Day 4 – Rome

On most of all our travels, Anna has been in charge of food and drink, finding the best or the quirkiest places to eat and drink. Bookmarked and checked out, we were going to explore two of Rome’s best breakfast spots. However, Anna was down on her luck when the first one was only a pastry shop (not even lots of buns, but big pies that your gran would make) and the second one was fully booked and required lots of booking in advance. As Anna got a cream bun, I saved the day by finding a tucked away Italian coffee shop where we had a strange dish of scrambled egg, green toast and a muffin, all served in dainty china.

Having literally explored all of Rome in a day back when we were interrailing, it was tough to put together a fresh plan for each day. Having pushed ourselves too far with meeting friends, social events and sightseeing when we went to London/Bath/Bristol in Halloween for our half term break, we thought we would allow ourselves some ‘chill out relaxing’ time on this one so we don’t return even more tired. A gentle stroll across the river towards Castel Sant’Angelo allowed us to sit in the sun, listen to the trumpet busker and drink a can of 7Up and Fanta, which we got completely ripped off for €3 each.

With the sun out and the weather becoming more Italian like, we thought we would return to the hotel to leave our coats off. Not before Anna noticed a huge sign saying the best tiramisu in town, and the shop itself only selling variations of the popular desert. As a self-proclaimed expert and huge tiramisu fan, it was sadly not the best…a bit too watery.

When the sun is shining and you’re taking it easy, the only thing to do is to visit a rooftop bar with overpriced drinks and a falsely advertised view. Basking in the sun like two VIP’s, we sipped on our cocktails and overlooked the rooftops of Rome at The Pantheon Rooftop Bar.

As money manager of the trip, this one drink was enough so we said our ciao’s and went to find a suitable place for lunch. Unfortunately, with Covid, all the Apertivo bars (where you order a drink and get unlimited food served for free, or sometimes as a buffet) were sadly not fully operating. Instead we found ourselves back in the student area for some cheap food. €4 for a huge pizza was enough to justify our rooftop drinks.

We were really enjoying the sunny weather and scooted about Rome on our ‘Bird’ scooters. With drivers in Italy not abiding by any driving rules anyway, I felt extremely safe knowing that we would be ok!

As Anna finished off the blog back at the hotel, I went on a hunt to find an EU – UK adapter. Not like me to forget such an important item for holidays but then again, I am getting older now. We had also booked dinner at the local restaurant beside us as we had passed the woman making fresh pasta everyday, and thought we would have to try it out.

Aside from the lovely food and wine, we had an entertaining night at Pasta e Vino. There was a man pacing the restaurant the whole time, not working but obviously a friend of the manager, who in turn was drinking away at his red wine. As well as that, the couple beside us appeared to be complaining about everything and reordering food and not eating it – it turned out that they were food bloggers with 10k followers.

The waiter clearly knew we were famous bloggers too and we were the only people in the restaurant that got free cinnamon shots and biscuits with our bill, accompanied with a plea to write a review on Tripadvisor. The waiter even gave us the wrong bill to which I joked we would take the cheaper one, sending Adriano the waiter into hysterics.

An entertaining and delicious last night in Rome. We had planned to sit by the river after dinner but it was much easier to roll ourselves back home to rest up for an early morning on our last day.