Rome, Day Two

I woke up at around 7 today. My pillow had fallen off my bed/mattress thing, and by the time I fished it back on I was awake. The parents got up at around the same time, and we got ready and left the Airbnb at around 8:30, taking some nutella cake from the kitchen for lunch. We walked to the next door Westin Hotel for some coffee to go with the cake, and then we walked for around 30 minutes to our first destination, the Jewish ghetto. We bought bus tickets that could have allowed us to skip the walk, but the bus was going to take too long to arrive, so walking it was.

The synagogue is big and pretty (much easier to see in daylight), but the museum admission price was too steep. Instead we walked into a museum across the way that contained information about Ottobre 16 1943, a Nazi raid during which they collected a lot of gold and then rounded up Italian Jews to be sent to concentration camps. Very sad museum.

Following that we walked across a bridge and down a flight of stairs to see some more Roman ruins. The juxtaposition of ancient ruins to more modern buildings in the background was quite striking.

In front of the ruins right near the ghetto.

Possible architectural inspiration for the Colosseum.

At around 12 we walked a few circles around the Jewish ghetto area until finding a long block of Jewish restaurants. It felt like a more touristy Pico Blvd. because everyone was advertising kosher food, and brochures and menus were constantly being thrust under our noses. The big sellers were fried artichokes and hamburgers (kosher hamburgers!). The parents didn't feel like eating meat, but we did stop in a very nondescript Jewish bakery called Pasticceria Baccione. The main item there was pie, but they had run out by the time we got there, so instead we bought some biscotti and Jewish pizza (basically fruitcake). It made us all very thirsty, and then Mommy really had to go to the bathroom. With no bathroom in sight, though, we just walked to our next destination, Capitoline Hill. Seeing as it was a hill, we had to climb a steep hill to get to the top, and apparently Mommy really really had to use the bathroom, so we bought tickets for the Capitoline Museum and Mommy rushed up three flights of stairs to get to the bathroom on the top floor.

The nondescript Jewish bakery.

Jewish pizza.

This Tripadvisor review described our experience at the bakery almost perfectly.

Fonzie's cool kosher burgers.

The bottom of Capitoline Hill. Oh no, stairs...

With that taken care of, we were then able to look through the museum. The bathroom floor had all sorts of Christian paintings, and the lower levels had ancient Roman artifacts and sculptures. There was also a basement level that went underneath the piazza and took us to the buildings on the other side, which ended up confusing us and getting us all lost. Looking around was fun though, if a little tiring. I had to sit down a lot, and at one point I almost fell asleep, but all good. The parents were also getting tired, so at around 5 we walked to the museum terrace where there's a caffeteria, and Mommy and I got caffe lattes and Daddy got a hot chocolate.

Daddy taking a selfie with Romulus and Remus and their wolf.

Medusa having a hard time.

Mommy and Daddy and Constantine's head.

The Marcus Aurelius equestrian statue. There's a copy of this one out front on the hill.

Venus sculpture.

Mommy and some heads.

An old guy stepping on a kid.

We sat for a little to plan out what to do next, and then it occurred to us that daylight savings time started today and we had gained an extra hour. This gave us enough time to walk to the Pantheon before it closed (I hadn't seen it yet, the parents had), so we moseyed on over there and looked around inside. It's very big and dome-y, but also very full of tourists. We got kicked out at 6 when the Pantheon closed, and then walked to a restaurant right behind it called Miscellanea for dinner.

Me in the Pantheon.

The restaurant was very typical Italian food, and it was very good. We got a pizza, spaghetti with tomato sauce, gnocchi in pesto sauce, and a tuna salad. All delicious, and we got a good seat next to the wall outlet so we could charge our phones. After dinner, while paying the bill, a guy behind the bar gave us some limoncello and red wine to try. Not a fan of limoncello, but the red wine tasted like Kiddush wine so that was ok.

Waiting for food. In the background there's a man's face stuck in a pizza.

Our food.

Pizza, pasta, spaghetti, meatball!

We contemplated walking the 30 minutes back to the bnb, but Daddy instead wanted to take the bus with our unused tickets from this morning, so we did that instead. Taking the bus did save us a lot of walking, so we all got back to the room happier. Right now Daddy is discussing a broken refrigerator back at home with David... save the pasta!!