We took a train to Rome this morning. We sat by a really strange couple. They first asked us something in Italian and then when we told them we didn’t speak Italian they just ignored us. The guy sitting by Claire kept moving in his seat to be as far away from her as possible and then he would play footsies with the lady sitting by me, but his foot was on the outside of hers so he kept playing footsies with me too. It was really awkward. Eventually we made it to Rome and it was super hot! We got settled in our hotel and asked about the wifi advertised on their website. No one in the hotel speaks enough English to know what wifi is and they told us to go around the corner to some internet café that doesn’t actually exist to use a computer. We were rather annoyed at that and were all huffy as we headed to the Colosseum.
Outside the metro station for the Colosseum we were approached by someone asking if we spoke English. Assuming he was one of the many guys selling knock-offs and stupid souvenirs that we’ve seen in Italy I said no, but Claire said yes. It turned out to be a great thing. The guy was getting people to be part of their tours of the Colosseum. I was wary at first, but it turned out to be legit. We paid 23 Euros to skip the line in and for a guided tour of the Colosseum plus a free guided tour of the Palatine Hill. We learned so much more about the Colosseum than we would have just walking around it ourselves.
We had a quick lunch outside the Colosseum and then joined the group for the Palatine Hill tour. It was so hot by then. We had a really fun and eccentric tour guide who knew so much about everything we saw and ended up extending the tour from 40 minutes to a couple hours. It was really cool. We even got to go into the recently restored study of Emperor Augustus, the first Roman Emperor. We liked our tour guide so much that when she told us she was giving a tour of the Vatican tomorrow (which we had planned to see then anyway) we decided to join. After the tour we walked over to Trajan’s Column and then back towards the Colosseum for dinner at this restaurant that was recommended in our guide book.
We then hopped on a metro in search of a gelateria, Fata Morgana, that our tour guide had mentioned. The owner makes his own gelato and experiments with the flavors, creating some very unique ones. We got lost and ended up passing it, ending up in a sketchy-looking neighborhood. We back-tracked, very disheartened that we couldn’t find it, when Claire noticed a girl eating gelato and pointed her out saying “I wonder where she got gelato” I looked above her at the sign over the small, hole-in-the-wall shop and it was the place we had been looking for. We were excited and went in. We wanted to branch out and try his random concoctions, however, all the flavors were in Italian so there were very few that we could figure out what they were. Claire ended up playing it safe with tiramisu and chocolate espresso. I noticed the basil, honey, and nut flavor our guide had talked about and decided to get that and a cream and caramel flavor. Not a great combination. The basil flavor was interesting, but not really something I liked. It was really basil-y but also really sweet. Claire tried it and really liked it though. She ended up getting bored with her chocolate and so we switched cones and she ate my basil and I ate her chocolate. We then headed back to our hotel, completely exhausted from a long day of walking.
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