Hi everyone! I am back to recap Day 2 in Rome, the day we got to tour the Colosseum, walk through the Roman Forum, Pantheon, etc.
You can see my Rome, Day 1 recap HERE.
We started the morning with breakfast at our hotel, Empire Palace. When booking our hotels, we had the travel agent make sure that our hotels offered a hot breakfast. There were always danishes, cheeses, FRESH tomatoes, FRESHLY squeezed juices (an assortment!), deliciously prepared eggs… oh, breakfast was a treat! Empire Palace would even make us up a free cappuccino every morning!
We did one tour to see everything and it was a lot of walking! But, seeing the Colosseum in person has always been such a big dream of mine. My breath was taken away, it was OLD yet beautiful and heroic. It was smaller then I had thought it’d be… but, this was the Roman times. I took a lot of photos, so scroll on down to see them.
Colosseum
Note the cross in the photo above.
This was a view looking out from the Colosseum.
The back side of the Colosseum.
Roman Forum & Surrounding Area
Our tour continued outside the Colosseum… first we saw the Arch of Constantine. There are many triumphal arches in Rome.
Arch of Titus
Trevi Fountain
Trevi Fountain. It was REALLY crowded, so this is the best photo I could take.
Pantheon
I was really beyond myself to get to see the Pantheon, too. Just such an amazing structure and I remember studying this in art history at college. Photos really do not do justice, it is such an honor that I was able to finally see it!
The rotunda with the oculus looking out to the sky. It was challenging to take photos of this with my camera. 🙁
After our tour, our guide recommended a place for lunch and we decided to try it out. I need to find the name of it and I’ll add it to this post once I get it. We had bruschetta for an appetizer and then I ordered this seafood pasta dish.
Brian ordered this simple pasta dish, but it was delicious! We also had tiramisu here and it was my absolute FAVORITE from the entire trip. It was more like a pudding with the lady fingers on the bottom. It was so good. I should have ordered a second one! We got to sit outside for lunch and a little bird kept landing on our table. 🙂
Now, for dinner… yes, we did go back to the hotel and take a nap in-between these meals. We did A LOT of walking with the tour and it was scorching hot!
For dinner we ate at another restaurant by our hotel, which I need to look up the name of it. We had so many nice restaurants by our hotel that I would dine at these places again in a heart beat if we are ever back in Rome. We ordered a bottle of wine for dinner and then the bread was so tough and plain (bread in Italy is for dipping… not really something you want to waste calories on) that I asked for some butter. They brought little curls of butter out over arugula (or some sort of lettuce). So pretty! My advice is to skip the Italian bread they bring to the table and enjoy everything else, because it is SO good! They also do not put ice in the water there and it is served luke warm. I saw one lady at a restaurant ask for ice and they brought her out a little bucket of ice. Too cute. Gotta love the Italians, they don’t do anything simple!
Our appetizer was for two… uh… yeah. Then, our pizza came out. This was my FAVORITE pizza from our entire stay in Italy. It was SO, so good. I used to LOVE Chicago deep dish pizza, but now Italian pizza wins overall. New York pizza I’m just so-so about. But, WOW. What I would do for this pizza to be delivered to my door. The pizza is HEAVILY topped with sauce and the crust is almost a little soggy from it, so you want to roll your pizza slice in half and eat it like a sandwich. Otherwise, you’ll have your pizza in your lap. 🙂
Dessert and cappuccinos. The Italians don’t drink coffee after the afternoon, but we love to have a hot drink with our desserts from time to time. I had a chocolate brownie and Brian had a lemon cake. They had us go inside to view the desserts that they had out on a table. So delicious!
I hope you enjoyed this recap post as these are A LOT of work! I will probably go back and add more tidbits when I have more time. Next Friday I will be sharing our third day in Rome, which was also our last full day in Rome before we headed to Florence!
