Day One: Rome

I'm feeling nostalgic, so here's an update on our travels from last Christmas!!

So we get to Rome and we're a wee bit tired, but happy with our room and LOVE our hotel. We had left Jordan at like 2 am, arrived in Frankfurt at 5 am and our flight left at 6 before heading to Rome. I didn't snatch any pictures of Germany, but I had a lot of really nice hot chocolate that was complimentary of Lufthansa. By the time we make it to our hotel, it's about 10 am and we crashed. We slept in for quite a bit of the day and then decided that we weren't going to waste a whole day. So we went out. I seriously can't talk enough about how much I loved our hotel. It was PERFECT. It was in a beautiful neighborhood, a five minute walk from a tram/bus stop and was a really good price! We were there the weekend before Christmas mind you, and it was still only around $60 a night. That is NOT bad anywhere. (Relais 6 Via Tolmino if you're interested)

So we get up and get out of the apartment and go to the stop near the Trevi fountain. We didn't feel particularly adventurous and just found the first restaurant that looked promising and grabbed dinner. I snapped a few shots: 

     We ate some fairly basic fare, I'm fairly certain I had Fettuccine and Drew has Spaghetti or Parmigiana or something typical like that. After that we went the five minute block to the Trevi fountain.

Trevi Fountain

Yeah, how gorgeous is the Trevi? Absolutely amazing. 

After that we went and explored around a bit. Our friend Christina had told us about this amazing Gelato place that was near here so we went and found it. 

It was called Blue Ice and is run by an asian couple, but was honestly the best gelato we had while we were there! It was so good and for a really good price!!!

Mine, nutella and some other chocolate version

And Drew was adventurous and got something that was a holiday flavor (I think?) and Raspberry

While we were walking from the Trevi to the Pantheon, we (or more Drew) were accosted by two street performers acting like gladiators. 

I could really tell Drew was tired because normally he's the first one to say get lost to these type of people. However, he let them put their helmets and costumes on him and pretend to fight him as I snapped away. 

Umm..yeah...

So then we finally extricated ourselves and walked to the Pantheon. I've heard so many things about it and it was nice to get there and see the inside.

The pictures don't really do it justice, but it was SO big and light and neat!

Michaelangelo's Grave I think?

 So after seeing the Pantheon, we decided to head to Piazza Navona. I had seen online that there was a Christmas festival that was there and we wanted to see it. It was so neat! There were things like a carnival/festival and also shops FILLED with things for a nativity. Apparently in Europe a nativity isn't just the manger scene with Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the various shepherds and wise men. No, it is a whole VILLAGE scene that you do. Sometimes people will have whole ROOMS devoted to the nativity. It's a bit over the top. But it was cool seeing how people would have decorated it like there was a manger smack in the middle of Italy.

The Fountain of the Four Rivers, it was so cool!

This nativity made me crack up because it's  Roman Empire nativity. There were huge letters of SPQR right above the arch that didn't quite make it into the picture. 

Roasted chestnuts!

Then we had to try these awesome doughnut looking things called ciambelle. They were SUPER yummy. And of course we had to get the ones with nutella on them.

Overall, super fun first day in Rome!