Epic Europe Trip 2014 Day 15: To A Rainy Rome With Love
With over two weeks on this epic Europe adventure we were bound to get some bad weather at some point. I mean it is November after all. In fact when we got into Istanbul the weather forecast called for rain both days in Istanbul and every day but one in Santorini. And yet we made it 14 days without a drop of rain on our heads. We woke up this morning to a crazy down pour of rain followed by a ton of lighting. We later found out that the city of Rome was on a "red weather alert" which is their highest level. Most schools and government buildings were shut down for the day as they expected up to 4 inches of rain.
That meant that Jenn and I were extremely slow to get out of bed this morning. When the rain finally tapered off at 10AM we started getting ready and went out for the day. The first order of business was to get lunch. I went on Yelp and found an awesome pizzeria right around the corner. We headed down Via Veneto and stumbled upon a store that sold pasta and wine. We both agreed that carrying wine is a pain so we decided to load up on some Italian Pasta. Hopefully it tastes like it does here in Italy! We even got some free samples while we were in there including a melon shot that the lady in the store said was like Bailey's and was pretty good.
Once we acquired a good deal of pasta we headed to the San Marco Pizzeria. Because the place is renowned for their pizza we both unsurprisingly went with pizza. Jenn got a plain margheritta pizza and I had a sausage pizza. They were both out of this world. In the 11 years that Jenn and I have been together I've never seen her clean a pizza plate, so they must have done something right.
After lunch we jumped on the metro and headed towards the Vatican. Jenn's Dad has a leather store he really likes in Rome and asked us to get him a portfolio. Luckily the leather shop was only a couple stops down on the metro station near our lunch. They unfortunately didn't have any portfolios. From there we jumped back on the metro and took it to the Spanish Steps to go shopping. We went in a bunch of stores but neither of us were really into it. I did buy a black belt which was more of a need then a want as mine was seeing its last days.
After shopping for a couple of hours we took the metro back to our hotel. One thing I haven't mentioned yet about our hotel is how convenient it is to the Metro. We are about a two minute walk from one of the main metro lines. As dirty as most subways are I wish Orange County had a metro system, it sure would be a nice way to get around. When we got back to our hotel we printed our boarding passes and starting organizing/packing up our stuff for our trip to Paris tomorrow.
At around 5:30PM we left our hotel to the best weather conditions of the day, the streets were drying up and the sky at least directly above us looked good. However we could see in the distance it was just a matter of time before the weather turned again. We made our way back onto the Metro to the Spanish Steps area where I found yet another great dinner recommendation on Yelp. This time we went to a restaurant ironically named Life. Its a wine bar that is renowned for their pizza and pasta. We both started off with a glass of wine, Jenn had a Cab and I had a Chianti. For our main course we split pappardelle pasta with handmade duck ragout and apples and a Beef fillet with Foie Gras in toasted almonds crust and apple. The two didn't necessarily pair as well as we wanted them too but with were both delicious on their own right. The pasta was rich with flavor and almost had a soup broth taste. The pasta was full with rich flavor and great pieces of duck sprinkled in. The steak ended up being perfectly cooked and was just oozing with flavor. You could tell it was a great cut of meat.
After dinner we took the Metro back to Via Veneto to still great weather. Since its our last night in Rome we decided that we had to get at least one more Gelato for the road. We went in and both got a scoop of gelato on a cone. Jenn got half caramel half vanilla and I had half pistachio half cafe (coffee). Wouldn't you know it right when we stepped out of the Gelato shop to walk up Via Veneto it started pouring harder then it had all day today. We ran for it with ice cream in one hand and an umbrella in another. We had to have looked like crazy people eating gelato in this downpour but it was delicious.
When we got back to the room we packed up our stuff and got ready for our last stop of the trip, Paris. Its been such an incredible adventure so far. We were talking at dinner this evening that Istanbul seems like it wasn't on this trip it was so long ago. Its truly been an incredible journey and I can say that every time we come to Rome we fall more and more in love with this wonderful city. Arrivederci!
