When in Rome! (Italy, 2025)

Ahhh, Italia! I had dreamed of this trip since becoming an Olive Garden regular when I was 4 years old. Benny the Breadstick and Ollie the Olive made Italy feel like a dream. Of course, I had been to Northern Italy before, but it was time to make the classic trek on the Western coast with the fam (sister + parents).

We landed at Leonardo da Vinci International Airport (in contention for coolest airport name) and took a train over to Roma Termini station. We booked this train ahead of time, but no need as there was a new train every 15 minutes or so. After a quick snack at Rossopomodoro – La Bottega Stazione, we boarded our train to Firenze: our first real stop.

As an aside, Italian cities are the biggest example of Americans living in their own bubble. I had no idea Florence was known as Firenze to Italians and most of the world! Yet another reason to travel. Anyways, we took a taxi in Firenze to our hotel and to drop our stuff off. I guess my crazy travel plans had rubbed off on my family because instead of taking it easy following a long international journey, we immediately walked to the Academia. After a quick stop for gelato (the first of many) at the nearby Geleteria carabe, it was our time to enter the Academia based on the tickets we had purchased ahead of time. Once inside, it was amazing to see all the artisanship of the marble. And of course, the star of the show, Michelangelo’s David, was waiting for us to see in all his glory. Normally, famous art pieces can be disappointing in person, but the sheer scale and detail of this sculpture continued to impress.

All that art watching made us hungry, so we went to the famed Tratteoria Zaza for dinner. The pasta was incredible and tiramisu was great. We were recommended this chicken and caramelized onion dish and while the chicken was just alright, the onions were the best I’ve ever had. It made the walk back to the hotel blissful and the following sleep even better.

The next morning, my dad had gotten us some groceries (MVP) to have a simple, quick breakfast before taking a taxi to the train station to meet our walking tour (Walk About Tours). We boarded a tour bus filled with people from all different backgrounds and headed to the medieval town of Siena, our first stop. Siena was straight out of a world history textbook, complete centuries-old banks, towers, and a public square with a horsetrack surrounding it (which is now the spot of a famous horse race, Palio di Siena, between the neighborhoods of Siena). It was quite beautiful, but it did feel heavily touristified (I know I know, I’m a tourist too). The 400 year old churches were interlaced with gelato places and souvenir shops, and the tour guide proudly mentioned which ancient buildings were rentable on AirBnb. Nevertheless, it was a cool walking tour and definitely a unique experience.

We followed that trip up with a visit to a farm out in the Tuscan countryside. The picturesque rolling hills and rows of grapevines were stunning and I realized why so many plays and movies are about this region (Under the Tuscan Sun, You, Me, & Tuscany, etc.). Lunch was held at a farm with a hugeeeee dining table that held all of us tourists (50+!). The meal was delicious, featuring fresh produce, delicious bread, and lots of different wine. Some people were helping themselves to many glasses of the strongest one, a dessert wine at over 16% ABV, which made for an entertaining bus ride to our next stop. Which is!  San Gimignano. This was another medieval town with famous gelato (it was just standard decent gelato) and some great vantage points of the city and surrounding farmland.

Our final stop was the legendary Leaning Tower of Pisa. It was actually leaning quite a bit! We didn’t go up but took plenty of cheesy photos and walked around the grounds. Fibonacci’s final resting place is in the nearby Camposanto Monumentale, but after hearing the price for entry, we admired it from outside and watched the sunset illuminate the beautiful tower. Pisa was a fun time but besides the gimmicky photos (which were a blast to take), there’s not too much going on. We head back into Florence and stopped for dinner near the bus drop-off point at I Camaldoli (very good, not a stand out).

The next day, my sister and I woke up early and went for a run around the city of Florence. There was a lot of construction, but running around the Arno River was beautiful. The cobblestone streets proved to be an ankle workout. The run also highlighted the small size of the city center. A 5K loop encircles pretty much every major tourist spot. After a late breakfast at the hotel, we headed to the Duomo.

I was impressed by the scale of the duomo (side note: a major location for Assassin’s Creed!). I remembered learning about Brunelleschi’s dome in World History almost a decade ago, and suddenly it made sense why this dome was so important—it’s truly a marvel of engineering. We had tickets to climb up, so we waited in a short line and began the ascent up the 463 steps. The spiral steps were slightly claustrophobic but as long as you kept on moving and didn’t spiral (pun intended), it wasn’t too bad. Soon, we were rewarded by sprawling views of Florence down below. The freestanding dome almost felt magical, and when you consider it was built in the 1420s. They didn’t even have calculus!! No logarithms!!

After our descent, we snacked on some more gelato and a cannoli. That was not enough for me, of course, so we settled for lunch at a touristy-looking panini spot in the main square: Panini Toscani. There was no menu, so we told them we were vegetarian and they assembled some concoction of veggies and cheese. And it was. INCREDIBLE. This is the single greatest sandwich I have ever had to this day. The 463 steps and morning 5K might have helped, though. We washed it down with an Aperol Spritz (when in Florence!) and headed to the Ponte Vecchio Bridge.

We passed some lesser tourist sites, but we were growing tired and we (AKA me) wanted to get to a lookout point by sunset. The bridge was home to boatloads of tourists and lots of fancy jewelry stores due to its history. It felt like a bit like a trap, but we got snapped some Instagram-worthy pictures as we crossed over the river towards the steps of the Michaelangelo lookout. Along the way, we crossed by a street performer making beautiful bubbles for kids to play with and the sight of that with Florence in the background was straight out of a movie. We watched the beautiful scarlet sunset and headed back into the city. To cap the day, we grabbed dinner at a random restaurant we strolled into and quickly crashed at the hotel.

The next day was a cross-country adventure. We took a train from Firenze to Napoli (Naples for you Americans) and immediately met our taxi driver to take us to Praiano. My parents were concerned about the trustworthiness of our driver, but he turned out to be extremely sweet and would point out the sights in broken English. The drive to Praiano, a small town along the Amalfi coast, quickly turned into a scenic mountain route with one-lane roads. And speaking of scenic, our hotel, the Hotel Tramonto D’Oro, was truly a work of art. With a white facade, gold highlights, and a full view of the coastline and neighboring cities, it was one of those places that you dream about. We took a quick walk around the small city hugging the edge of the road, ending at the nearby church, Parrocchia Di San Gennaro. There were some local kids playing soccer and the salty breeze just added to the vibes. Another amazing Italian sunset.

We had a delicious dinner in the hotel restaurant, and ended the night with some wine on our hotel balcony, watching the lights from neighboring cities slowly turn on.

The hotel restaurant was so stellar (and there were no other options) that we were back for breakfast the next morning. The breakfast buffet was impressive. It was easily the best spread I had ever seen, complete with eggs, various breads, local jams and honeys, meats, cheeses, fruits, pancakes, pastries, and anything you want made-to-order. I could have spent all day there!

To burn off that massive breakfast, we started a small hike up to Convento di San Domenico. This was the entrypoint to the main Path of the Gods hike, but the connector trail was closed for the time being, so the convent was the end of the hike. Initially, a local gave my dad a weird look when we mentioned we were going to hike up and urged us to turn around. He really had no confidence in our dad because it was not a particularly difficult hike at all. The lush greenery provided a nice backdrop to the ~1200 steps up to the convent. We were greeted by several dogs in the convent, some of which were social and some of which were aggressive but shy, so they stayed behind locked doors. We descended and grabbed lunch at a local grocery store that had a sandwich station. Because of the language barrier, we settled on Spanish as our medium, and I tried my best to order sandwiches in broken high-school Spanish. Con cebolla!

One hearty lunch later, we made plans to head to Amalfi for the evening. We got information on using the bus, but we patiently waited for over an hour and no bus came. The buses that did come were stuffed to the brim with people on this rainy afternoon, so we lost our nerve pretty quickly. Instead, we grabbed a snack at a local spot, did some light shopping, and went on a walk to the edge of the city. Once we crossed the tunnel on the Eastern side, a small, 1950s-style car pulled up with an Indian couple. They were so enthused to greet us and struck up a conversation. They were so smiley and radiated golden retriever energy, so I hope they had a great trip!

We bought some tomatoes from a local grocery store and ate them off the vine, but now it was time for a real meal. We got pizza at this rooftop restaurant across the hotel from us. The pizza was delicious but forgettable; the more interesting event was that we met another Gujarati family! We were discussing the over/under on the number of Gujarati speakers in this town, and I had set the line at 0.5 (implying there were 0 speakers). How wrong was I!

Afterwards, we watched the twinkling lights of the Amalfi coast while sipping on some limoncello as a nightcap (yuck). The next morning, we had another DELICIOUS breakfast at the hotel and tearfully said goodbye as we headed to Naples. We had the same driver and a few hours to spare, so we briefly asked him about dropping us off at Pompeii, but the timeline was complicated and he also barely understood English or how to use Google Translate. Instead, we thanked him for the ride, he gave us a cute pin to remind us of our travels, and we checked in our baggage at the Napoli station.

I enjoy trying a McDonald’s in every country I visit, so our first stop (in American touristy fashion) was a McDonald’s for a snack wrap and a surprisingly delicious croissant. We then took a nice stroll to the Cathedral of Naples. It boasted impressive architecture, but more famously, is the home of the famous liquefaction miracle of St. Gennaro. A vial of San Gennaro’s blood, who was martyred in the 4th century CE, is sealed and held in the cathedral. Three times a year, the sealed of vial of blood liquefies for all to see, and its explanation is still in question by scientists. It was interesting but also creepy to read about and see the relics of this church. The surrounding area was very different than other European city centers I had been to, and the clotheslines strewn between the soaring apartments reminded me of Mumbai.

Then, it was finally time to enjoy the jewel of Naples: pizza! It’s the birthplace of modern pizza, and L’antica pizzeria de Michele takes credit as a pioneer in the dish. This restaurant was clearly famous, because even the to-go line took 20 minutes. The pizza we got was delicious, and the flavor of the sauce was definitely one of the best. That being said, and as much as it pains me to say this, I’ve had better pizza in New York City.

To wrap up our quick tour of Naples, we got a pizza frita (effectively a fried calzone) from a random food stand and headed back to the station to catch a train to Roma Termini station. Our hotel in Rome was on the outskirts of the city and was incredibly massive. The bathroom was also very strange, with see-through doors that required an innovative towel blocking solution. The one advantage of this hotel was that the nearby restaurants were much more local than ones in the city center, and our dinner was at La Mucca Pizza. Again, delicious! But not stand-out.

The next day, we visited Vatican City! Since it’s technically a new country, I will describe that whole day in another post. So! We move on to the NEXT day!

We had a delicious hotel breakfast, complete with assorted cheeses, pastries, fruits, and a barista making specialty drinks. We then took a bus to Circo Massimo, which was surprisingly convenient. This kickstarted our self-crafted tour of ancient Rome. Circo Massimo was the ancient chariot racing stadium and was the first stadium built in the city. A short walk away was the famed Colosseum. The sheer scale and the sheer age of the structure was fascinating. How is something built 2000 years ago still so robust and large? Forget computers, they didn’t even have calculus! This feeling of awe continued as we looped the Colosseum from the outside, walked up to the Roman Forum, and past the Victor Emmanuel II Monument. These structures were around for unimaginably long and I found it amusing to imagine what a person born in 200 CE would be like while enjoying the same views that I was.

We got lunch at a nearby restaurant (whose name is lost to history) as a nice halfway point. After some pasta and tiramisu, we continued our walking tour and continued to the pantheon (toured from the outside), a gelato pit stop, the Trevi fountain (overrated as I imagined), and the Spanish Steps (also overrated as I imagined). Overall, the architecture of the Colosseum, the Forum structues, and the Pantheon were incredible. The other elements of our exploration were just cool pieces of world history to see.

We took a VERY crowded 160 bus back to Rome and saw some officials organizing signs saying “Wizz Air Rome Half Marathon”. Curious!

There was a cute grocery store near our hotel, so we picked up some snacks to take home, some gifts, and some wine to enjoy back at the hotel. Which we definitely enjoyed and watched some Curious George on the hotel TV. A few episodes later and drinks later, we went to Hostaria Pizzeria Da Baffo e Figli. It was a restaurant tucked away in a corner and didn’t even show up on Google Maps for my dad or my mom. The restaurant was generally very confused how we got there, and they tried telling us off, saying they only had a table open for another hour. When we told them we can finish eating in an hour, their confusion turned to shock. For an Italian, eating a meal in an hour in their relaxed culture must be an impossible feat, but us tourists were up for the challenge. The meal was delicious, but as the clock inched closer to an hour, we could tell they were getting uneasy, so we paid and ordered dessert to-go.

Some tiramisu and a good night’s rest later, I was energized the next morning. So energized, in fact, that I planned to go on a run. Originally, we had thought of visiting the historic site of Pompeii, but the timeline and costs didn’t work out. So, instead, I decided to plan a run through the city, inspired by the Wizz Air half marathon route happening earlier in the day! One last hotel breakfast later, we took a taxi to the Porta Portese secondhand market for some thrifting. I bought a bracelet and left my family behind as I split off to run by the Tiber River.

The route itself was gorgeous, alongside a historic river that I had even studied in my World History classes. There were views of historic buildings, and I eventually turned into the city to the finish line of the half marathon route. The actual race was complete, but people were still celebrating their finishing with their family and friends. It was a very sweet scene, and the festivities of the finish line were energizing. I soon turned back and head back down the river to meet up with my family, ending at a nice 7.77 miles (as a tribute to Luka Doncic). I had worked up quite the appetite, and we were all dreaming about that panini spot in Florence. So, we found the nearest panini spot and beelined for PanDivino Focacceria.

The foccacceria was a quaint sandwich shop run entirely by one man. He was super nice, made everything to order, organized tables into enough space for the 4 of us, and encouraged us to great drinks and homemade desserts. It felt like I was in a village in the countryside, but it was in the bustling city. The panini was of course, delicious (although not as quite as much as the Florentine sandwich), and fueled the rest of our day. We took a stroll to Piazza Navona to capture some more of the Roman city. It was impressive to be surrounded by so much history that every street corner has some millennia-old plazza or church. We got some gelato at Fatamorgana, which definitely had the most unique and interesting gelato flavors like Pear and Gorgonzola.

We completed a grueling climb to the Villa Medici overlooking the city, we took the bus back to our hotel (for which we were now an expert). After all, it was time to watch a few more episodes of Curious George! Our last Italian dinner was at Dar Bottarolo: Tor Marancia, where we met a young Bangladeshi waiter (one of many Bangladeshis we met in the city) and chatted with him about his life. Turns out, we works 2 jobs, waiting at this restaurant and the sister location near the Trevi Fountain. It was incredible seeing how hard he works just to be able to afford send a small amount of money home. The easiest way to feel grateful about your life is to chat with people abroad.

And before we knew it, our Roman adventure came to end. After one last cheese-and-pastry-filled hotel breakfast, we went to the airport and flew home. Arriverdverci!

Takeaways

• The pizza and pasta are, of course, amazing, but the real star of the show was the panini scene
• Italy has the perfect intersection of nature, history, local charm, great food, and annoying tourists (yours truly included)
• Between the tiramisu and gelato, you’ll definitely need to get a sweet treat everywhere
• The eternal city of Rome is truly awe-inspiring, especially coming from a young baby country like the USA

Rose-Bud-Thorn

Rose (what went well): The trip was a perfect mixture of city life, nature, and food. But the real highlight was definitely staying at the gorgeous Hotel Tramonto D’Oro (and delicious too!). It’s one of those experiences that sticks with you long after the trip, and I can still the balcony view in my mind.
Bud (what was good but could be improved on): The food overall was solid, but the desserts left a little bit to be desired sometimes. While the savory food was delicious, the gelato and tiramisu were all very standard. I feel like I’ve had better tiramisu and the gelato in the States!
Thorn (what did not go well): I really wanted to tackle the famous Path of the Gods hike, at least partially, this trip. Unfortunately, due to the trail being closed (and also other factors like rain and a packed schedule), we didn’t get to do it. Something saved for the next trip to Amalfi!