Lisa Masters the Map! August 30, 2010

 Monday August 30, 2010

Senne's Summary: Went for another long walk saw Piazza di Popolo, the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain.

Mom and Gary woke up early and went out to find some coffee. Mom says they found a place with the "best cappuccino in the world". (I wouldn’t know, I think all coffee is yucky!)

While Steve slept in, we circled all the places on the map we wanted to see and decided what to see today. On the list for today are the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain. Why you ask? Who knows… its places I’ve heard of and actually remembered the name of so they must be interesting!

I plot out a little path on the map (which appears to go by some other places of interest) and we head out… DRUMROLL PLEASE… with me in CHARGE of the map. Pretty risky… but as you can tell I made it home to type this blog so it didn’t end up badly.

We walk down by the river until we get to the Mausoleo di Augusto. We thought this must be Emperor Augustus’ burial place. It may have been… you can’t really tell from looking at it. If it is, it’s a giant place to keep one guys body…

Next we followed my excellent directions (which took us by some shopping and some interesting churches) and came across Piazza del Popolo. 

Piazza del Popolo

This place had fountains, statues and of course, stairs. We climbed the stairs to see the view from the top, took some photos, and then carried on our walk. (When you write about it, the walk seems like it took no time at all… but it did take quite a while… and NOT because of my directional issues).

We headed back down another street and found a nice little pizza place for lunch. Mom and Gary had their first Italian pizza (which they both liked).

We carried on until we found the Spanish steps. It had a nice fountain at the bottom, and (you guessed it) a lot of steps. 

I’m not really sure I get the appeal of the Spanish Steps as a top Rome destination… but it was okay. We went up the steps, looked at the view, took some photos and came back down the steps. (Is it a pattern if you do it twice?)

Mom, Gary and I checking out the view from the top of the Spanish Steps

While I was consulting the map, Mom saw a leather glove store and off she went. They had gloves in every colour you can imagine. Steve and I both knew she would come out with gloves and guessed which colour they would be. I picked red and Steve picked blue. Steve was right ☺ (Later I planned a whole outfit which could be built around the gloves and my purse from Sorrento… but that’s another story).

We kept walking and came to the Trevi Fountain. This is a pretty impressive fountain… and was packed with wall-to-wall people. 

Some masterful photography happened here so you can't tell there are 2 bajillion people here!

Legend has it that if you throw a coin in the fountain you’ll come back to Rome, so we all did. (I read in a book if you come to the fountain at 6:30 in the morning, you can watch them vacuum all the coins out of the fountain… oddly that sounded interesting to me… but not interesting enough to get up that early!)

Steve securing our return to Rome!

This was the end of my official walk, but I still had to get everyone back home. Conveniently my path took us through the Piazza Navona where we stopped and had the famous Tartufo at Tre Scalini. YUM! (overpriced, but still YUM!)

We came home for Siesta time. After Siesta we had a little wine, a little chocolate, a little brie and crackers and then headed out for a night time walk.

This is where all of the important planning takes place...
and maybe a little wine drinking and chocolate eating too!

Steve wanted to see the Trevi Fountain at night so we went there. Steve was in charge of the map this time… I will admit that it may have been a more direct route... We did manage to stop for some interesting building photos along the way.

Just another amazing building courtyard we happened to walk through!

The Trevi Fountain was still packed with wall-to-wall people. We sat and looked at the fountain for a while, and watched some very strange people.

At the Trevi Fountain in the evening

Sometimes I like to give you travel tips, but today I have a question for all “Young Girls of the world”: Why do you pose like that when you are getting your picture taken? They were holding their skirts way out to the side, pointing at their lips, standing sideways with their hands on the hips. and draped across the rocks like a beach calendar photo shoot…. Why? Why? Why?!

Sorry… I just don’t get it… whatever happened to just smiling like a normal person?!?

We continued on our walk and found a nice place to have dinner. Mom took a food picture for Wendy ☺ and we had a very nice evening.

I love how restaurants have tables out in these beautiful little Italian streets... amazing ambience!