forty-eight hours in rome

14.6.2018 - 17.6.2018

Rome, Italy

A blur of pastas, piazzas, gelato and colourful cobbled streets.

Rome was perhaps the closest we got to living the Italian cliche during our 17 days in Italy. The streets were overflowing with Vespas, Italian delis were the size of small apartments and homemade pasta and gelato sat in the windows of every second restaurant.

We stayed in a groovy little hostel in the gritty Esquilino, located a fifteen minute walk from the Roma train station and thirty from the main city centre. Our first impressions had us thinking we had booked to stay in the ghetto, however we ended up loving the multicultural aspect of this city.

Walks felt as though we were taken through the pages of history books, perpetually drained camera batteries, and two hot days spent wandering the cobbled streets.

Rome bought us the best food of our holiday. Delicious, affordable, and fresh food everywhere. And yes, after only forty eight hours, i'm probably five kilos heavier, but trust me, so worth it.

Since you can find mouth-watering food on every corner in Rome, even in tiny take-away shops, I won't bother with recommendations. All I will say is that, learn from my mistakes and 'when in Rome' stick to the food Italy does best. After seventeen days of non-stop stuffing our faces with Italian food, we couldn't pass up the Indian restaurant that was so conveniently located right next door to our hostel. Turns out this was a shitty decision... real shitty.

Once the novelty wore off, I wasn't really a fan of pastry and coffee for breakfast. On our first day we came across a huge market in the centre. Here we tried every possible flavour of limoncello, bought pasta in the shape of Michelangelo's penis, and most importantly delicious fresh fruit that I ate for breakfast the following mornings.

Funnily enough our favourite place for pasta served their food in take away boxes. We stumbled across this little restaurant on our way to the Spanish steps. We were absolutely starving and my mouth couldn't help but water as we watched them make it in the window right in front of us. It was seriously so so good. Not kidding, I ate two servings.

We also ate in a few restaurants, however we found the portions to be really small and no where near as satisfying. I don't doubt our ability to only choose the cheaper options on the menu would have influenced this opinion, but if your'e like us, and after a bargain then I highly suggest you source out places similar to these - because, I guarantee they won't disappoint.

Foccaccia's, sandwiches and pasta - a staple diet of carbs. Cinghiale alla cacciatora (pasta with wild boar ragù) was definitely one of my favourites.

Laneways

Regardless of what we had planned for the day, we'd always manage to get swept away by the little laneways. Finding beauty in the little things wasn't hard in this big city.

Altare della Patriaor Il Vittoriano

Trevi Fountain

Colosseum

Our time, short but sweet, why thank you Rome.

En route, London x