Rome!

On the morning of Ryan's birthday, we left Florence by high speed train and headed to Rome. It took about 2 hours and gave us a taste of some of the beautiful countryside Italy has to offer. Upon arriving in Rome, we snatched a taxi (there seemed to be no real organization in the taxi queue so we just flagged down the first one we saw milling about) and drove to our hotel, Hotel Concordia, which is conveniently located just around the corner from the Spanish Steps. We arrived around 1pm, so we had the whole afternoon to wander the city and familiarize ourselves.

Some first impressions: Rome is big, much bigger than Florence. Not just big in size, but in people, cars, Vespas, art, etc. The drivers are crazy, the kids on their mopeds are crazier, and the pedestrians are craziest. There does not seem to be a single rule of the road that cannot be broken. That being said, my second impression of the city is that it's gorgeous. There's this blending of ancient with sort of modern. I say sort of because there's a law in Rome that no building can taller than Saint Peter's Basilica, so no really modern buildings have been erected. Instead, the buildings all have a kind of 1950s chic about them, which I really like.

There is so much to do on in Rome that we decided to just get a feel for our neighborhood today, then the next day would be "Vatican Day," and Saturday, our last day, would be "Ancient Day." The massive Pantheon, the Roman Temple built in 126 A.D., is massive. Externally, the structure is entirely Roman, with an inscription to Agrippa, the Roman consul who designed it, still inscribed across the top. The inside, however, was made into a Catholic church in 609, which was a blessing since, although disappointing to not be able to see the temple in completely original form, nonetheless was the only reason the pagan temple was not completely destroyed.

The Pantheon is an amazing building, and whetted my appetite for more of the classical. We next walked to the Piazza Navona, which is the site of a former Roman stadium encircled by a Roman racetrack (a la Ben Hur) and which is now a public square. The racetrack still remains, but instead of surrounding gladiators it surrounds vendors selling Coach knockoffs. There are three huge fountains here down in the classical style dating back to the Renaissance. One, the Fountain of the Four Rivers, shows anthropomorphized figures of four major rivers representing the four known continents at the time (1600s): the Nile for Africa, the Danube for Europe, the Ganges for Asia, and the Rio de la Plata (apparently in Uruguay?) representing the Americas. The fountain also contains various animal life representing these continents - I still have not found the armadillo, but I know he's on there.

After enjoying some pizza and people watching in the piazza, we then headed out to the Campo de Fiori, another public square which was used as an execution site in Medieval Italy. This is where Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake as a heretic for expressing his belief that the sun, not the Earth, was actually at the center of the solar system - a statue of Bruno now stands in the center of the square, defiantly facing the Vatican, which you can just barely see peeking up over the skyline. After such a bloody history, it seems ironic that this is where a fish and vegetable market has been held every morning since 1869, but even more ironic is that originally the site was a meadow, and the name actually means "Field of Flowers."

When we got to the Campo de Fiori, the vendors were breaking down their stalls for the day. In the late afternoon, apparently the cafes put out chairs and tables or people to enjoy the view and an aperitif, then in the evening it's a popular meet up spot for locals and tourists. Hopefully we will catch the market on another morning!

We had walked a decent way by this point, so we headed back to the hotel for the siesta hour, doing some window shopping along the way. It's Rome, one of the fashion capitals of the world - do I need to tell you what we saw here? Well, let's just say certain sections of Rome make the ritzy section of South Coast Plaza look dowdy!

After relaxing for a bit, we headed to a restaurant that sounded pretty good, Osteria dell' Ingegno. Well thank you, Fodor's, for the recommend, because it was wonderful! Great ambience with colorful modern art that reminded me of Spain, wonderful service, and excellent food. To start, Ryan and I shared the nudi, which is "naked ravioli." Essentially, it was the filling of the ravioli (pesto and ricotta cheese) with a drizzling of olive oil - so good! Next I had a traditional Tuscan dish called mezze maniche, which is a noodle like penne, only shorter and fatter, with a light tomato sauce with...wait for it...bacon! Ryan had a Madras chicken curry which was also pretty tasty as well as a nice change of pace. All in all, quite good, pretty affordable, and great atmosphere! Not bad for our first night out in a city known for tourist trap restaurants!

After dinner we went back to the hotel via a path that would take us by the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. Both are pretty amazing when all lit up against the night sky, both are huge, and both are crawling with people! I got a chance to throw a coin into the fountain, but Ryan didn't, so I guess that means I'm going back to Rome solo! We are going to try and do a sunrise walk one morning, so hopefully he will get his chance then!