Bella Trastevere
Yes, I love Campania - but I love Rome. Well, who wouldn't?
I first went to Rome as a youthful Contiki tourist. It was hilarious - three head-spinning nights with two full days of seeing as much as they could cram in twelve hours. I think the first day went something like this - St. Peters, Vatican Museums including the Sistine Chapel, Piazza Navona, Spanish Steps, Colosseum, The Roman Forum, St. John Lateran and a squeezed in visit to the Trevi Fountain at night. After that we all collapsed into bed in a hotel which I remember well - for its total lack of anything memorable! Awful location on a highway surrounded by car yards. Yuck.
Despite the madness of this immersion visit, I was hooked. A few years later I returned as a backpacker. One of the highlights was arranging to meet my sister at the Trevi Fountain. This is well before mobiles and email so we had to arrange this on the land line phone to Australia using our mum as a go-between. I was in London, Jackie was on the Greek Islands. Made sense to meet in Rome so we decided on a date and time and mum relayed the information - we never actually spoke directly.
Well, the day I saw her on the other side of the fountain, running excitedly towards me, was one of the best days in Rome ever.
I didn't return until 2012 and was bewitched all over again. We stayed in Trastevere - a Roman neighbourhood across the Tiber from the Historic Centre. Look at this....who wouldn't fall in love.
I first went to Rome as a youthful Contiki tourist. It was hilarious - three head-spinning nights with two full days of seeing as much as they could cram in twelve hours. I think the first day went something like this - St. Peters, Vatican Museums including the Sistine Chapel, Piazza Navona, Spanish Steps, Colosseum, The Roman Forum, St. John Lateran and a squeezed in visit to the Trevi Fountain at night. After that we all collapsed into bed in a hotel which I remember well - for its total lack of anything memorable! Awful location on a highway surrounded by car yards. Yuck.
Despite the madness of this immersion visit, I was hooked. A few years later I returned as a backpacker. One of the highlights was arranging to meet my sister at the Trevi Fountain. This is well before mobiles and email so we had to arrange this on the land line phone to Australia using our mum as a go-between. I was in London, Jackie was on the Greek Islands. Made sense to meet in Rome so we decided on a date and time and mum relayed the information - we never actually spoke directly.
Well, the day I saw her on the other side of the fountain, running excitedly towards me, was one of the best days in Rome ever.
I didn't return until 2012 and was bewitched all over again. We stayed in Trastevere - a Roman neighbourhood across the Tiber from the Historic Centre. Look at this....who wouldn't fall in love.
Charming streets
This is taken from the entrance to our apartment on Vicolo del Cedro - it was so beautiful that when we arrived from our 20 hour flight from Sydney we thought we'd been dropped into a movie set
Vicolo del Cedro looking in the opposite direction from our apartment
Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere - behind the fountain is the oldest church dedicated to the Virgin Mary in Rome. It dates from AD337.
View from the terrace of our apartment looking toward The Vatican - pink sunset and vino rosso - perfect!
Our apartment was the third on the right - the red building. It wasn't even an apartment - we had the whole four floors with a roof terrace. Bellisimo!
We stayed in Trastevere for five nights and it was perfect. In fact it was so perfect that when we all get together and talk about it now, it's like it WAS a movie script and someone DID design it all to enchant and bewitch. And of course, entice us back.
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