Travel

One Evening in Rome. Back Where It All Began

When we first visited Rome seven years ago, we were newlyweds and Rome was our first honeymoon destination out of a pretty long list that comprised a dozen Italian cities and Paris. It might sound ridiculous, but we didn't do much traveling before that. From this point of view, it feels like our lives started only after we got married. Anyways, back then we spent, if I remember correctly, three days in Rome, time in which we saw many of its compelling attractions, but not nearly enough. Somehow life happened and we never managed to come back to Rome... not until now.

We didn't even plan this, it just happened as we booked our flights to Japan. We suddenly found ourselves with 16 hours in Rome between planes. The best we could do was to book a hotel and try to explore as much architectural splendor and artistic brilliance as possible in one evening.

By the time we left our hotel next to Vatican Museum and hit the streets of the Eternal City the sun was already setting. It must have been around 6PM. We just walked and walked around, and then feasted on Italian pasta and wine in a restaurant next to Fontana di Trevi, and then we walked even more. It was the 1st of October and the temperatures were quite pleasant even during the night. By the time we arrived back to the hotel, just after stopping for one more gelato, it was almost 2AM. But I couldn't have even imagined possible seeing so much in so little time. Yet, Rome deserves a bigger chunk of our lives than this. Maybe 2013 will take care of that.

Here is a photographic memoir of our evening in Rome.

What are your most fond memories of a stopover between flights?

St. Peter's Basilica

Vittorio Emanuele II Bridge and Vatican City

Piazza Navona

The Pantheon

Fontana di Trevi

Vittoriano

The Imperial Forum

The Roman Forum

The Colosseum

This is my entry to the February 2013 Carnival of Europe hosted by Aleah Taboclaon of Solitary Wanderer with the theme "Most Romantic Places in Europe".

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