Roma e Firenze

AnticaPesa Wall of Fame

A short weekend in Italy for my friend's surprise birthday.  We stayed at the St Regis Grand hotel on Via Vittorio Emanuele Orlando in Rome.  A beautiful luxury hotel in the heart of Rome.  We had the birthday dinner at the AnticaPesa on via Garibaldi (est. 1922), a very popular celebrity destination with good food, service and a wall of fame, mostly full of Hollywood stars.

Ponte Vecchio

The next day, we went by train from Rome Central station for about an hour and a half to beautiful Florence/Firenze, which was my first visit.  I've been dying to visit Firenze for so long.  It was worth the wait. We spent the day exploring the city on foot on some of the oldest cobbled-stone streets. Firenze is a historical city with beautiful architecture, museums, piazzas, monuments, palaces and cathedrals.  We saw the Ponte Vecchio at the Arno river, Firenze's oldest bridge, which also houses Gold jewellery merchants.  We saw the Baptistery of St. John in the piazza del Duomo. Firenze also has fantastic shopping with all the normal high street shops and luxury designer stores, needless to say we also went shopping and all the ladies ended up buying shoes - don't ask! We had dinner back in Rome at a Chinese restaurant based on popular demand.

The Vatican

The Pope

On the Sunday we visited the Vatican city for mass, with hundreds of people in the square.  The Pope appeared at the window and prayed for all of us in at least 5 different languages - very impressive. Also my very first sighting of the Pope.  Afterwards, we hopped on one of the 'hop on hop off' buses called Roma Cristiana for a city tour, which turned out to be the best idea as it started raining.  We hopped off at the Colosseum, and had lunch at the a typical tourist restaurant opposite the Colosseum.  After lunch we went to the Spanish steps, did some more shopping, had tea at the Caffe Greco on via Condotti (A.D. 1760)

Colosseum

A fantastic weekend in Roma and Firenze with great food and good friends, Grazie! 

ROMA!!!!

So, I was in Rome for the Champions League final between Manchester United (the best team in the world! & my team!) and Barcelona at the Stadio Olimpico; it also happened to be the same day as my birthday! yippee! (soo expensive though -still paying it off!) Unfortunately Man U lost! It was an awful match actually - one that I never want to remember again - ever! :-(

Roma...Roma.... such a beautiful romantic city, definitely more romantic then Paris I think?? Rome is the capital of Italy and the most populous city - it was buzzing with supporters singing and dancing! Stayed at the Hotel de Russie on Via del Babuino (Baboon Street) next to Piazza del Popolo - a beautiful boutique hotel with an amazing courtyard, and The Inn at Spanish Steps on Via condotti near Piazza di Spagna (why 2 hotels?? long story....). Both hotels are in the middle of shopping districts and lovely cobbled streets full of restaurants, cafes and cute boutiques near Via del Corso.

I went on a tour of the city on a hop on and hop off bus (v chessy!) - best way to see everything in a short time - The colosseum, St Peter's Square in the Vatican city crossing river Tevere, the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore (there are 900 churches in Rome in total!), the Arch of Constantine, Castel Sant'Angelo, Roma termini etc. but didnt see the Sistine chapel :-(

The movie Angels and Demons with Tom Hanks was filmed in Rome, it really shows the beauty of Rome, can't wait to go again!!