Hey all.
I am really damn tired today. It was fun, but it was a TON of walking around. Not a bad thing but like I said, tuckered. Three days of miles and miles of walking will do that to a body.
Lads on Tour
My mate George, from Super St. Albans, is visiting Italy for a couple of days. His birthday was Monday. Today was our day out on the town in Italy. It was a lot of laughs, a lot of made up facts, and a lot of insight on just how much I learned since the first day.
First things first, we had breakfast. We went to a caffe bar and had brioche. I also had an espresso because, while it was nearly 11 am, it was going to be a long day.
The closest thing to George's hotel was the Pantheon, so we went there next. There were tons of tourists there, as per usual. I wondered briefly if I would ever do anything at the Pantheon besides take pictures outside of it and go in search of leather in the shops nearby. No time for that now, more stuff do do.
The next thing we did was get distracted by a sign advertising "American-style" pancakes. I announced that I was hungry again, and we got a table outside to tuck in to second breakfast.
They're a little small for American pancakes, but they will do.
I decided that the first major sites we were going to were the Forum and the Colosseum. They are close to each other, one ticket gets into both, and they are both pure concentrated tourist Roman history. Our first stop was the Imperial Forum, where we started out our tourist game strong, with pictures by all the major monuments along the way. George suggested that we try to get our picture taken with a stranger, when a ten-year-old kid walked by. He was wearing shorts that were slightly shorter than what I am used to on boys, was not wearing a shirt, and had the smile and stride of someone excited to be in the Forum. George and I looked at each other, and then I choked on the sip of water I had just taken laughing.
Our next stop before heading to luch was the Colosseum. In Rome, if you get a ticket for the Forum for 12 euros, it includes entry to the Colosseum and allows you to skip this:
The line on the right for tickets went for a quarter mile pretty sure.
We immediately climbed up the stairs and got a great view of the whole thing after we elbowed past a couple posing like the pictures they were taking were going to be on the cover of magazines. I got to talk a bit about the cool trap doors, and George got to talk about Spartacus the TV show.
After that, we headed to the area where ACCENT is to get some lunch. It was about 3 o clock. We could not find the place where I am pretty sure they served corn dogs. I couldn't find it, so we gave up and got traditional Italian sit-down lunch instead. Pizza and buccatini.
Lunch was conveniently close to the Frigidarium, so we went to get some good gelato. A small at the Frigidarium is 2 euro, so anything higher is a rip-off. That is my benchmark for good gelato. George got a medium with chocolate shell on it, and it melted faster than he could eat it. Small is the way to go. I feel like a cone is less messy than a cup, too, in a counterintuitive way: cups trap melted gelato, which will displace when you try to scoop it out and spill over the sides of the cup.
George's expression foretells impending disaster.
After we recovered from the messy gelato, we did some shopping. George did not want to bring his mum home something "too touristy," so a great deal of the shops that we could have gone to were out. We finally went to the Tiger store, which is a pretty great place. It is like IKEA, but only the knickknack section of it. I picked up some gifts and some stuff for myself...
Biggest regret: not getting this metallic blue fanny pack.
We also went to a candle store before going to dinner. We decided to make dinner a four-course affair, starting with bruschetta, going to the pasta course, then the meat course, then the dessert course. All of it was really good, but there was a lot of everything.
Pictured: a lot of steak, a lot of coke, and waaaay more sparkling water than I've seen anyone drink in my lifetime.
Dessert was an option of tiramisu or... something not tiramisu. We just snap ordered a tiramisu. This was tiramisu as I have never had it before. Usually, it is layers of custard stuff and ladyfingers soaked with espresso, covered with some sort of dark cocoa powder. This time, the custard and ladyfingers was topped with a shot of espresso instead. It was good, but much mushier. If this is authentic, I prefer the mainstream version. Maybe I'm just a wuss.
George suggested gelato after dinner, but I was full and tired. I decided to end the day as it started: with a shot of espresso.
Tune in tomorrow for the long-awaited and much-hyped Pompeii entry.
Ciao!
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