OMG,
we slept in….it was 9am when we heard guests in the hallway. Oops,
no time to shower again, so we jumped up to get breakfast. Alfonso
greeted us with his huge smile. I’ll fit him in my suitcase, I am
sure I can leave out a sleeping bag or something!
Another
awesome breakfast awaited us with juice, fruit, yoghurts, breads and
pastries & of course, cheese & ham, and the famous Italian
Hot Chocolate. I had it all today! Ha ha
Steve
set up the Vodafone SIM with the help from Alfonso translating the
odd thing from Italian to English and we are now connected to the
world! :)
Whilst
I showered etc, Steve was shown around all of the apartments by
Alfonso. Each Apartment so different and this is not the only
apartment block they own….another 3 around Rome! If we had only
known...one of them was much closer to the Vatican – could have
saved us a huge walk each day….but I am sure it wouldn’t have
been quite as economically priced as this Apartment! We’ve loved
it here. Don’t really want to leave yet.
I
must say, considering we weren’t fussed about seeing Rome at all as
we thought it would be just “another big city” - how wrong we
were. Its truly beautiful and nothing like we’ve experienced
before. It is a MUST see and experience.
Today
we are just going to rest. We’ll find the Farmacia and I might
shout Steve lunch at the famous pizza shop around the corner &
have a Gelati from across the road and we will just relax. Steve
will make the most of the Hot Chocolate machine in the breakfast
area. Poor Alfonso will not make any money on our stay here! Ha ha
ha ha
Steve
and Alfonso bought our Super Fast Train tickets to Florence for
tomorrow – 10am departure – 11.36am arrival. It’s a shame we
won’t really see anything of Florence. Everyone says how nice Rome
is, but how gorgeous Florence is in comparison….such a shame now we
know how much we’ve enjoyed Rome. Never mind – next time we come
to Italy, we know to spend more time in Florence and to come back to
Rome (but stay a tad closer to the Vatican….or just take taxi’s!)
lol
I
just looked outside, and it is raining! They did forecast
thunderstorms. Doesn’t look stormy, just grey solid fog like
clouds with rain. Lucky we didn’t go out this morning! Lol No
sunrise, no interesting clouds and just rain. We made the right
choice – thank you blister!
After
a very leisurely morning doing absolutely nothing (except edit photos
and catch up on writing this blog) & watching the rain fall over
Rome, I put on my hiking shoes (OUCH) and we made our way (slowly) to
the Farmacia to buy band-aids etc.
We
turned up another side street we found the day before and bought
cakes from Strabbioni Roma Pasticceria. I bought a Sfogliatella, and
Steve has some Chocolate cream filled cake.
We
walked another 10m to Pinsere Pizzeria which is the most famous Roman
Pizzeria who have won many awards! You can’t get near the place at
lunchtime – lucky for us it was 3pm and we could make our way
inside. I had their award winning Pancetta with Ricotta &
Pumpkin, and Steve had plain ole margarita with Buffalo Mozerella.
OMG, the pastry was devine…. YUMMY !!! Only 4.50 Euro each!
Bargain! People so nice in there. They all laugh at our attempt to
speak Italian! :)
And
of course I had to have Gelati, (I had to twist Steve’s arm….NOT),
back across the road from home. Today Steve had, Choc Chip, Creme
Vanilla & Egg Nog Vanilla. I had Chocolate, Banana & Creme
Vanilla. Was very nice. The Chocolate was insanely rich – like
I was eating a block of melted chocolate! OMG we didn't even take photos of our gelato today....sorry!! lol
Now
we are back in our room resting once again. Many more photos to
edit, most of which won’t end up in the blog, but more for our own
memories. Steve will have to repack his bag for tomorrow’s train
trip...omg the man has his stuff strewn all over the room. Me – my
bag is packed and neat. We are exactly like Oscar & Felix. I’ll
let you guess who is who! Ha ha ha
Steve
and I met with Riccardo in the dining room area and we shared lots of
stories and showed him all of our photographs. Riccardo is a man
motorcycle fanatic too, so Steve and Riccardo talked bikes for ages….
and ages! Lol
We
decided to take some photos of us all....so Steve got out the tripod
and set the camera up on a timer.... gosh we had some laughs getting
these photos taken! Its all Riccardo's fault....talking about sex all
of the time - typical Italian! ha ha ha
We
were laughing so hard at one stage, I thought Riccardo had a hold of
my chair and was moving it….but then Steve said “do you feel
that?” and then Riccardo thought Steve had a hold of his chair and
was moving it, but no, it was an earthquake! The whole building was
moving! The light pendant was swaying and it went on for a good
couple of minutes (or it felt like it was going for that long).
Poor
Riccardo had never been through a tremor before, and once he realised
it was real, you could see the terror in his face. But it was all
alright. No damage at all. Just lots of car alarms in the streets
going off! A few of the other guests came out to see if we could
confirm what it was – and yes, we all felt the tremor.
We
found out later it hit approx 200km away from Rome and was a
magnitude 6 quake. Still waiting to hear if the town at the
epicentre had any bad damage.
Steve
and I walked down the road at Riccardo’s recommendation to Il Covo
Restaurant for dinner. Steve had a spaghetti type pasta with crème
& panchetta – it was delicious! I had spaghetti with crème,
muscles & asparagus – yummy! Then we decided to have dessert,
I had a house special Strawberry Mousse with Pistachio crumb. Steve
had a 3 layer Chocolate mousse cake…. Vanilla mousse, Milk
Chocolate & Dark Chocolate mousse on a small cake layer base.
OMG – talk about rich. I had to help Steve finish it and I even
struggled! Ha ha ha Riccardo also suggested we try a dessert wine
to finish. They served it cold. Was OMG perfect!
What
a great meal to finish our stay in Rome.
We
had a lovely walk back to the apartment, and we were lucky that the
rain had finally stopped for us.
We
arrived back at the apartment, only for another tremor to hit! This
time I really did feel like I had been drinking! It didn’t last as
long as the first one, but was still quite a strong after-shock.
We
went to bed eventually and the thunderstorms that were predicted
finally hit after midnight. Big flashes of lightening followed by
loud claps of thunder and lots of rain. Was nice to sleep listening
to it all. (I did want to get up to photograph the lightening, but
I had packed my tripod away, and with all the street lights in front
of my window, it was never going to be a good photo….so I laid in
bed instead!)
Buono
Notte Roma.
