Rome

Last week we were in Rome for a few days - the second stop on our grand tour of Italy. We were invited to do a food tour with The Roman Foodie (more on that tomorrow) and obviously couldn't pass up that opportunity, so we made our way down to the city from Cinque Terre.

We were in Rome two years ago and it was so.busy. Rome is tricky because there is so much to see and do and try but that can be exhausting. This time we wanted to slow down and appreciate the city a little bit more.

We stayed in Trastevere, a neighborhood across the river, which I would highly recommend. Our street was quiet (for a big city) and there were tons of great cafes, bars and restaurants right around the corner.

Most of our trip - appropriately so - was centered around food. There are tons of amazing Roman dishes, but my favorites are fried artichokes (we were in luck because it's artichoke season) and cacio e pepe (and Ryan's is the Negroni cocktail). So we made sure to have lots of everything.

We're strong believers that the best way to get a feel for a city or town is to wander, so we spent most of Tuesday morning doing just that.

We ended up at the Pantheon where we bought sandwiches at a cafe and continued on to the (very crowded, as usual) Spanish Steps for a lunch time picnic.

My favorite thing in Rome is when you catch a glimpse of the Colosseum at the end of a busy street. It's such a great mix of old and new.

On Wednesday we headed out of the city, to Orvieto for the day.

Orvieto is a hill town in Umbria (a little over an hour outside of Rome, on the train) known for their Cathedral, ceramics and Classico wine so we checked out all three. 

The funniest thing happened during aperitivo: this cat came over, hopped up on my lap and settled right in!

Tomorrow I'll be sharing more pictures/details from our very exciting food tour, so stay tuned!