Buongiorno! Rome was the first stop on our Tour of Italy. Our trip to Italy was planned kinda quickly. I started seeing everyone on Instagram going there and the spritzes looked so delicious, so I jumped on the bandwagon and planned a trip.

Rome is one of the coolest places you can go to. It’s full of history and beauty. It’s so cool to see people living in such an ancient city. We landed around midnight and got to our Airbnb in Trastavere soon after landing. We chose to stay in Trastavere because we heard it was the cool, hipster area to stay and it was a little bit cheaper than staying in the center of Rome. It was only about a 25ish minute walk to the center of Rome, so we thought it was the perfect place to start our trip.

We got a few hours of sleep and in the morning, we went straight over to the Vatican for a tour of the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica. I booked the tour on Viator and it was $75pp for the 3-hour tour. We had an English-speaking guide, who was amazing. The whole tour was great, although I don’t know that I would do it again. I’m not a huge museum person, but I loved seeing all the rich art and history. Just note that you cannot buy food or drink until a few hours into the tour, so make sure to grab something beforehand!

After our tour, we headed back to Trastevere for some lunch at Grazie & Graziella for some pizza, salad, calamari and my first spritz of the trip. This restaurant was walking distance from where we were staying and had a ton of great reviews. The food was good and the service was amazing! Jetlag started to set in so we went back for a nap.

We woke up and headed into the main part of Rome to check out some of the most popular attractions. Without any plans, we decided to walk over toward the Pantheon. It was super crowded so we didn’t end up going in, but we wandered around the streets of Rome with our take-way cocktails. We had such a fun time wandering to some of the most famous sites; the Pantheon, the Trevi, the Colosseum and finally the Spanish Steps.

After the Spanish Steps, it was time to find something to eat. We found a nearby restaurant called Alla Rampa. The food and service were great here as well. This is where I tried Cacio e Pepe for the first time, and wow! So good. We even got serenaded at the end of our evening, such a great way to end our first night in Italy.

It was kinda a long walk back because we got lost and we probably should have taken a cab. But never the less, we found our way back and got rested up for the next day.

For breakfast, we wanted an American breakfast harder to find than we expected. Luckily, we found Giselda and the food was great - we had a traditional American breakfast with some frozen cappuccinos. While we were eating, we needed to get tickets to get over to Naples. I used the Omio Train app and got our tickets for $48 euros for both of us, hopped into a taxi and headed over to Rome Termini. The train system is super easy to use and you can get food and drinks for your ride if you wish. I highly recommend hopping on a train in Italy if you can to experience it.

Next stop, Napoli!!