After a long, hot day of sightseeing in Pompeii, we drove into the city of Rome at night. The first thing we did was stumble through the cobblestone streets to the Trevi Fountain, each of us making a wish while tossing some change into the water. The crowds were wild and the sky was dark and the fountain lit up our faces. We all smiled and laughed as we looked around; we were really and truly there.
With only three days in Rome, our time together was a blur of ancient buildings, incredible architecture and food, and the electric energy of the city. We ate feasts of cacio e pepe, tiramisu, spicy pizza, and more pasta. We packed in tours of the Vatican City, the Coliseum, the Roman Forum, and tried to see as much as possible while trying to simply take in what was around us. Each day was a sensory overload, a full itinerary, an exhausting adventure, but an adventure nonetheless.
To balance out the chaos of sightseeing, I decided to take a break one morning to walk the streets of Trastevere on my own. I spent two golden hours by myself wandering the little neighborhoods with my headphones on, a playlist at the ready, and it was an absolute fever dream. Italian women smiled and waved at me through their windows, a few of them blowing me a kiss with ‘brava!’, which I couldn’t get enough of. I sampled cups of gelato and little glasses of wine and took photos of everything I could see. A butcher came out of his fish market stall to greet me and tried to persuade me to hold his biggest catch of the week. The kids were gleeful and the butcher was proud and everyone was laughing together. I will forever remember that morning in my mind: discovering Italy in my own way. It was my very favorite memory of our time in Rome.
Orvieto: Tuscan City on a Hill
I learned about Orvieto after watching a film about it in college and I knew that it would be the perfect stop between Rome and Florence. After driving through the winding roads of Tuscany for a few hours, we finally caught a glimpse of the village on a hill. I’d seen nothing like it before: a small town sitting on top of a rock with rolling green pastures and vineyards stretching far into the horizon. We sat with my parents at a bistro and ate large sandwiches as big as dinner plates, all of us hungry from the drive. We stopped for gelato, to buy trinkets and small ceramics, and to stare at the marbled striped cathedral that made up the town square. At one point, we even got lost as we walked the maze of dreamy Italian alleyways, each one a perfect photograph. As the sun went down, we made our way back to our rental car, and I said a sad goodbye to Orvieto. I already missed her.
