Note: I am fully aware of the situation in Italy these days… I have personal ties to this country during this pandemic, and my heart bleeds for what it’s going through. However, I want to share my experience visiting Italy, as it’s truly un Paese fantastico! So, I’ll just dive in…

Move over Paris… Rome is the new city for lovers. A bold statement or not, this is my opinion and I stand by it.

Visiting Italy has been a long-time dream of mine (I might be secretly dreaming of living in Italy), so to finally have visited at least a part of it is something I feel very lucky about.

Since the very initial stages of planning our trip to Europe, Italy has been a high priority for me, and I was wanting to spend at least a month in this country: every city or town we were looking at, was being added to the “to-visit” list. But we realized quickly that, at that point in time, doing so was unrealistic.

After going back and forth, we chose to visit Rome and Florence. I decided to let go of Sardinia and Sicily: these two were (and are) high on my list, but the logistics of getting there were too complicated for us at that point in our trip, as we decided that Italy would be the end of our 4 months abroad.

As our visit to Athens ended, we flew from there to Rome, where again we had booked an airport taxi in advance via Booking.com. Thankfully, we didn’t have any issues with our taxi there either, and after what seemed like a very long ride, we arrived at our B&B.

For Italy, we decided to switch things up and go for local hotels, rather than staying at a chain. We chose to spend 9 days at Prestige Rooms Via Veneto, a quiet and cozy B&B, which was fairly close to many attractions. Worth noting is that the staff was super courteous and attentive.

It was towards the end of August when we arrived in Rome, and many of the restaurants and shops were still closed (many until 09/02), as staff and owners were on vacation. Yet there was still plenty to do and see in Rome. The main attractions were packed with visitors, and it was very busy everywhere we went. There was a constant movement as groups arrived and went on with their itineraries.

In spite of the crowds, we could still find plenty of places that had few or no people at all. Of course, like in most of the other European cities we visited, there were those people that lingered in areas, targeting the tourists or crowds - people I have called scammers in my previous European travel posts. They were many and they were almost everywhere we went. But about that later.

As I said above, we decided to visit Rome first. I was eager to discover the place where history was made and an empire was born. Let me tell you that Rome did not disappoint.

The Eternal City is a place that you must visit at least once in your lifetime. It’s an open-air museum, that will keep you curious with its ancient ruins spread all over the city. It certainly did that to me as, whatever little street we would take, would eventually lead us to a historic place. Strolling through the never-ending little “via”-s full of charm and happy colors quickly became our favorite activity while in Rome.

I have a lot more thoughts and things to share about Rome, and I will continue to do so in future posts, but at this time, I wanted to express my solidarity with Italy, and the rest of the world, in regard to what we’re all going through.

Take care and stay safe everyone #togetherwearestrong.

Until next time.

xoxo,

Em