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  Rome, Italy
Tuesday, January 2, 2007

One of the benefits of visiting a city that you've been to multiple times before is that instead of rushing from site to site, you have a lot more time to relax, enjoy the city and get a good feel for it. So while my friends headed off to the Vatican, Coliseum, Pantheon, etc, I wandered. I find the streets of Rome hard to get used to - on the 1st day, I kept getting 'lost.' Not only are the streets no where near a grid, but many dead-end and most curve around in different directions. But if you just keep the general direction you'd like to go in mind, you can easily meander your way there, stopping occasionally to check the map to make sure you haven't completely double-backed on yourself. Rome is such an old city - it does not seem to change, visit after visit. The two big changes were because they was my 1st winter trip: it was not blisteringly hot and the streets were not completely jam-packed with tourists (although it was still full of tourists and tour groups). The weather was wonderful - sunny and 60sF

01-Trevi

. With a jacket, we were still able to enjoy all the outdoor cafes for lunch. And since meals are so leisurely in Italy, you get in plenty of people watching. Piazza Navona continues to be one of my favorite spots for people watching - the cafes in the piazza may be slightly overpriced, but it is well worth it. Perfect al dente pasta while watching the street vendors, street performers, tourists and very fashionable Italians is a nice way to spend the afternoon.
 
For New Year's Eve, we had read that Piazza Popolo sometimes has free concerts and is a great place to watch the fireworks. Little did we know that the fireworks weren't quite the pretty ones that light up the night sky. We got there around 9ish to check it out before looking for a quick meal nearby. The three ambulances parked around the piazza were the warning sign - I want to say it was like entering a war zone, but it would not do justice to the real war zones. But you could see the smoke in the air, it smelled like gun powder and my friend Matt would stop us every few feet to keep us from stepping on the little sticks of dynamite that were being tossed every which way by the Italian kids. That and they popped so loudly that I jumped out of my skin every few minutes. These things are even thrown out of windows, making you wonder if your hair will catch fire if one explodes on your head.

02-Big Apple

So, rather than spend the rest of the night dodging mini-explosions, we headed to the streets right around Piazza Navona, where there are plenty of cute bars & cafes. While we had my only bad eating experience ever in Italy (sorry, don't remember the name), we did meet some nice guys from MN, who were coaches for a hockey team. Then we spent the countdown to 2007 at the Big Apple Bar, where the music was good and the bartenders were super nice and very generous with strong drinks (not like those Copenhagen drinks!). Luckily, the walk all the way back to our place at 3am did not include running from firecrackers.

We then spent our lazy New Year's day very well at a place I'd never been. If you take the metro & then the commuter train out of Rome (only 1 Euro each way!), past Ostia Antica (old port city that I'd seen on a previous trip & is closed holidays & Mondays, like every other site) by 4 stops, you come to a part of the city of Lido. There really wasn't much there - some run-down-looking condos - but we wanted to see the beach. It was not nearly as beautiful as many of the other beaches/waterfront areas of Italy (Cinque Terra, Capri), but it was a very cute stretch of beach with multiple waterfront restaurants. We watched a couple of kite surfers for awhile (the wind was really good) and then ate at Mediterraneo. I highly recommend it - it would be a great stop after visiting Ostia Antica

03-Ready For 2007

. There is a sun room and a deck and I can see it being a great place to eat & drink during the summer. The seafood was excellent - crayfish, large succulent prawns, clams, etc. (Lungomare Caio Duilio 40 in Ostia Lido). Very yum!

My last tip is that because I came from my Xmas in the US, I had too much luggage to take the nice, inexpensive train right to the airport. But the cabs are expensive & notoriously unreliable/dodgy. So I tried the airport shuttle - kind of like Super Shuttle or other US shuttles in that you get to the airport way too early, but it was only 26Euros, they arrived when they said they would & the car and driver were nice. (0642013469 from Rome).

Oh, yeah. The after-Christmas sales in Rome are great too! :) Happy 2007!

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