This morning Matt and I arose once again to a day of moving but unlike other days, today we had only a short distance to travel. We packed our belongings and headed southwest for our new hotel, the one we would be staying in for the remainder of Rome (five more days).
It was early, around 10:30, when we arrived. Since it was before noon our room wasn’t yet ready so the hotel held our luggage as we set off for more sightseeing. The hotel we are now staying in is Hotel Tritone. Right around the corner is the Fontana di Trevi (Trevi Fountain) created in 1732, a wondrous work of art. Matt and I both threw a coin over our shoulders into the fountain to ensure that we will return. While Matt was taking pictures I wandered into a shoe store. Now, this will be a surprise to many but… this is the first time I have done any shopping on our honeymoon! I know that is a bit crazy, but we will do more shopping I promise. Matt bought me a beautiful pair of shoes!
After the shoes, we walked a bit more and then grabbed a bite at a panini shop. The sandwiches were good and the atmosphere, unique. The music ranged from all types of hip hop to a sudden loud rendition of Bryan Adams’ Everything I Do. We enjoyed our time there, but it was time to leave and get our room so we headed back to the hotel.
The lobby of the hotel is small but very nice. The rooms are small….monotone….dingy…..old! It’s not a dirty room so we feel fine to stay here the rest of our trip but it did really shock us (especially for what people are expected to pay). We have decided that we will try to limit our time in the room to siestas and night. The great thing about the hotel is its location. We are centrally located so it should be easy to walk to most of the areas of Rome.
We decided that since the room was drab we would head out for a walk. Rick Steves (or as some like to call him “The Rickers”) has walking tours in his books and today we decided to do the “Walk across Rome: Campo dei’Fiori to the Spanish Steps. But we were already in the middle of that walk (and we’d already been to the Spanish Steps), so we worked backwards. Along the way we saw the Pantheon, which is truly impressive. We also stopped into the San Luigi dei Francesi (Saint Luigi of France) church, which contains original paintings of St. Matthew by Caravaggio. It was breathtakingly gorgeous. We took a picture or two.
We continued West to the Piazza Navona, which is covered with painters selling their artwork. We’ve decided next time we come (in 2 years) we’ll bring some home with us. Some of the work was really fantastic. There are more Bernini fountains in the piazza, which are beautiful of course.
We headed South from there to the Campo de’ Fiori (Field of Flowers). This is an open market area that sells fruit and flowers, but we arrived later in the day so there were just a few flower stands running. But we were mainly there to see two things: the statue of Giordano Bruno (burned on the spot by the Vatican as a heretic in 1600) and the Theater of Pompey. This theater was being leased by the Roman Senate (since the actual Senate building had recently caught fire), and therefore was the site of Julius Caesar’s demise. We’re not quite sure which wall was part of the original theater (which covered several blocks) because they’ve built apartments all over it. We had a fun conversation about how Rome has so much history built on top of other history, and therefore so many buildings built on top of other buildings.
We had some more gelato! Andrea had caramel cream (nummy) and Matt had Wildberries (good, but too many seeds). It was again very refreshing on a hot day.
We wound our way back to the hotel, took a quick break, and then worked northwards again looking for dinner. We stopped at Ristorante Le Grotte and sat outside. We shared a Peroni, Andrea ordered the veal scallopini and Matt had Buscatini (can’t remember the word), thinking that’d be new and different, but it turns out it’s just fat spaghetti. Our dinner was pretty good, and Andrea was very excited to see they had Creme Brulee. We split one. It was very sweet, and had a very thick top crust. It had much less vanilla flavor, too. But it was pretty good.
We finished up and went to sit on the Spanish Steps for a bit. Some enterprising young men wandered the crowd, trying to resell beer they picked up at the supermarket. Another guy put roses into Andrea’s hand after she refused (“no no they’re free”), then turned and asked Matt for money. We gave him the roses back. 🙂
matt & andrea 