By our third day in Rome we were utterly exhausted from days filled with walking, over-stimulating our minds with so much beauty and filling our bellies with too many pastries… but nothing was stopping me from spending our final day exploring those streets. We decided to pop by the Vatican just to say we’ve seen it, and what might have ended up fascinating me more were the thousands of people waiting in line in the very very hot sun. My guess is that line could take two or three hours to reach the entrance, the dedication was astounding. We wandered around seeing the buildings, fountains and hot people’s faces.
So instead of waiting the entire day to see something I’m just not very interested in… we bought and devoured these delicious fries instead! Honestly so so yummy, and they had the choice for some vegan sauces that were really good too. Have you noticed that more than half of my Rome pictures are of food? Yes we really ate those days away. After these fries we stopped by a sweet, very traditional cafe in the Quartiere Coppede neighbourhood. I was too full from my fries to face more food, but Molly bought a big plate of pasta salad and Martin bought an eggplant parmigiana that reminded him of home. There was no english on the menu’s and the staff didn’t speak english either. I remembered Martin telling me that meat was carne in Italian, so I said to Molly to say “No carne per favore” and it worked a treat. The kind lady was so pleased that we were attempting to speak our terrible Italian!
Our final day in Rome happened to fall on the workers holiday festival, a famous day in Europe where most shops are closed and almost everyone has the day off work. In Rome they hold a huge free concert in the middle of the city, with musicians from all over the world playing only one or two songs on stage. We met up with two friends from Australia, Steph and Ben who are also on their own travel journey this year. We now had a little Australasia gang, Steph, Ben, Molly, Martin and myself! We spent the afternoon listening to the music and soaking in the local atmosphere. I hadn’t seen so many young people in Rome until that afternoon. We saw groups walking around with 500ml beer bottles, which we knew they hadn’t bought from the designated food stalls considering their expensive price tag and that they were only selling smaller bottles. We wandered further through the crowd and decided to ask a friendly looking group of guys where they bought their refreshments. Through broken english they informed us to walk a little further along and ask some locals sitting at tables, who sure enough, pulled big bottles of beer from buckets hiding beneath towels under their tables. 2 euro later and drinks in hand, we found a comfy spot on the sun drenched grass and spent the evening enjoying the atmosphere.
I love how passionate, animated and lively Italian’s are. Everything is so expressive! There were so many laughs, loud voices, kisses and even tears. People were playing ball games, sleeping on newspaper and waving peace flags. It was one of the craziest and friendly crowds I had ever seen! We were so lucky to be in the right place at the right time.
A late evening stroll through dusk-lit streets, we were all hungry again and craving deliciously naughty food. Martin, Molly and I knew just the prefect place for dinner. A little cafe right near our hostel that has red checkered placemats and cheeky Italian men working in the kitchen. I bought the exact same dish I had the night before because it really was that delicious, a huge bowl of vegetarian pasta that I think a naughty addition of lots of olive oil made it that much more yummy.
A perfect ending to a perfect three days, a delicious Italian meal shared with friends. I can’t tell you which day was my favourite, because every single moment was my favourite. I loved our hostel, our new friends we made there, the lovely man who worked there and brought the wine out each evening loudly exclaiming “It’s vino time!!”. I loved being extra naughty and eating pastry for breakfast, pizza for lunch, pasta for dinner and gelato for dessert. I loved seeing and spending time with friends from closer to home, I loved the coloured buildings, happy and friendly locals, ancient ruins, walking endlessly, the indescribable feeling of just being there. I really really loved Rome.
❤
