Home Again Home Again
Hello all! I am writing this somewhere over the Atlantic as we fly back to the US from Rome. I can’t believe it’s already Thursday and we are already heading home. It has been a whirlwind week, but so amazing. It was so nice to be back in Rome, I had missed the city after living there for a month!
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| One of our first full days, we visited almost all of the sites of ancient Rome. We were exhausted, but had so much fun! |
Kate and I had so much fun, as you might have seen from my instagram, but man, we did not stop for a second. Kate had never been to Rome, so I wan’t to make sure she saw all of the sights, plus I had quite a few art exhibition I wanted to see before coming home. To make sure we squeezed everything in, we really had to be efficient with our time, which was easy after planning our days in advance. Here is how we managed to see almost every major tourist attraction in Rome in five days without killing ourselves.
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| Pizza was a huge part of this experience as I ate it almost everyday. All of the ingredients are always so fresh and even the simplest pizza is delicious |
The real key to our success was our location. We booked an Air BnB, which I highly recommend in Rome because you can get a great deal, in the heart of the city, almost spitting distance from the Pantheon. This put our home base in the middle of the city center, so most things were only a 15 minute or less walk away.
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| The highlight of this trip for me was the art. This statue is one of my favorite pieces and it was amazing being able to finally see it in person! |
With our home base figured out, we basically picked a direction or a neighborhood to go in each day. This way, our activities throughout the day were fairly close together and we weren’t crisscrossing the city between sites.
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| This was my face a lot of days, whenever I got to see a new piece of art. The art history nerd in me was fan-girling the entire time to say the least. |
To make this neighborhood plan work, it is really important to create a basic itinerary ahead of time so that you determine what you want to see in each neighborhood. Then, you don’t have to backtrack and you can see everything you want. This is pretty easy to do in Rome as a lot of sites are clustered together. For example, the Vatican and Castel Sant’Angelo are very close to each other and easy to do in one day. On the other hand, the Colosseum, Palantine Hill, and the Forum are also all close together and you can buy a ticket for all three for one rate. You don’t necessarily have to plan every day down to the hour, but having a general idea of what you want to do on each day can be extremely helpful.
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| Another highlight of this trip was the gelato. It always made the perfect afternoon snack and it is so fun experimenting with new flavor combinations! |
In addition to the planning what day you want to visit sites, a lot of the main sites have odd hours, random days they are closed, or really long lines for tickets. With the hours, simply looking things up ahead of time can save you a big headache and make your days move smoother. For the lines, the only place we really noticed this was the Vatican museums. However, if you payed five extra euros, you could buy your tickets online beforehand and virtually skip all of the lines. I would highly recommend this as the line to buy tickets looked to take a couple of hours and we walked right in. Definitely worth the five extra euros!
After living in Rome, this city will always be near and dear to me. There is just something about a city with that much history and art that is overwhelming and magical. Our trip was absolutely amazing and I couldn’t have asked for a better travel partner. If you have any questions about visiting Rome or about our trip, please comment or email me! I would love to answer all of your questions. Until next time, XO
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| This trip was absolutely amazing, but it would not have been the same without my best friend Kate. Thank you for letting me drag you around to all of my art exhibitions! You were the best travel companion! |
