Day 1: ROMEing

Day 1 was crazy hectic and confusing.

First off, our flight got in an hour late into Fiumiccino Airport. So by the tight schedule I had written up, our freshening up time at the apartment was pretty much gone. It took us an hour to get to the apartment. We had had breakfast on the plane and immediately ran to one of the museums, Villa Borghese.

The Villa Borghese is where the Borghese family lived and this was their plot land. Their immediate residence has now been turned into a fantastic museum and their estate is acres wide and can be thought of as Rome's version of Central Park (but lets be real, nothing compares to how much I love central park.) The museum had very strict rules and no photos were allowed of any of the sculptures inside.
The Villa Borghese houses a sculpture called "Paulina Borghese as Venus" sculpted by Antonio Canova which was deemed too risque by Paulina's husband that it was originally hidden away after completion and even Canova was not allowed to see what would be considered a masterpiece with a story. Looking at the sculpture, the most amazing part to me is the mattress. You can see the different folds created by the weight of the woman and that impeccable detail is what intrigues me most about sculptures. I have a ton more sculptures to discuss though so I might get boring if I have not already bored you.

LOOK AT ALL THE DETAIL. HOW DOES A PERSON CARVE
MARBLE TO SUCH PERFECTION?!

Following this museum visit, we walked around the park trying to find out way back to the main road by navigating the Italian map which we did not understand one bit. Somehow, we made our way to the main road and stopped to have gelato; which by the way, is absolutely creamy and delicious. We kept walking because we thought things were close by, but we were quick to learn that the metro maps are deceptive because they name stops after the monuments that they are "close" to when in reality they aren't very near by. So we walked. and walked. and walked some more until we hit Trevi Fountain which was carved and sculpted by Bernini and depicts Poseidon and this sea kingdom.

Me and the Brother at Trevi. I liked it better at night, that comes
with Day 2. 

After Trevi, we went on this hunt for a gelato shop that my dad heard about from a friend that was supposedly the best gelato in Rome. We looked and walked up and down streets for about an hour and finally found it but had to be somewhere so ended up not getting any gelato. Fail. We had to make it back to the spanish steps for a free walking tour that we signed up for. We got to the steps, waited around a bit and met our guide who took us to a church which had Bernini's two original angels which was a magnificent sight. After that, he took us around a bunch of side streets and we were dead tired from having no sleep on the plane and losing those hours that we silently skipped out on his tour and found a restaurant around our apartment and had italian margherita pizza and penne arrabiata for the first time. I also think its interesting to note that they don't freely serve water at any restaurants and that its customary to drink wine with every meal from a young age. We get water for free at restaurants in the USA and I think we taked that for granted. Also, they call club soda "water with gas" which is scientifically correct i guess because of the carbon dioxide but it just sounds funny and interesting.

So after feeling incredibly beat up, we ended day one because we had to wake up bright and early at 6 AM to get ready for day two which consisted of visiting Naples and Pompeii which was breathtaking.

Ro <3