Rambling through the remains of Roma

Out of the Vatican to see what was left of Rome, we took the funky graffiti metro back to the Piazza del Popolo. Or rather, we almost did. Note to possible visitors: turn right out of the metro exit. We went left and wandered a couple of blocks too far before realising we were going the wrong way. Getting lost did mean that we made the acquaintance of some local kitties, so all in all it turned out okay. Eventually, we did make it to the Piazza, where we were just in time to miss a street band. 

The reason we had come here was to check out an exhibit called 'The Genius of Leonardo Da Vinci', a small museum that hosts life-size working reproductions of some of the crazy machinery Italian's premier smart guy scribbled about in his notebooks. 5 Euro entry with our Roma pass was great value to see some interesting motion-based machinery, as well as some cooler stuff like a paraglider, a helicopter, waterskis, action-packed ball-bearing devices and the bicycle, which the plaques informed us was invented by da Vinci 300 years before the rest of the world figured it out - the two-page spread that contained the blueprints was split up after Leonardo's death and only put back together after everyone else had already caught on. Jen's personal favourite was a portable piano, sadly the recreation was not a fully functional instrument. Bit of a cop-out.

We hopped back on the Metro to the Piazza di Spagna, which was much easier to locate out of the station exit. The Spanish Steps were a bustling tourist spot at this time, with the sunset coming on and Rome's eternal romance in the air. Even the interjections of street sellers trying to offload their roses onto unsuspecting tourists couldn't ruin the atmosphere.


The Spanish Steps have a very practical reason for existing; the people of Rome wanted to connect the monastery at the top with the square at the bottom. We found it amusing that they had stemmed from this pragmatic origin to become a major romantic tourist hotspot. 

So many people!

Our bellies were complaining after our rather uninspired lunch at the Vatican, so we set off to find some food. From the Spanish Steps we followed a very thin road full of designer shops down to the river's edge. We followed the Tevere south for a little bit before cutting back into the historical district to return to Piazza Navona. We were searching for a place to eat that had been recommended to us, and through casually wandering through the windy sidestreets, we found it.

Fancy building by the river, no idea what it was.

Navona Notte is the place. We had a lasagne and a four cheese gnocchi, the latter of which Jen aptly described as 'little potato orgasms with cheese on top'. It was literally the best meal of both our lives. We followed it up with excellent coffee. The prices were good and the staff were very nice, the greeter not pushing us to eat there like the greeter at almost every other restaurant in Rome, and even turned a heater on for us (we didn't need it since the weather was still pleasantly warm after the sun had gone down, but the gesture was appreciated).

Busy windy side streets

Mmm, gnocchi..

Leaving Navona Notte with very happy bellies, we decided to invest in some gelato, Italian ice cream which the country is known for and which lots of people had told us we should try. For anywhere from 3-6 Euros you can get a biig pile of one of many, many flavours.

We had the cappuccino. It was good.

As it was now late into our second day, we braved the crazy bus station once more to return to the Termini station. En route we discovered that if you try to beep your Roma pass against the machine more than once, it does not respond happily. Since as we mentioned before no-one really seems to pay for the bus or anything, it didn't really matter that our passes didn't seem to want to work.


From Termini, we bought some smokes and returned to our hotel, exhausted once more.