my heart until the end of my days" - these are the words of the heroine Audrey Hepburn from the movie "Roman Holiday" This is not the first time in Rome, I love this city very much, this year we have my husband and I celebrated 17 years of marriage, when we chose Italy for our honeymoon trip, then in 1996, our first acquaintance with Rome took place, it was then that we fell in love with it. 2 hours 40 minutes flight from Minsk and here we are in Rome, a city on 7 hills, to which, as you know, all roads lead. Arriving in Rome for the purpose of visiting the sights, you need to put up with the fact that you won’t have time to see everything, we had 5 incomplete days for everything. We chose the hotel for our stay back in February, a small, private hotel is positioned as a B&B - "Maison Candia Luxury Hause", it is located next to the Ottaviano metro station (St. Peter's Square, Vatican Museums), therefore very close to the Vatican. The hotel is located on the 3rd floor of an ordinary residential building, it is a spacious apartment converted into a hotel, all rooms are made in pastel colors, we booked through Booking, a room with a jacuzzi, so that after traveling around the sights of the Eternal City, there was where to relax. But this room was not ready for our arrival, and we had to wait 20 minutes in another, standard room, so I will post photos of both rooms, I was pleased that the hotel has a refrigerator, this is rare for city hotels, air conditioning was also not superfluous in the heat 34 degrees. The hotel provides only breakfasts, for a European city hotel, it’s even nothing, croissants, donuts, cheese, cold cuts, butter, buns, jams, Nutella chocolate, coffee / tea, because the hotel does not have a kitchen, therefore there are no omelettes, scrambled eggs and others.... but the offered breakfast was enough for us, and if it’s not enough for someone, there is a restaurant nearby, and opposite a pizzeria, quite decent. And so from the hotel we have chosen to go to St. Peter's Square for 15 minutes at a leisurely pace, almost all the way along the walls of the Vatican. From this object, we started our tours of Rome, if you come to the Cathedral in the morning, when there are no tourists there yet (it opens at 7-00 o’clock), you may be able to feel the spirit of this majestic building, unfortunately services are going on at this time and many halls closed to tourists. Once again, admiring, we walked along the nave, stopped at the canopy, and then went downstairs, where, according to legend, Peter himself is buried, there are the tombs of many popes and, as I understand it, saints. Then we decided to climb the dome of the Cathedral, on our past visits we were smart enough not to do this, but someday we need to do it, at least in order to understand that it was not worth doing. And now we leave the Cathedral and immediately to the left, there is a ticket office and the entrance to the stairs, the cost of the lift is 7 euros, the stairs are 5, we decided to walk all the way (one of the nuns told us that walking would atone for our small sins), well that there are just over 500 steps, nonsense, but no.... By the way, it’s easy to get to the place where the elevator will take you, but it’s really hard to walk along the spiral-spiral stairs with an uncomfortable step step, my head began to feel very dizzy, at the end of the ascent I realized that I don’t have such sins. Well, here we are at the dome, the view is beautiful, but there are so many people there, the only thing that can be seen only from this place and no more from any hills is the courtyards of the Vatican and the square itself. There is a souvenir shop on the dome, where people buy postcards and send them via the Vatican mail to themselves and friends. Many souvenirs here are more expensive than below. Our next stop was the Vatican Museums. Keeping in mind the huge, hours-long queues, we also booked tickets via the Internet, in advance, in order to bypass the queues, the cost per person is 20 euros. But at the time of our visit, there were no queues, so for 20 minutes, no more, but we went around it too. Museums disappointed, I expected more from them. God, you can write about Rome endlessly. - Trevi Fountain - the sea of people is difficult to photograph, but what's there to take a picture just to consider the figures of the ensemble is difficult. - The Spanish Steps - wonderful, again, I remembered the footage from the movie "Roman Holiday" - Triton Fountain - closed for restoration. - Castle of San Angelo, entrance costs 7 euros per person, inside it makes less impression than outside, with the exception of Paul's hall. But this is so short, because no one will read the long opus to the end anyway. (I will post a photo) - The Mouth of Truth - it is believed that this was once a manhole in Rome, but now it has become overgrown with legends and in order to take a picture with them you need to stand in line, we stood for about 1.5 hours. - Many write that you should not visit the Forums, you can just take a photo from the panoramic terraces, maybe so, but we came to the Roman Forum in the evening, at five o'clock, bought tickets, which went to the Colosseum the next day. (Ticket price 12 euros per person) I got a little distracted, and so we got there in the evening, there was no heat anymore, there were few tourists either, and we really enjoyed walking along the "streets" of the Forum. The House of the Vestal Virgins and the avenue of statues make a strong impression. And in general, I noticed that the fewer tourists there are at the facility, the more likely it is to feel its spirit. In general, we liked it. - Villa Borghese - admission is free, in fact it is the largest park in Rome, with its own artificial lake where you can ride a boat (6 euros - 15 minutes), there is an aviary with turtles in the lake, in the center of the lake there is an island to the similarity Greek Temple of Aesculapius. The first thing we came across when we entered the park were the monuments to Pushkin and Gogol. It is also worth seeing Piazza de Siena, with a monument to the letter "O", where there is also a water clock in the gardens, but we did not find them. - The Colosseum, it is also more interesting to look at it from the outside, but we have a ticket to enter, and here we are, bypassing the huge queue at the ticket office, go inside, look, take pictures and go out. - Arch of Constantine 2/3 in the woods. - Yes, we have been to many places, but again there was not enough time to visit Tivoli. In conclusion, I want to tell you a little about gastronomic routes. There are no problems with food in Rome, at every step there are restaurants, pizzerias where lasagna is tastier, somewhere awesome ravioli, someone cooks stunning canelloni, but I want to warn you - there is such a restaurant "Da Guiliana", they offer a set menu for 10 euros, so in the end, having ordered two complex lunches, we had to pay 38 euros, they will independently include a tip on the bill, calling them a tax, they served us for 40 minutes, that is, you come, the waiter immediately runs up to you, writes down the order, brings a bottle of water and everyone forgets about you, they forgot to serve us a salad, but they refused to take its cost from the bill, saying that they couldn’t take anything from the set menu, they offered to eat it, this is after ice cream, it’s clear that we refused, in general, if you don’t want to spoil in your mood, pass by this place, oh, and for some reason they offer everyone croutons with tomatoes and a couple of spinach leaves, you will find out the cost later, for example, I generally refused it, but they brought me. Later, I read the reviews of tourists on this restaurant, well, tell me why you didn’t do it earlier, maybe just because you trust people, you just don’t expect such a scam, it was our last dinner (I hope not the last in the literal sense, but for this trip) in Rome and believe us, it will be filled with us for a long time.
