Mom Comes to Rome

Right after I got home from Spring Break, my mom came to visit me in Rome! It was SO nice to have some family here after three months in another country with all new people. It really brought some comfort - including in the form of food with Kraft mac & cheese, Reeses, oreos, peanut butter, oatmeal, and Betty Crocker mashed potatoes. Just a few of the things I've been really missing, yummmmm.

Tuesday:

Pantheon

My mom's flight landed on Tuesday morning, so I headed to her hotel to meet her. We spent this day as our big touring day - hitting all the major sights of Rome fast since she's already been here multiple times. We had a delicious lunch at Cul Du Sac, a local enoteca. They had cheese fondue that was amazing, and the closest thing I've found to queso dip since I've been here.

Colosseum

We headed to Piazza Navona and walked through there, then worked our way to Campo dei Fiori, Torre del Argentina, and the Panethon. Then we backtracked and headed to Michelangelo's hill, the Roman Forum, and the Colosseum. It was definitely a whirlwind, and our feet were killing us by the end. We sat and hung out at the Colosseum for awhile before heading to dinner. We tried to go to Da Buffeto, an amazing pizza place, but it was closed so we went to a pizza place right around the corner. It was delicious! After that, I brought her back to her shuttle bus to head back to the hotel.

The crew at Ice Bar

That night was my friend Ryan's birthday, so we headed to the Ice Bar to celebrate. My roommate and I made the mistake of wearing dresses, so we absolutely froze. I was really disappointed in this ice bar compared to the last one I went to with my mom and brother, but it was still a really fun experience. After the Ice Bar we headed to Testaccio to go out for the night.







Wednesday:

Campo dei Fiori

I had class on Wednesday, so my mom went and explored while I was in class. Afterwards we headed to Campo dei Fiori, the market here. It's safe to say that my mom fell in love. The entire market is full of fresh fruits, vegetables, spices, olive oil, limoncello, balsamic, pasta, pasta sauce, and more. We spent a good majority of the day walking around the market looking at everything they had to offer. We ate in Campo dei Fiori and had awesome pasta that had us both full the rest of the day.

Getting our Clemson spirit on at the Trevi Fountain 

From Campo we headed to the Trevi Fountain to seal our return to Rome. Considering the number of coins I've thrown in the fountain since I've been here, I'm going to be coming back quite a few times. After dinner we were completely exhausted, so we headed back to my apartment and fell asleep. By dinnertime we still weren't hungry, so we went to the gelateria and I got gelato and mom got a cannoli before she headed back to her hotel. Yum, yum, yum. That night I headed out with some of my friends and we went to Campo dei Fiori then Shari Vari, one of our favorite clubs before heading home to sleep.

Thursday: 

Mom and I at the Spanish Steps

Thursday I had class again and met my mom after at Piazza Barberini (after she got lost a couple times trying to get there). We headed to the Spanish Steps with the intention of going some other places, but we never made it past the Spanish Steps. It was gorgeous and my mom knew the owner of a restaurant there, so we stopped in for a 'quick' glass of wine. We ended up staying there and watching the sunset, and walked up and down the Spanish Steps before heading back to the same place for a delicious dinner of risotto and carbonara. Yum! After that we hurried back to my apartment so I could grab my stuff for the weekend. We both headed back to her hotel and passed out, ready for a weekend of Tuscany and the Amalfi Coast.


Friday:

Painter painting the Tuscany landscape

On Friday we went on a wine tasting throughout Tuscany. We had to get up at the crack of dawn, but it was so worth it. We headed to Cortona first and climbed this huge hill to the top where we could overlook Tuscany. Cortona was beautiful - it was such a quaint little medieval town. They also had a church at the very top of the hill that was beautiful, even though I doubt many people really went with that climb to the top. On our way back down from the top of the hill, we spotted the UGA campus of Cortona! Once back in the city center, we stopped at a gelateria for snickers gelato (mom's favorite!) before getting back on the bus to head to our next stop. It was delish!
Our next stop on our daytrip was at a small restaurant to get lunch. We had three courses - the first was two different types of pasta, the second was chicken with potatoes, and the third was rum cake. Yum, yum, yum!

At our wine tasting

HUGE barrels of wine

After filling up on lots of food, wine, and coffee, we headed to Montepulciano for our next stop on our Tuscany tour. In Montepulciano we headed to a wine cellar that was ridiculously old for a wine tasting. This was my first real wine tasting I've ever done, so it was a cool experience. And the barrels of wine were absolutely MASSIVE. It was insane. I've never seen so much wine in one place. After tasting the wine of the first cellar, we headed to a different one to see even bigger barrels of wine. It was INSANE. After this we all boarded the bus and slept all the way back to Rome. When we got back to Rome, we headed to one of my favorite restaurants here - Tonys! They were packed, so we didn't get to hang out as long as we would've liked, but it was still just as delicious as always. Once we were stuffed full of pasta and bread (in true Italian style), we headed back to the hotel.

Saturday:

On our balcony at the hotel

Saturday we woke up early for our main trip of the week - Amalfi Coast! It had always been a dream of my mom's to go stay there for a night, and I had never been so we had to seize the opportunity! First we took a train to Naples, then we took another (gross... typical Naples) train to Sorrento, then finally a bus full of loud teenagers to Amalfi. It was a pain getting there, but SO WORTH IT. As soon as we got there we headed to a restaurant on the water for a lunch with a few that can't really be beat. After that we headed up to our hotel, and were given one of the best views in the entire hotel. It was gorgeous looking over the entire bay with the mountains of Amalfi in the background. I couldn't believe it. After a quick nap, we got ready and headed out for a DELICIOUS dinner.

Jagerbombs with our new friends

Amalfi

We went to a place called Da Gamma (after getting lost a couple times). There, we met 2 other people from Atlanta and 2 people studying in Florence. It was fun because we could all relate so we all talked the entire time while eating our dinner like we had known each other forever. The two people studying in Florence ended up talking me into doing a jagerbomb, so we had to teach the waiter how to make them. It was definitely our American moment of the weekend as we took jagerbombs in front of confused Italians. After an amazing dinner we headed back to the hotel to sleep. While trying to wait for a taxi we also met a group that was studying in Barcelona that were really cool. They were staying in Amalfi for a week.

Sunday: 

On the top of Capri 

Positano

On Sunday we woke up early and headed down to the bay to catch the ferry to Capri. The ferry ride, or at least what I saw of it before I fell asleep, was beautiful driving all down the coast of Amalfi. We picked up people in Postiano then headed out to Capri. Capri was gorgeous, and I'm not really sure why I don't remember going there when I was younger. Right when we got off the ferry, we got on another boat that took us on a tour around the island. We stopped at a couple places like the lighthouse, the elephant shaped rock, the white grotto, and went under the kissing arch. We also got to stop and go into the blue grotto, which wasn't open last time I was in Capri. The blue grotto was SO cool. I could not BELIEVE how that water could be colored such a neon blue color naturally by the sun. And the water was so unbelievably clear. I was in absolute awe. We were in a little rowboat because that's the only way you can get through the tiny opening to let you into the grotto. While we were in there, our guide picked up a jellyfish out of the water and was playing with it. Hello INSANE. After the water tour, we headed up to the top of Capri for some beautiful views and an awesome lunch. I got ravioli with fresh cheese from Capri. Once we were done with lunch we headed back down and waited for our ferry to get back to Amalfi.

Kissing rock

Arch that looks like an elephant

Statue welcoming people to Capri

Guide holding a jellyfish

Blue Grotto

We headed back to the hotel in Amalfi and found out that trains stopped running from Naples to Rome at 8:00... which was bad considering we were about 2 hours away and it was 6:15. We ended up having to take a cab to Salerno then a train back to Rome from there. This didn't seem like a big deal, until we hit traffic on the way to Salerno. The last train was at 7:45 and we didn't even have our tickets yet. We sprinted into the train station and our cab driver helped my mom run our bags to the terminal while I bought the tickets and sprinted after them. We BARELY made it on the train, huffing and puffing about halfway to Rome because we had to run so fast. We ended up back in Rome at around 11:00, and headed home and passed out.

Monday: 
I had class, so mom went back to Campo dei Fiori to buy herself some goodies to bring back home. After I was done with class, I realized how much I needed to do so I stayed at home and worked on catching up on homework, etc while mom explored some of Rome on her own. I met up with her before my class and we went through another market finding souvenirs. I'm pretty sure my mom's favorite part of Rome was buying things at all the markets. I headed to class after and left my mom to explore Trastevere before we went to dinner after class. After dinner, we ended up barely making it back to where her bus picked up to go back to her hotel. She actually had to run after her bus to get there on time.

Tuesday:

Tivoli

This was my mom's last day. We tried to go to this church that has all these bones of monks in it, but it was closed (typical Italy..) so instead we got lunch in Piazza Barberini before heading to Tivoli. In Tivoli, we went to Hadrian's Villa first. Hadrian's Villa was cool, and SO MASSIVE. We probably only covered about 1/4 of it because we didn't have enough time. After Hadrian's Villa, we headed further into Tivoli to Villa D'Este. This villa was absolutely stunning. We spent the entire time exploring the gardens and the massive, majestic fountains found there. It was incredible how beautiful it was. After this, we headed back to Rome and got some food before our driver picked us up for our night tour of Rome.

Venus's Temple in Hadrian's Villa

Theatre in Hadrian's Villa

Fountain in Villa D'Este

Trevi Fountain

The night tour was SO NICE. It was so weird for me to be able to get everywhere in Rome so quickly considering I haven't used anything but public transportation and walking since January. We went to almost all of the sights to be able to see them at night - Giancolo Hill, Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, crepes at the Trevi Fountain, the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and last but definitely not least the keyhole overlooking the Vatican.

Keyhole

Looking in the keyhole

The keyhole is something that has been on my list to do since I've been in Rome, and it was so cool seeing it at night. For those who don't know, it is a keyhole that when you look through it, it perfectly frames the Vatican. It's so gorgeous. After our night tour, I had to say bye to my mom. It was so nice having her here. Now I've just been relaxing and attempting to catch up on school work before this weekend. Sarah, one of my good friends from Clemson that's studying in Florence, told me yesterday that she's coming to Rome to visit me tomorrow! I'm SO excited to have her here. Then my brother gets here this weekend too, and I can't wait!!!!! :)