We were up pretty early, but all things considered we actually slept really well. We had to pack and move to another hotel. Booking a hotel in Rome was really difficult., we had to break up our stay between two places to make it work. First we found it was due to May 1st public holiday in Italy and second we found out it was Star Wars day (May the Fourth). Yesterday we saw people setting up and men in black suits guarding a Tie Fighter replica in front of the Colosseum. As we walked by today again there were a parade of people dressed up as characters from the movie and kids playing with their light sabres.
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After we moved our bags to the new hotel, we rushed to the Colosseum metro station to meet up with our walking tour group from Enjoy Rome. The tour was 30e per person plus 15e entrance fee to the Colosseum and Forum. We were given earphones so we could hear our tour guide Viviana. At 8 people (9 if you count Drake) our group was pretty small compared to the groups of 30s and 40s we saw going by. I don't know how these group keep together.
It wasn't even 10AM but our first stop the Colosseum was already packed with tourists (and Star Wars people). The lineup was around the block and then some. Joining the tour group allowed us to skip the massive lineup. Once we were inside there were more sea of people. Maneuvering Drake through the crowd and stairs with his stroller was like a video game and we were always playing catch up with our group.
Viviana was a very good tour guide. We covered the Colosseum, Roman Forum, Capitoline Hill, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, and Piazza Navona on the tour. She spoke none stop for over 3 hours giving us the history and interesting facts about these ancient monuments (and sometimes just piles of rocks). I must admit I didn't remember much from the tour, I was too busy making sure Drake was doing ok in the crowd, in the sun, and being confined to his stroller.
Our Kelty Stroller Backpack definitely saved the day again. There were quite a few times we had to put Drake on Greg's back due to the stairs or uneven road. Our biggest complaint about the Kelty is still when Drake fell asleep in it. It just looked so uncomfortable for him. We improvised by tucking a firm neck pillow under Drake's head and tilted the stroller on its back wheels to wheel him around while he was sleeping. Of course, I had to be very careful and had a very firm grip on the stroller at all times. The foamy non slip grip on the stroller helped a lot. My height (5'4") also was prefect to pull the stroller in this position. When my husband pulled the stroller this way, he had to lean over to one side and it became really hard on his back.
We had been walking all over downtown Rome for over 3 hours and it was almost 2PM. We picked the first restaurant in the Pantheon area with an available table for lunch. We went with the cheap lunch special that included appetizers and drinks. The lunch was nothing special, the gnoocchi was covered in too much canned tomato sauce and pork cutlet was over cooked. The hazelnut ice cream ball dessert was really good though.
Our uninspiring lunch set us off on a course to search for a high quality dinner. Colline Emiliane received 4.5 stars on Yelp.com. After walking for about 15 minutes and getting a little lost we found Colline Emiliane tucked away in a small alley (by North American standard, it was an alley to me), however it was not open on Sundays. What restaurant isn't open on a Sunday?! Pretty disappointed we wondered down the same street and settled on a placed called Enoteca Barberini. It seemed like a nice restaurant, it was even going to be a Jazz band playing later. We ordered fresh buffalo mozzarella salad as a starter and I ordered beef tripe as my main. The tripe was cooked in tomato sauce and a bit salty. I think prefer my tripe cooked in black bean sauce and/or ginger.
Half way through our dinner Greg informed us we were getting looks from the table behind us. Drake at this point was a little grumpy since it was past his usual bed time, but the restaurant wasn't that quiet during prime dinner time. Drake occasional grunt and throwing of his bits of food (no one was hit) were definitely not head turning worthy. Anyways, we asked for our bill without dessert. Assuming service charge was already applied we gave almost exact bill amount. As we were packing up, the waiter came back to our table to inform us that service charge was not included and we needed to tip. Oh man... I will get never get this tipping thing right.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
After we moved our bags to the new hotel, we rushed to the Colosseum metro station to meet up with our walking tour group from Enjoy Rome. The tour was 30e per person plus 15e entrance fee to the Colosseum and Forum. We were given earphones so we could hear our tour guide Viviana. At 8 people (9 if you count Drake) our group was pretty small compared to the groups of 30s and 40s we saw going by. I don't know how these group keep together.
It wasn't even 10AM but our first stop the Colosseum was already packed with tourists (and Star Wars people). The lineup was around the block and then some. Joining the tour group allowed us to skip the massive lineup. Once we were inside there were more sea of people. Maneuvering Drake through the crowd and stairs with his stroller was like a video game and we were always playing catch up with our group.
Viviana was a very good tour guide. We covered the Colosseum, Roman Forum, Capitoline Hill, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, and Piazza Navona on the tour. She spoke none stop for over 3 hours giving us the history and interesting facts about these ancient monuments (and sometimes just piles of rocks). I must admit I didn't remember much from the tour, I was too busy making sure Drake was doing ok in the crowd, in the sun, and being confined to his stroller.
Our Kelty Stroller Backpack definitely saved the day again. There were quite a few times we had to put Drake on Greg's back due to the stairs or uneven road. Our biggest complaint about the Kelty is still when Drake fell asleep in it. It just looked so uncomfortable for him. We improvised by tucking a firm neck pillow under Drake's head and tilted the stroller on its back wheels to wheel him around while he was sleeping. Of course, I had to be very careful and had a very firm grip on the stroller at all times. The foamy non slip grip on the stroller helped a lot. My height (5'4") also was prefect to pull the stroller in this position. When my husband pulled the stroller this way, he had to lean over to one side and it became really hard on his back.
We had been walking all over downtown Rome for over 3 hours and it was almost 2PM. We picked the first restaurant in the Pantheon area with an available table for lunch. We went with the cheap lunch special that included appetizers and drinks. The lunch was nothing special, the gnoocchi was covered in too much canned tomato sauce and pork cutlet was over cooked. The hazelnut ice cream ball dessert was really good though.
Our uninspiring lunch set us off on a course to search for a high quality dinner. Colline Emiliane received 4.5 stars on Yelp.com. After walking for about 15 minutes and getting a little lost we found Colline Emiliane tucked away in a small alley (by North American standard, it was an alley to me), however it was not open on Sundays. What restaurant isn't open on a Sunday?! Pretty disappointed we wondered down the same street and settled on a placed called Enoteca Barberini. It seemed like a nice restaurant, it was even going to be a Jazz band playing later. We ordered fresh buffalo mozzarella salad as a starter and I ordered beef tripe as my main. The tripe was cooked in tomato sauce and a bit salty. I think prefer my tripe cooked in black bean sauce and/or ginger.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
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