Favourite 2014 travel photos. Rome, Italy. October 2014.
Spanish Steps
Author: Greg
Afternoon in Trastevere in photos
Wandering aimlessly through a city neighbourhood is one of my favourite things to do when traveling. On another spectacularly beautiful Roman afternoon on our recent trip, my wife and I crossed the Tiber River and found ourselves in a charming area of cobblestone streets and medieval architecture. Here’s what a couple of hours in Trastevere looked like through the lens of our camera.
Santa Cecilia (a 5th century church) and its idyllic courtyard:
Monti: Home away from home
I sometimes spend too much time fretting over which neighbourhood to make as a home base when visiting a city. For our trip to Rome, I went back and forth debating where to stay. Not to pat myself on the back too much, but sticking with my gut on staying in Monti is one of the better travel planning decisions I’ve made in a long time.
I completely fell in love with this area of Rome. Monti started to pull on my heart strings immediately, even as I was jet lagged and dragging my suitcase from the subway to our hotel on the way in from the airport. There were cobblestones (I’m a sucker for cobblestones), small shops lining the narrow streets, people spilling out of bars enjoying a drink and not a chain store or restaurant anywhere in sight. The visuals of this place will be what I will always associate with Rome. Below are a few of my favourite photos in what turned out to be far too little time in beautiful, quaint, Monti.
Quiet side street in Monti
Soccer in Piazza della Madonna dei Monti
Looking down on Via del Boschetto
Italian style on Via del Boschetto
Quiet street one afternoon in Monti
Opposite Piazza della Madonna dei Monti
Piazza della Madonna dei Monti
And after the Forum?
This must happen to everyone a couple of days into their first visit to Rome: You’re having breakfast, turning your mind to the day ahead, when you think… “I’m going to see <insert famous historical site here> today” and you’re aware that it feels oddly normal yet still surreal to be heading out to visit another 2,000+ year old site of historical significance. On our fourth day in Rome, I have a memory of asking my wife rather nonchalantly, “So, what do you want to do after we visit the Forum?” That’s always been something special about traveling to me – the juxtaposition of rapidly becoming comfortable in a foreign place (was I really asking about what to do after the Forum???) running up against the anticipation of experiencing something enormous for which you don’t have any adequate frame of reference.
On yet another perfect weather day, we made the short walk from our hotel to the Roman Forum. I could have been perfectly happy to just stand at one end to look out over the site and imagine the scene more than 2,000 years ago:
Playing in the piazza
Favourite 2014 travel photos. Rome, Italy. October 2014.
Pasta on my mind
Without firm dinner plans on our third night in Rome, we looked at a list of interesting restaurants we had compiled that were nearby in the Monti neighbourhood, our home away from home for four nights. With the help of our hotel staff, we booked 8:30pm reservations, unaware of the deliciousness that was ahead. Who knew that the most delicious pasta in the world would be mere steps around the corner from our hotel in Rome?
La Carbonara was definitely a locals place. A few visitors like us had found our way here, but there were a lot of regulars jammed in around us ordering without menus. Everyone was ordering the pasta and as plate after plate went past to other tables there was no doubt I would be indulging in a pasta course on this night. With a “when in Rome” mentality, we ordered a bottle of local Lazio wine (Santa Felicita, Cesanese del Piglio 2011). It was a robust and rustic red… a little rough around the edges until it opened up a bit. It ended up fitting perfectly with both the food and the ambiance of the restaurant.
The Garden and the Common
Boston felt a lot like my hometown of Halifax. That familiar feeling was strongest for me in two downtown parks – the Public Garden and the Boston Common. Here at home, we have two very similar parks in name and appearance, even if they’re both somewhat smaller in size. About an hour or so after first landing in Boston, my wife and I walked through the Public Garden and immediately felt at home as it has something strikingly in common with its namesake in Halifax: an abundance of friendly ducks:
A surreal visit to the Colosseum
There were a lot of things I was excited to see in Rome, and right at the top of the list was the Colosseum. We decided for a later afternoon visit and were rewarded with a far less crowded experience. This site can be overrun with people, but holding off visiting until later in the day made for a very peaceful experience and plenty of room to move around. Armed with a Rick Steves podcast for a self-guided tour, we made our way inside the amphitheater to the most prime seats reserved for royalty back in the day. Walking into the seating section was definitely one of those “wow” life moments as the stadium opened up into full view:
Catching a few Roman sights
For our second full day in Rome, it was time for us to stretch out our legs a bit and explore some of the city’s main sights. Another spectacular day (something that would be a constant through two weeks in Italy) gave us perfect wandering around weather for some exploration. We were planning on starting with a visit to Piazza Navona but got off our bus a stop too early, made a wrong right turn somewhere and ended up on a bridge to this unexpected, stunning view of St. Peter’s Basilica. Sometimes misreading a map is a good thing:
St. Peter
Favourite 2014 travel photos. Rome, Italy. October 2014.
Bluenose Traveler 