THREE DAYS IN ROME

I’m learning to be spontaneous. I’ve always been an obsessive ‘planner’ and for the first three months of our trip I planned and booked the entire thing before we left Australia! I can’t help it. I love to have control and the idea of just winging it terrified me. No matter how many people told me it was so easy in Europe to decide last minute, I just couldn’t let myself go with the flow. I do believe there were a few positives about my crazy planning, that we saved lots and lots of money on booking things in advance and finding really lovely accommodation before it was booked out. It meant we got to stay in a lot less hostels, travel on the nicer timed trains and just generally feel comfortable all the time. But as we eased into travelling as the months flew by, I think we both craved a little spontaneity. I mean that’s what backpacking is all about yeah? Not knowing what country you might be in at the end of the week! So one evening while we were cozied up in our Prague apartment we booked tickets to Rome for a few days time on Skyscanner. It felt incredible! We both were desperate to get to Italy, we just couldn’t wait until later in the year like we’d originally planned. The tickets were SO cheap as we could leave all our luggage in our apartment in Prague and just runaway for a few days with barely any belongings.

And so our spontaneous adventures to Rome begun, and it was my favourite three days of the trip so far.

We flew with the budget airline Wizz Air, which is the first time I’ve flown with an airline that doesn’t assign seats! (Unless of course you pay lots of extra $$ for their priority boarding). I was a bit nervous at boarding time, I’ve seen crazy crowds trying to board buses and trains, the idea of hundreds getting on the plane in this manner was enough to get my anxiety going. Luckily we timed our boarding perfectly as we all had to get on a shuttle bus that drove us to the plane and we were right near the bus doors. For a plane where we couldn’t book seats, we managed to get great ones with one of the only spare seats next to us and me on the window! I think our calm boarding manners gave us good karma 😉

I love riding buses or trains between countries as you get to see so much more of the land, but there’s nothing quite like the excitement of flying somewhere foreign. You’re not eased into it like on the road, where you might get to know the architecture of their homes or the languages on the road signs. Instead you’re dropped off through the clouds into somewhere completely unknown. I disembarked the plane with a ridiculous amount of excitement that I hadn’t felt in a long time. But then again, that could have just been because we were in ROME!

It was raining when we arrived and we got soaked on our journey to the hostel. We booked four nights in a cozy hostel called Freedom Traveller where they served free red wine and snacks at 7pm each evening. We were staying in a four bed dorm and our roomies were two American boys from Minnesota who we got to know the first night by telling spooky stories at bedtime.

After a great nights sleep we were ready to start our first day in Rome! In the morning we met with Molly who is spending this year travelling the world solo and we had been chatting online about our similar journeys. When I told her Martin and I had booked this trip to Rome she was only a short train ride away in Switzerland so we decided to meet up! After getting acquainted over free morning pastries (yes I forgot to mention they put out a huge plate of croissants in the morning!!), we set out to no where in particular with the main objective to get lost in the streets of Rome.

We made our way over to the neighbourhood of Trastevere having heard that is most like the old Rome, what you might imagine in your head when you think of Rome or what you might see in the movies. Honestly I thought every inch of Rome was beautiful, in a raw, authentic and dirty kind of way. But there is no denying that Trastevere was my favourite part. Narrow, cobbled streets lined by colourful, old houses and flower filled terraces, how could you not fall completely in love?

In Rome I found there were almost no modern buildings. In fact, you’ll be strolling down a street with pretty houses and all of a sudden an ancient ruin will spring up in front of you! It could be something famous like the Forum in the above picture, but other times it’s a normal suburban street with an ancient structure preserved right in the middle. Maybe one day long ago it was an old school, church, home? I stared at them in wonderment, imagining all the stories those stones have seen over thousands of years.

Okay now for the MOST important part of our first day in Rome… the BEST gelato I’ve ever tasted. A huge thank you to Molly for taking us to this gem. She’d heard about it online when researching the secret Gelateria that Liz Gilbert ate from in her book “Eat, Pray, Love” when she was in Rome. Through her internet stealth skills (it’s not named in the book) Molly discovered it was called San Crispino, and it is quite centrally situated right near the Trevi Fountain.

There are no words. It is without a doubt the most incredible thing I’ve ever tasted. I tried the non-dairy options, so my flavours of choice were a scoop of black fig and one of pear. The flavours were so real, so intense, this is art, not ice cream. And I know both Martin and Molly agreed with me that this was the BEST gelato they had ever eaten. So if you could only do one thing in Rome, this without a doubt has to be it.

Looking out over Rome from the Borghese Gardens as we walked up from Piazza del Popolo. I always find myself wanting to see a view of each city we visit, just to bask in it’s beauty and vastness. Rome is no exception, and this view was breathtaking. We paused to snap a few photos (a rare one of Martin and I as we never get pictures together!).

Our first day in Rome consisted of about eight hours of walking, endless talking to the point of losing my voice by the evening, feeling beyond excited and being blown away by the beauty around every corner, eating the best Gelato I’ve ever tasted, basking in the most beautiful view, seeing more Piazza’s than I can count on two hands, feeling humbled by ancient churches and stalking Nuns on the street as I’ve never seen one casually going about her everyday life before and it was just so weirdly cool! Rome was already my favourite after just one day.

❤