We spent three incredible weeks in Italy exploring ancient Rome, world-famous Bologna food scene, and the beautiful Adriatic coast in Rimini. This was our itinerary with restaurants, attractions & travel advice.
Hubby and I were on a three week land vacation in Italy, visiting a new-to-us city in Rimini, revisiting Bologna, and spending another week in Rome.
3 Weeks in Italy: Rome, Bologna & Rimini Food & Culture Trip
A little back story on this trip…
In August of last year I got sick. I could not walk a few steps without gasping for air. I knew we had this trip coming up in October, so finally got antibiotics in September to help clear things up. I describe what happened to me here, but the end result is I got a pacemaker.
Why this matters to the story? When on this trip, I had no idea anything was wrong with my heart. I simply assumed I had no stamina on this trip due to being sick for over six weeks. It changed the way we did things because I couldn’t do things. When we arrived in Italy, I had a hard time walking ¼ of a mile without sitting down. I eventually got up to 4 miles a day by the end of this trip, but some places were beyond me to walk long distances (Monaco, Lisbon, and even the hilly sidewalks in Bermuda were very difficult).
In all, we would be away for more than six weeks and returning home in December via a transatlantic cruise.
And now on to the Italian portion of the trip…
We left on a Tuesday flying from Pensacola to Charlotte, Charlotte to Rome. The flights were uneventful and when we landed in Rome the EES had just gone into effect a few days prior to our landing.
We were fully prepared to do the fingerprints and facial recognition < insert political rant here > but as we walked up to immigration the custom agent directing traffic sent us to the VIP line (also included the handicapped, and in the EU my cane qualifies). In this lane, NO fingerprints, facial recognition AND I got a passport stamp!
I love passport stamps. They are being phased out around the world it seems, so when I receive one I am thrilled. This was a new passport, and I expected it to remain clean for quite a while, but nope, first stop with it I got a stamp!
I was so happy!
The regular custom and immigration line for non-EU passports was at least 30 minutes long in my estimation. We were lucky enough to get through in less than five minutes.
Rimini, Italy
Then, we were off to Rimini.
We had never been to the east coast of Italy south of Venice and while we knew we were arriving in the off-season, we figured, “Why not?”
Hubby slept like a log on the plane, but I only got a few hours in. We do fly business class and the lay-flat seats vary widely by plane metal. This was AA and it was meh to me.
We engaged a driver to pick us up at the airport and drive us the 4½ hours to Rimini (the cost was 630€). The driver was a very nice man and the common language between us was French. After about 30 minutes of chatting, we all got quiet and I fell asleep for three hours.
We took a vehicle because to get to Rimini from the Rome airport would have required going from the Rome airport to Rome (either by train or car), Rome to Bologna, and Bologna to Rimini. We figured we would be exhausted, and the drive was faster. The trains were not that much less expensive, either.
Considering my breathing issues, this was the correct choice, even though we did not know it at the time.
In Rimini we had booked the Residence Hotel Piccadilly based on location, reviews, and images on the website.
And the location was FANTASTIC. Everything else about the place sucked.
They were in a heatwave (in October) with no air conditioning (turned off for the season), so the place was HOT. We slept with the patio door and front window open. We rolled down the metal shades and set them to let in air, so from a safety perspective we were fine.
The bathroom photo does not do justice to how small the bathroom was… basically the size of an American half-bath with a shower AND bidet stuffed into it.
The cabinets (it had a kitchenette), sofa, and bed were all very tired. We could have lived with all of this but they were also renovating the floor above us PLUS the building next door! And, since we needed to keep the patio door and front window open so we could breathe (heat wave) – it was LOUD.
Hubby found us a nearby luxury hotel. Around half a mile from our starting hotel, it did not have a kitchenette, but they did have a (wonderful) breakfast in the morning, a mini fridge, and a coffeemaker! That first hotel did not have a coffeemaker. In Italy. We had never encountered that before.
The new hotel had a beautiful deck, two bathrooms, living room, and a king-sized bed. While we lost out on the kitchenette, it was a vast upgrade everywhere else.
The next day we did a food tour in Rimini.
Hubby had contacted the tour company the night before to find out how many people were going to be on this tour. Since my stamina was shot, I did not want to slow down other people. We had booked a “small group tour” – which could mean anywhere from us alone to 12 people.
Since it was just us, we went.
I did ok. We had to stop a few times, and she did cut out the arch and the bridge – which Hubby and I eventually saw on our own when the tour was over.
This tour was more a historic overview with a few food stops than a real food tour.
The pork and onion flatbread was good. The handmade pasta with ragu (sauce) was meh. I am not a big fan of northern Italy sauce. Every time I have it I have the same “it tastes funny” reaction. Maybe it is the pork?
Rimini was heavily bombed during WW2 so a lot of the “very important” architecture was restored and rebuilt in some way. The cathedral was interesting as the six chapels had mostly been spared during the bombings. And how many times do you see the signs of the zodiac in a Catholic church? Very unusual.
The original bridge was built 10 centuries before Christ! It is not impressive and the river below it was been diverted.
For dinner we walked across the street from our hotel to a local restaurant. Considering where we were I wanted local fish… which didn’t happen. I got salmon, shrimp, and gnocchi in a pesto sauce. Hubby got a GIANT bowl of minestrone soup and then lightly battered and fried shrimp, calamari and vegetables.
Plans to go to San Marino failed when Hubby and I had a bad night sleeping. I was up for several hours during the night and got up at 8, but he was up from 3:30-8 and didn’t get up until noon!
The day was cooler, windy, and overcast. Since we had missed breakfast, we decided on a big lunch. I chose a restaurant on the boardwalk the google “said” was open.
They lied. Everything on the boardwalk was closed. It was off-season, and what was clearly a hopping boardwalk well situated between hotels and the beach during the season was dead as a doornail and everything was closed.
We ended up at a different restaurant across the street where Hubby got a seafood soup and shrimp carbonara, and I got seafood risotto. We also got another bottle of cheap Italy wine.
Hubby left me at the restaurant to go to a grocery store down by our original hotel. Not only was the boardwalk closed down, so too were a lot of shops and stores on the main beach street.
There was a “fruit and vegetable” market being held in the old town, so Hubby decided that was what we would do on our fourth day. He loves markets and really enjoys seeing what is in season locally whenever we travel.
We DID find two flower stalls. We did not find any fruit or vegetable stands. It was more like a giant flea market! There were some very nice stalls and some very, very cheap stalls.
After an hour of walking through clothing and retail goods we did not want or need we stopped for a coffee and people watched. Hubby searched for a restaurant, and he found one on a small (teeny-tiny) side street that ended up being excellent.
Hubby got pasta in the shape of a boot! I got tortellini with truffle and pesto.
Decent wines have been rather easy to get in restaurants for 20-35€ a bottle. We take the remains back to the room and either drink them the next day or that evening.
The next day there was an artisan market in the old town. We had hoped for a large market like the day before, but it was not to be. There were approximately 20 tents set up.
One of the tents has paper-mâché figures (cartapesta) set in various objects – a camera, Victrola, etc. It was simply marvelous! I ended up purchasing something that was completely cartapesta – a small paper-mâché nativity scene inside a small paper-mâché book. I should have purchased the camera, too! But it was our first destination and I was more concerned about space and easy transport.
After that, we went to the surgeon’s house – an archeological dig. We also went to the museum next door.
The enclosed dig area was very hot and humid – so bad in fact that there was mold growing on the brick building that surrounded the dig. The glass above the dig made for a greenhouse effect and water slid down and puddled. We live in Florida and though that site was very humid!
The building had heat and air condition but it was “heat only” time in Italy, even though the days were hot.
The museum had four floors that contained paintings and, glass works, statues, and burial items. It was very interesting and grouped by time periods.
Since it was a Sunday and most shops were closed in the old town we went back to our hotel. We had had a wonderful breakfast at the hotel that morning, so decided on linner (the time between lunch and dinner!)
We went to a local seafood restaurant and WOW was it good!
The following day was off to the local market. It was a Monday, so we should have known better, but we couldn’t have done it another day. The fish market is empty on Mondays because the fishermen do not go out on Sunday. No product to sell for the vendors.
The fruit and vegetables portion of the market was great, however! It was all local produce that was in season. Like in Le Havre, France, there is a grocery store attached to the market.
Meats and poultry were also available in abundance.
Mmmm chestnuts.
Since it was a Monday, few restaurants were open in old town. We went back to the seashore and Hubby had the taxi drop us off near that first hotel. We went to another seafood restaurant where we ordered pasta! Lol Nevertheless, the food was excellent.
We walked the boardwalk back to our hotel and we could tell the wind and cooler air was moving in to break up the heat.
The next day was a rainy day (the weather broke) and it poured so we were confined to the hotel for the day. We had looked at the weather report and knew it was coming, so we canceled our food tour that we had booked in a small town to the north, and just chilled.
We did go out to dinner… the same seafood restaurant we had gone to on Sunday. It was meh this time. The waitstaff was overworked and Hubby felt his food choices were not as good as the last time.
Rimini on the whole is beach-centric. We went after the season ended, and it was a poor time choice, even for non-beach people like us (too much was closed). I suspect the last week of September might be a better choice… end of the season, lower prices, yet everything is still open. I would have loved to have had a few meals on the boardwalk as we overlooked the Adriatic Sea.
Bologna, Italy
The following day we went to Bologna. We decided to take a car, and in light of my health issues that turned out to have been a wise choice. The man who drove us to Bologna was the same man who drove us from Rome to Rimini! He lives near Rimini, so he said he gets a lot of drives to and from Rimini.
We had been to Bologna before, but we didn’t feel where we stayed the last time gave us a real “Bologna experience,” so this time Hubby found us a phenomenal location in Bologna’s Old Town (Centro Storico).
Everything we did was walkable from that location. We didn’t need to go to outlying towns this time as we had done it in the past.
Our room (it was not really an Airbnb and not really a hotel, but a cross between the two) wasn’t quite ready so we checked our bags into the large lockers provided and Hubby found us an excellent restaurant around the corner where we had a fabulous lunch.
We also stopped into a grocery store where Hubby purchase bread, luncheon meat, cheese, and the peach tea he can only find in Europe that he loves.
I made an appointment at the hairdresser around the corner from where we were staying for the day before we left and went to Rome.
And, we stopped for a coffee where we “announced” ourselves as American by ordering a cappuccino after noon – which is simply not done in Italy! They also had desserts so I also got a pistachio ice cream “cannoli” which was delicious.
After that, it was time to check in and do some laundry!
The place not only had a washer, but it was a washer/dryer combination. Dryers are very rare in Europe (even the combos) that I was thrilled. There was no need for us to find a laundry drop off in Rimini!
The next day we had a food tour, and, we did it again. Just like we did in New Zealand, we booked a tour we had done previously!
The tour meeting point was right outside where we were staying. We walked around the corner with our little group and that is when the sense of déjà vu started. When the next stop was at the tortellini workers and I asked the guide if it was upstairs, I knew then that we had done this tour previously. After that it was the market (been there), the Osteria del Sole (oldest tavern in Bologna in business since 1465 – yup, was there before), and finally, on to a new restaurant!
It was a nice tour, and nice to revisit those places and mostly dodge the raindrops.
The next day we had another food tour (Bologna is all about the food). It was a 15 minute walk to the meet-up and I knew I could not do it. I was already exhausted and there were 10 other people on this tour. I could not expect them to slow down for me. The day prior there were only four other people and the guide kept the walk tight (only 3 miles). This guide told us it was “a lot of walking” and I knew I could not keep up.
Instead, Hubby and I went to the quad and walked those “market” streets. We went to the food market and Hubby decided we should eat dessert first. Mmmm tiramisu.
We purchased some very nice balsamic (which I just discovered I can order online from Costco! Sure it is more expensive on Costco, but I can get it without a trip to Bologna). We also priced cheese as we knew we wanted to bring home Parmesan, and then we went to lunch.
All-in-all it was an excellent day!
The next day, Hubby wanted to go to the vegetable market. I figured it was better to go on a Saturday than on Monday.
We purchased 40 month aged Parmesan wedges for a “reasonable price,” some baby bananas, olives, and I took a lot of beautiful photos.
Zucchini flowers were available at the market, but we had yet to see them available at a restaurant.
On the walk back to where we were staying we decided to stop at an Indian restaurant. Because nothing says Italy like Indian food. < slaps forehead > Indian is not my favorite cuisine, but it is Hubby’s and he had been so good about dealing and adjusting to my health issues (remember, we did not at this time know the issue) that I wanted him to “treat” himself.
I got a glass of Indian Shiraz – no lie! I had no idea I could purchase Indian red wine! I also got cheese naan (which I love, and this one was especially good) and a vegetable dish.
Hubby was happy, I was fed, and on our way to where we were staying we finally stumbled upon a hot chestnut stand! Oh, so good.
The following day was Sunday where many things were closed so we needed to figure out something to do. We decided to go to the Museo Civico Archeologico (archeological museum of Bologna).
It was several floors filled with everything from and Egyptian collection in the basement to the history of Bologna on the second floor.
The history of Bologna included prehistoric, Gaelic/Celtic, and Roman. Many displays were in English and Italian.
For six euro per person, it was a good way to spend a few hours on a Sunday.
After that, it was on to lunch!
Apparently, no one cooks at home on a nice Sunday in October in Bologna. The entire quad was a mob scene. We paid the tourist premium and got a table at a restaurant on a busy side street where we people watched while enjoying a (surprisingly) good lunch and drinking nice wine.
On Monday, we went out to lunch in the quad area and window shopped as many stores were closed on Monday. Hubby did find a very good bakery on a small side street. The prices were very reasonable so he got a rice cake and I got a tasty, creamy cannoli.
Hubby got sucked in at a chocolatier where he purchased some overpriced pieces that were just okay.
We planned on going to an evening vegetable market, but when we arrived at the spot – nothing was there! Maybe it was too late in the year? There were also graduations at the University of Bologna (lots of students and families were out in the streets), so maybe that is why it was not being held?
Oh well. We stopped at an Irish pub (again, very Italian) on our way back to where we were staying, and people watched. Due to the graduations, there was a lot to see!
Our last day in Bologna I got my hair washed and blown out. The lady who did it was from Uganda and was now an Italian citizen. She did a lovely job and it was the most inexpensive blow-out I have ever had!
To this point in our trip Hubby and I agreed that we had spent three too many days in Rimini, and one too many days in Bologna. We talked about where we should have gone for those four days, and we probably should have gone back to Sorrento – mostly because we love it so much!
But, we had already been to Capri multiple times (meh), Pompeii, Mt Vesuvius, Amalfi, as well as the farms local to Sorrento, so we would have just gone to hang out.
And, since I was still recovering from being sick for two months I was definitely better off in flat Rimini. (See what I mean about my journal notes and not knowing?) Rimini also had the best weather in Italy the week we were there! I was also glad for easily walkable Bologna.
Rome, Italy
Day 15 of our trip was a travel day. We took a taxi to the train station, a high speed train from Bologna to Rome, and then took a taxi in Rome to the Airbnb we rented. We had a coffee next door while we waited the 30 minutes until check in time for the flat.
In Italy, “has elevator” does not necessarily mean no stairs. We have encountered this – a flight of stairs to reach the elevator – mostly in Florence. And now, we have encountered it in Rome. The large entrance to the building lead to two wings … one wing with a ramp to the elevator, one wing with a flight of stairs to the elevator.
Guess which side we got?
Oh well, at least they were standard sized stairs and had a railing.
The Airbnb was well laid out, two bathrooms, modern kitchen, but it had horrible furnishings – cheap and inadequate for more than two people (two bedrooms, marketed for ‘up to six people’) with only a three seat sofa in the living room! No chair. And the living room was large.
They also left ONE towel for each of us for an 8 day stay! There was a washer and a dryer so I made use of them to not only do our laundry, but the few towels they left so we could have clean ones. They also left two hand towels (one each). Few places in Europe (mostly high end hotels) provide wash clothes, so I bring my own.
The heat was not on in the building and while the gas stove worked, the gas towel holders did not. Soggy towels are no fun, hence my washing and drying the ONE bath town each they left. (Yes, I am still salty.) We were at this apartment the last week of October, first week of November and as I said, the heat was not on in the building.
We were very fortunate that we had amazing weather while we were in Rome – the daytime highs were 68-75°F. Nights, however, were cool.
The windows in this apartment sucked and it was VERY loud as we were on a secondary street. Lots of traffic, buses, and people to make noise at all hours.
This trip to Italy is probably our last time using Airbnb type apartments. We had good luck in Bologna (small place, but well equipped). This place pushed Hubby over the edge. Descriptions and photos on websites can be deceiving, but usually reviews tell the tale. This time, it did not.
In Rome, Hubby made full use of The Fork. It is a nice app where you can accumulate points toward future discounts, and sometimes the restaurant itself gives you a nice discount (between 20-50%, not including drinks).He doesn’t care about the Yums (rewards) but he does love the discounts.
We usually try to eat a big lunch and then a little meat and cheese for dinner because we do not like to eat a heavy meal at 8 or 9 pm. I am a sport and try and make up that Fork discount to the proprietors by ordering a bottle of wine. (wink )
Our first evening in Rome we walked two blocks two blocks for an early meal and ate outside as the weather was fabulous.
My meal was wonderful. Hubby’s meal? Not-so-much. We got zucchini flowers and he found them to be very heavy. I liked them though. He also got oxtail and it was not well done enough to fall off the bone (as it should). He kept trying to get good oxtail on this trip, and would eventually succeed!
After that it was a trip to Coop for some essentials (like coffee pods and creamer).
The following day we had a food tour in the Jewish Ghetto.
We loved the area the last time we were in Rome, and wanted to return. It was the only area in Rome that was graffiti free! Seriously. All of Rome is tagged. It looks atrocious.
Hubby had been contacted the day before to see if we could join this group instead of out scheduled day (the following day). Originally, we had a tour with Food Belly (that we had taken before and absolutely loved) but that was canceled due to a “medical emergency” (I hope everything is fine!) and so we were able to accommodate the tour company and make the switch.
It rained that day and that night, so seeing was difficult with low street lights and wet cobblestone. I also was moving very slow and worried about slowing down the group.
No worries this time!
One couple was in their 70s and very fit, but the other couple was 89 and 90 years old!! Even I was faster than they were.
Hubby made certain the tour guide knew I was slow.
We once again walked through the Jewish Ghetto and it was more history lesson than food tour.
The tour guide did set a pace that I could easily keep up with, but not that 90-year-old couple. Hubby and I trailed them to make sure they were not left behind, but after the third stop it was raining very hard and we had seen it all before, so we bailed on the tour.
Hubby was very frustrated with this tour guide for walking far ahead with the one couple, and not seeing where the elderly couple was on the tour. And we let her know it.
I felt bad for leaving, but I also didn’t want to fall on the slick cobblestone. We were fortunate enough to be able to grab a cab outside the restaurant.
After this experience, I had Hubby cancel our remaining food tours in Rome. I didn’t need to see ruins I had already seen, and the food tours were heavy on the walking.
Our next day we went to Mercato Trionfale, which was near the Vatican. Hubby had tried to find a tour for this market but the guide wanted our social media handles to “prevent spammers” (Hubby doesn’t even have social media), so we passed.
We figured we would use that money to buy whatever we wanted to eat, and if we didn’t like it? Oh well.
I am sure we missed stories about the market, but I feel we did just fine on our own. The market was very large and very colorful. I would say it was the best European market we had been to in years.
You could buy anything (or so it seemed) food related including meats (Hubby bought some delicious cooked pork), cheese, bread (bought), pastries (bought two cookies), prepared foods (Hubby bought a potato/leek tortia that was excellent), cheap coffee pods (the Airbnb didn’t provide any), fruits (bought dates), vegetables, and fish!
Eggs are always a delight to me in European markets. I love seeing the variety!
We were there for a few hours, offered samples from many stalls (that was how Hubby discovered the cooked pork) and I highly recommend a trip to this market if you are in Rome.
We got lunch at a restaurant a block away (Hubby used The Fork again) and then took a taxi back to where we were staying.
I wanted to go back to Campo de’ Fiori. They had a lovely flower and vegetable market when we were last there, and I noticed a lot of shops when we were on our Jewish Ghetto tour, so I figured, why not?
We took a taxi there. Hubby gets upset with taxi drivers because he hates the “tourist routes.” Only in Japan did he become comfortable with taxi drivers (honest as the day is long). If my husband feels he is being cheated, he becomes surly.
Well, the cab driver started at €5 that Saturday, not the regular €3.50 and so Hubby was peeved immediately. He later discovered that All Saints Day is considered a holiday in Italy, and so has a higher cost.
Anyhoooo…
Campo de’ Fiori wasn’t how I remembered it. It began with two lovely flower stalls, a vegetable stall, and then it went downhill to wooden spoons with spices attached, souvenir clothing, and stall after stall of (eating) oils.
Between the shops and stalls I did manage to buy three lightweight scarves I can use in Florida. I paid between 10 and 15 euro each, and was very pleased. The one on the right was the least expensive at €10, is (by far) the largest, and it is spectacular. I suspect these were all made in Vietnam, but for my needs, they worked.
We then had lunch (again with the aid of The Fork) at a “tourist trap” in the plaza next to the market, and it was excellent! I had seafood risotto, Hubby had carbonara.
We walked back to the Airbnb. I became overheated (it was in the 70s and sunny), but did keep up with Hubby.
He bought me a tiramisu at the Tiramisu shop around the corner from where we were staying. A large was €6.50. Hubby bought us one each. He figured he’d eat his and then the remaining half of mine when I got full. The regular size was €6 so I understood his reasoning in sizing-up.
That place prints money. Always a long line, always fresh (the guy makes it in front of you), my only complaint is the ladyfingers are not soft as they are not soaked.
We were staying in Trastevere so Hubby decided to go to the Porta Portese flea market on Sunday. I didn’t go as I was not feeling up to it. I am also not, and never have been, a fan of flea markets.
This flea market can have up to 1,000 stalls. Even though we did not need anything, Hubby still wanted to see it. He said it was mobbed and he was glad I did not go. It was basically one walking lane in each direction, bins and tables full of 1, 2, 5 euro clothing people love to dig through for a bargain.
He had made us a lunch reservation around the corner (Tre) where we got excellent oxtail meatballs and pasta. The wines available were meh, and either the service or the kitchen was very slow, but we survived.
Day 20…
When walking back from Campo de’ Fiori a few days prior we walked the back streets; the neighborhoods. That was the Rome I wanted to see more of. The tourist highlights we have done, why not see the back streets?
So, Hubby made a reservation (via The Fork) and we walked over.
This was one of the best meals we had in Italy this trip.
I got a meat and cheese platter. Even though the meats were wafer thin, I could only eat so much, so Hubby batted clean-up.
Hubby got a bean soup, and we each got a very good zucchini flower.
One thing that aborted Jewish Ghetto food tour hooked us on was guanciale – cured pork cheek. Think of American bacon but small pieces about 1/8″ thick and between ¾ and 1″ long. It is served in carbonara or pasta gricia (cheese, pasta, guanciale) and oh my, is it tasty!
So, I got a carbonara and a side of broccoli. They were so good! Truly an excellent meal on a little neighborhood side street.
Something we noticed around Rome this time were golf cart street tours everywhere! If they had them before, we missed them. So, the next day we decided to do one.
We knew we wouldn’t be going to the Vatican (sigh), Colosseum, Forum, museums or churches, but to ride around and view them from the street seemed like a good way to spend half a day.
This tour far exceeded our expectations!
We did a private tour and the tour company picked us up at our Airbnb and dropped us off there when the tour was over.
Our tour guide, Nickelo was funny and informative. Surprisingly, we found out later he’d only been on the job for three months!
How could he have learned so much so quickly?
He was born and raised in the neighborhood where we were staying. We got to see the hospital where he was born (“A very important place!” (wink) ) as well as his grammar school where the police had the closed off the street to exit for some reason. We ended up having to find another way out, and in Rome with one way streets – that is not so easy.
He chatted up a small truck driver who told him another way out, so we followed that small truck.
Welp, the small truck was too big to exit that way, so we watched the truck driver knock off a side mirror and scrape a car.
When his passenger squeezed out the side window to walk on the flatbed part of the truck, we thought it was to leave a note for responsibility.
Nope.
It was to guide the truck back and hopefully get him out of the street. At that point a woman walked up to the truck and started giving the driver what for.
We left when the owner of the car got in it to move it off the street so the truck could back out.
And people wonder why neither Hubby nor I want to drive in Italy.
The car scrape in Amalfi years ago (not the driver’s fault), now this, plus the crazy squeezing in and out of traffic? No thanks.
I do think we frustrated our guide on this tour a bit.
We had been to all the places they drive by on this tour, and knew most of the stories and history. He would come up with a new ides to show us a place we had not yet been, and we had been there.
He did tell us that we were the first tour he ever had that had been to Rome before and that was staying more than three days!
People, you cannot see/do all the Rome highlights in three days. Give it a week and enjoy your stay.
We drove by the Colosseum, the Arch, The Forum, Circus Maximus , statues, Pantheon, St Agnes Church, the Vatican, and went up Janiculum Hill (Gianicolo, not one of the seven hills) to overlook Rome.
At the Circus Maximus we got a great story about the Emperor’s house that overlooked it that I had never heard before.
I had missed the Pantheon with Hubby and our SIL (one of the 10+ mile days) so saw it for the first time.
St Agnes Church square was beautiful.
We had also never done the overlook in Rome before. The Jewish Temple was evident, the Colosseum (that they are STILL renovating) was also easy-to see.
This was just a wonderful tour and for our purposes much better than a hop-on-hop-off bus.
Caveat – we did this on a sunny day, and traffic in Rome is no joke. I do not think I would want to do this tour in the rain or at night unless the golf cart was lit up like a Christmas tree and those driving around me could see the golf cart clearly.
We did the golf cart tour on our second last day in Rome. If you are new to Rome, do it your first day for an overview of the city. If we had taken this tour earlier, I would have headed back to St Agnes Church as it was very peaceful and beautiful and we could have seen more details of the fountain and gone into the church. Next time.
On our last day in Rome we did not do much except walk the neighborhood. I really wanted to see where we had stayed, and we had neglected to do so.
Hubby found a restaurant we could both agree on (the Fork, 50% off!) and we walked the back streets of the Trastevere neighborhood, had lunch, did some shopping, then headed back to the apartment to pack.
On day 23 we went to Civitavecchia via Uber. Maximum posted road speed was 100 kilometers per hour (62mph) and our driver hit speeds of 160 kilometers per hour (100 mph). It was an exhilarating drive.
Hubby booked us into a hotel room with a small kitchenette, living room, and MAGNIFICENT terrace with stunning views of the Mediterranean.
It was over a restaurant and our plan was to go to that restaurant for dinner, and catch a taxi to the port the next day.
Bad plan.
We had sailed to and from Civitavecchia before, so we knew special permits were required for drivers to enter the port (it is an enormous port). We found out too late that the local taxis didn’t have these permits! Rome taxis did, Civitavecchia taxis did not. < slaps forehead > How Italian.
Our hotel room host arranged a pick up for us with a local driver; he took us in the back way (the barriers just opened for him, no check points! He clearly worked there). He had us to our ship in about 15 minutes. Best €20 we spent in Italy.
It also turned out that the restaurant wasn’t open when we were there. It was family owned and that was vacation week. Hubby found a food truck across the street, and bought us dinner there.
Me? I drank wine on the patio. It was a glorious day in early November, bright, sunny and 70°F.
The next day, we boarded our cruise. I am going to start the cruise on another post. There is one stop left in Italy – Livorno.
This is the cruise port for “Florence” which is two hours away and crazy to me for a day trip – which plenty of people did!
There was also Pisa, but we saw plenty of leaning building in Bologna and went through Pisa a few times and never felt compelled to stop, so we stuck to Livorno.
I don’t think Livorno would exist without the port. We were lucky enough to be there on a Saturday, so there were craft tents set up, as well as a large fruit and vegetable market and food trucks before we got to the permanent farmer’s market.
Hubby was thrilled, but I was having a bad day. My endurance was still not there after three weeks walking in Italy, and we returned to the ship after four hours on shore.
All-in-all I felt terrible for Hubby this trip. Neither one of us took into account how much my illness beat the heck out of me. I had finished my antibiotics about 10 days before we left, and I thought I would be all better.
I wasn’t. (Hubby recently said to me we were lucky I didn’t have a heart attack… probably a stroke was more likely. But the notes for what we “thought” was going on – endurance, versus what was actually happening, bradycardia, really do make me realize how fortunate we were that nothing terrible happened.)
I never comfortable walking in Italy this trip. Usually seven miles is a normal day when I am in Europe, and yet the walking this trip required frequent stops due to fatigue. It was also odd that some days I was just fine and could keep up, some days I needed frequent stops, sometimes I needed to stop going but not coming back (and vice versa).
We had to limit tours, sometimes take private tours, and we definitely limited what we did this trip.
In all we spent 25 days in Italy this time – 7 in Rimini, 7 in Bologna, 8 in Rome for the land portion. We should have spent 4 in Rimini, 6 in Bologna, 6 in Rome and the other 6 in either Sorrento or Verona. We have spent enough time in Italy over the years that we have seen the sites, and now we can just go where we are comfortable to eat, drink, and relax.
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