Rest day in Rome!

Slept in till 10:30am and had to leave the hostel for their routine cleaning period between 11am-3pm. We walked down the street to an Italian restaurant we had spotted the night before and had brunch! I had pasta Amatricana and Di had cannelloni but both were rather ordinary! Di said my pasta tasted like Heinz canned spaghetti!

Feeling ripped off we headed for a nice leisurely stroll past the Spanish steps towards Piazza del Popolo. We had a walk down via Marghutta which I had visited last time and then found our way up to some gardens called Villa Borghese behind the Piazza. It was nice seeing this side of Rome as we escaped the traffic and throngs of tourists. We grabbed an icecream but were disappointed at its artificial flavouring! We strolled through the park and found a nice bench to sit down at and nap. And here we are! I’ve just typed up yesterday’s blog and Di is napping on the park bench!

Around 3pm, we headed off from our lovely spot in the park to meet up with Carl and Clare near the colonnade on via Del Corso. On the way we grabbed another gelato from the shop near the Spagna metro station - this time it was the real deal yeah! Had pistachio and nocciola flavours mmm mmm! We stopped by the Ferrari store on the way for that photo with the F1 racer!

We met Carl and Clare a little late at 3:40pm and decided we’d see if we could see a movie in English somewhere in Rome! We had looked up some places the night before and the first one I had found - the Quirinetta - was just around the corner. To our disappointment we found it was closed so we went over to Trastevere to check out one that Carl had found online. We walked across the river Tevere and found the area called St Maria in Trastevere. We didn’t have a street address for the cinema so we started walking around and then asking some locals. Noone had heard of the cinema!!! We did find a small cinema but it only showed Italian films. In the end we gave up and had a coffee in the piazza. Man that was a mistake! Di ordered café latte which turned out to be almost all milk! Clare got ‘cold chocolate’ thinking it might be like iced chocolate but it turned out like hot chocolate made with cold water! I ordered iced coffee but got cold expresso! Carl’s fruit shake was the only one that turned out as we expected! On top of that it was rather pricey!

We were still full so we returned to Carl and Clare’s apartment to surf the net before going out again around 8pm to a restaurant in Largo de pallaro recommended by Gracelyn. We found it easily enough - Trattoria der Pallaro-an authentic Roman restaurant! We were seated by a sweet Italian old lady and soon afterwards, jugs of water and wine and antipasti started coming out! There were olives, salami and prosciutto, basil tomatoes, a chick pea type dish, and some fried things! Then the first course came out - tomato pasta! This was followed by the main course of roast pork, zucchini, and chips! The dolce was a cake and OJ but we were all so full we couldn’t finish! We got all this for 23.75 euros pp!

After dinner we said arrivederci to Carl and Clare as we parted ways for the last time! Had an awesome time with them and look forward to catching up back home!