A weekend in Rome

During the journey, from the train I saw the great dome of St Peter's — what a thrill! It's truly enormous even from a distance, so imagine how it must be inside... Once in Rome we immediately bought the daily ticket for €4.00 to take the metro to the hotel, which is in the Rebibbia area, very nice, built like American hotels where the rooms open onto an external corridor. We had lunch in a pizzeria/steakhouse nearby; I had pasta alla carbonara and Marco had cacio e pepe, both delicious!!

I have no words to describe the happiness I felt when I found myself in front of the Colosseum... it's crazy to think that where we were walking, a long time ago, the ancient Romans walked; it's like going back in time. Just think how wonderful it would have been if at school they had taught us history like this, right on the spot, being able to touch "History" with your own hands — wouldn't it have been more interesting and easier to learn??!! For example, I'm becoming very passionate about history by watching Piero Angela's documentaries on Rai and by learning from little books with a drawn reconstruction of how we would have seen the archaeological finds at the time!!

The picture you see above is taken from one of these; it's called "Rome as it was & as it is": on one side there's the photo of how we see it now, while if you place the plastic reconstruction on top, hey presto, magic!!! From there we took a lovely walk in the rain along the whole of Via del Corso, passing in front of all the seats of political power: Palazzo Chigi, Palazzo Madama, Palazzo di Montecitorio, and the last treat of the day, the Nespresso shop of George Clooney!!!! I couldn't believe it, I was so excited, sorry for the excitement, but it's a product I sell a great deal of and here we still don't have a Nespresso shop!!!! After dinner we went with some friends for a drive around Rome; it was very emotional to see Rome at night — there's something magical and romantic about it!!

Here we are on the second day of our short holiday in Rome, guess what?......it's raining, what a coincidence....eheheh...besides, on Saturday it was pouring, and as if that weren't enough a cold wind finished us off!!!

But, undeterred by the rain, we went to visit the Palatine Hill, affectionately nicknamed (Patatino), where you can see the whole archaeological area that takes up almost the entire valley behind it, which I didn't think was so big; inside you can also visit the museum where the most beautiful and best-preserved archaeological finds are kept, and even discover that a very, very long time ago there were huts from the early Iron Age there.....fabulous, just think: in a few millennia they'll find us too and say the same thing....eheheh.

At lunch Marco took me to a beautiful Japanese restaurant that looked like one of those you only see in Japan, and guess what I had.....guess, riddle.....a bento!!!!! So lovely, just the way they make it for lunch with everything inside! How good, and what a satisfaction to eat a genuine one!!! Even without going to Japan we can imagine being there eating it. Really lovely; it's called restaurant Ginza and it's at Via E. Filiberto 251, a few steps from the metro stop.

From there we set off for Cinecittà, very disappointed that it wasn't open to the public, so after crossing the whole city on purpose we headed towards St Peter's along Via Ottaviano and discovered a little shop hidden inside the entrance hall of a building selling magical objects like goblins, fairies, trolls and dragons, which are my favourites....it's called "Storia e Magia", stunning!!!! I really have no words to describe it; unfortunately I couldn't take photos inside, the owner was so insistent about it....ufffiiiii (this is the only one I managed to take secretly, ehehhehe).

All I'll say is that from outside it looked small but inside it's enormous and ranges from Harry Potter to dragons, from trolls to fairies, and from cauldrons to the most refined carnival costumes, plus lots and lots of magical jewellery; in the end I bought myself a little necklace with a dragon-shaped pendant, I couldn't make up my mind there were so many objects!!!! It was truly beautiful and it was very hard to leave without taking any souvenir photos; in a little while the owner told me they'll be opening the new website so you can see it too, as soon as it's live I'll link it for you!!

At the end of the long street we finally found St Peter's; it's really huge from afar and up close even more!!! After queuing at the metal detector we went inside... I assure you that from photos it's very hard to understand how high the ceiling inside the church is; it's truly frightening. Just to give you an example, imagine that I felt like an ant when I looked up at the stained-glass windows and the majestic frescoes... it's spectacular, especially the altar from which the Pope says Mass; it's immense and it's even a little scary that it might fall at any moment.

On the pillars were carved many tombs of popes from various eras, almost all very lavish and gigantic, except one that was very restrained and simple in its kind... of all these works the one I appreciated most was Michelangelo's "Pietà"; I know it's stone, but it's as if the statue of the Virgin Mary were really crying, exactly as my high-school teacher had explained to me, and I have to thank her if I know all the things I've learned about art. Unfortunately I couldn't take a better photo than this, also because the work is far away and I had to zoom in as much as possible... On our way out we went to see some friends of ours and their little Gaia

who by now has grown up already!! At the end of dinner they took us for another little tour of Rome; we saw something fabulous that I'd never have thought could exist... I'll try to describe it here too, even though it won't be at all easy.... Arriving in front of a completely dark gateway, they told us to look inside the keyhole of the gate and, as if by magic, at the bottom of the garden framed by an arch of climbing plants was St Peter's, brightly lit.....incredible!!! I couldn't believe it; next to this I've put the zoomed-in photo as we saw it; we had to try a few times before we got St Peter's rather than the keyhole lit up by the flash, eheheh.

Here we are, once again at the end of the trip; unfortunately the beautiful things end all too soon... and so we wandered a little more to see the last things, left the hotel reluctantly (especially the ultra-flat TV hung on the wall like a painting in front of the bed — what a cool thing!!!) and left our bags in the luggage storage, then went back to the centre, once again in the rain under the Trevi Fountain, of course... In the centre we finally saw the Trevi Fountain; it's truly massive, and above all what amazed me most was realising that it was created from the wall of the façade of the building behind it!!! I've always wondered how it's possible that from a block of stone such beautiful works can be created; I, at the very least, would smash everything to pieces within a few minutes...eheheh

From there we moved on to Palazzo di Montecitorio, where we took the free guided tour that's held only on the first Sunday of the month; I won't tell you what a fantastic thing it is... unfortunately here too it wasn't possible to take photos. All I'll say is that it's a kind of royal palace, it really doesn't look like a seat of political power; in fact, as the guide told us, at first it was a royal palace and over time it became a political seat. There's even the room with an inscription on a stone where it was decided to make Italy a republic and where it was decided to send fascism away.