We are keeping the Corey's posted on where we are so we can meet up. They've done a Vatican tour this morning. The B&B is just literally around the corner from the walls of the Vatican City. When we arrive to the B&B there isn't anyone here, which is a little frustrating, but we did arrive early. So I try calling and finally someone answers the phone, she's telling me someone is inside and I'm saying I've rung the bell..as her daughter arrives in the elevator to let us in.
Sarah thinks they have a couple of hours left in their tour (OMG) and so we decide to go get something to eat, Jay and I walk over to the Vatican and see St Peters Basilica, there are thousands of people here. You can skip the line and get a guided tour for about 50Eu pp, but there are people waiting in 3 hour long line ups to get in free. We were probably asked 50 times if we wanted a tour. We don't. lol.
We saw lots of brides walking the streets as well today. Well, 3, which is more than normal.
I'm getting better at the pano shots, but they still aren't quite right. lol.
We came around the Vatican City walls from the side, where the B&B is, and walked out along the wide, pedestrian, street that leads you to the front of it. As we're walking, looking for some place to stop to eat (its about 1pm), we just keep wandering, so we saw the castle in the distance and walked down there and across the bridge to a very nice area with lots of little shops and restaurants.
As we were wandering Sarah sent a text that she thought they only had 30 mins left, so we decided to sit and just have a drink and a salad. This place looked nice, and busy (not the one above, I just took that because I liked it, the one below). It was called Lauro Bistro. A few of the pasta's people were eating looked good so I said maybe we could come back here to Jay and then looked it up on TripAdvisor...2 stars. Maybe not.
Jay liked how these smart cars were parked, just back into the parallel parking space.
After we had our ok salads we set off to meet Sarah and Anthony back on the bridge. It was hot in the sun today and tomorrow is supposed to be 27 degrees! So I stood in the shade of one of the statues and we waited while we were constantly asked by street vendors to buy bracelets and other junk.
Sarah and Anthony had ended up exiting the Vatican at the back side so had to walk all around it to get to us so it took them a little longer. They hadn't been to the more quiet, quaint other side of the bridge so we walked back that way - where we are staying is basically a city street, new buildings, etc.
We ended up on a wide street and sat at a little bistro where we were served by a waiter that looked like Mario from the Mario Bros. He didn't have great English but when I asked him if I could have the spaghetti with the rose sauce instead of the tomato sauce he said "No, Bolognese sauce", but can I get it with the rose sauce? "No". Ok then.
After lunch we walked around some more. I had convinced Sarah and Anthony to do the hop on hop off bus tour so that we can see a lot of the sites in a short time, without walking them. And because of all the moseying they'd done in the morning they were ok with that. I'm sure Jay and Anthony would have appreciated a nap this afternoon, and we said that was fine, but we're only in Rome for about 36 hours.
As we were walking we came to this square (I was basically looking for what was a tourist attraction because there are usually stops there), it had a nice fountain and a church, which actually had a sign outside that said Opera so Sarah wanted to go in and see it and it turned out it was a church, not a theatre.
After this we found tickets for the bus route, bought them and walked to the next stop which was back at the bridge where we started.
I didn't take any notes today so I have no idea what a lot of these photos are, just enjoy them. lol.
I do remember that 19km of walls were built around Rome to fortify it against the Barbarians, which didn't help.
Anthony enjoys these buses as much as Jay does.
There was a whole street of vendors where each one was selling books.
I know this one, its the Colosseum! They said that only 5% of all Gladiators survived their fights against the Lions. And when they were excavating nearby they found 11,000 sets of human remains and 3,000 sets of wild animal remains.
My phone died here - so I'll add some more photos from Jay's phone!
As we were walking back from lunch earlier, and planning dinner, I said I could go for steak frites for dinner tonight (no more pasta!) Everyone agreed so later, after our tour, I looked up a restaurant for steak that was #3 in Rome on TripAdvisor for steak dinners and it happens to be .1km from our B&B. It was called il Belli. We started with a carpaccio with olive oil, 2 types of beef tartare and eggplant flan with whipped ricotta. The server recommended a Montefalco wine, which I've never heard of but was very nice.
I ordered steak tagliata with rosemary and olive oil, which is striploin cut into strips. Jay got a 1 kg pc of T-Bone and the Corey's shared the same as Jay. They cook the steak to blue and then bring it to your table on hot plates which allows you to cook it as much as you want. Jay's is at the top of the photo below and mine is at the bottom.
Sarah and Anthony's.
And then to show scale, lol.
I wanted to try the apple and pinenut strudel with the raspberry and caramel compote - it was delicious and not too sweet.
Sarah's dessert. lol.
At the end of the evening they treated us to a liquer that they make at the restaurant with rum and chocolate, it tasted like chocolate pudding, it was delicious.
We FaceTimed the kids on the way home and went to bed. We switch hotels in the morning tomorrow and stay near the Pantheon.
Ate out again. It was good.
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