Rome Honeymoon – Day 5

Today was another early start and jam packed day of sightseeing with a 45 minute journey to today’s first activity. I had booked us tickets for the Colosseum for 10:30, again somewhere I was recommended to book skip the line tickets for. Rome really wasn't as busy this time of year as some of the photos I have seen so it wasn't really necessary as there was barely a queue anyway.

We got in and had a look around and walked around the whole Colosseum. In hindsight, I wish I had paid for a tour here as it gives you access to extra areas and we would have had a better idea of what we were looking at but it was still great to see all the same. I remember when I went to see the Statue of Liberty and was very underwhelmed, it looked tiny compared to what I expected. The Colosseum was not like that, it was huge and was exactly what I had hoped it would be.

Our ticket also included access to the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill so afterwards we headed across the road here. There was quite a big queue for this and it was really warm and there wasn't any shade. An attendant came up to us and said we could skip the queue as I was pregnant, so she let me in a side gate and then James got to go to a shorter queue. It was a bit pointless really as I still had to then wait about 15 minutes in the blazing sun for James to get through. It would have been better if we had gone in together but it saved us a bit of time anyway. In here, it was really nice looking around at various ruins and climbing up high to get a great view over the city. By this point through we hadn't eaten or had anything to drink for hours so we were getting a bit tired.

We left the area and went to find food and found a place called Pizza Forum. I had risotto and James tried Gnocci for the first time. I think this place was a chain restaurant but it did the trick and we could finally have a drink and a sit down. 

I really wanted to visit the ‘mouth of truth’ or Bocca della Veritá so looking on the map this wasn’t too far from where we were. We hopped on a bus and found the church. There was a queue for a photo but we must have only waited about 15 minutes in total and it was shaded. You could pop a donation in the pot if you wanted, but essentially this attraction was free and it was fun to get a photo.

We still had some time to kill in the afternoon so we headed to the Baths of Caracalla. We only had about an hour here as they closed but it was quite cheap to get in and was good to see a proper Roman Bath set up.

This put us at about an hour from our apartment, so we made the journey back and got freshened up for dinner. James found a place on Tripadvisor called Tommi's Burger Joint so we thought we would give it a try. It was really good. Similar to Five Guys I would say. Service was fast and there was loads of different sauces and toppings you could add to your burger free of charge, Probably one of the best burgers I have had in a while and a great atmosphere too.

Rome Honeymoon – Day 4

We woke up early again today to head to Vatican City. Luckily we were only 5 minutes from here so we didn’t have to get up quite as early as the day before. It was recommended to me that we get skip the line tickets as queues can be as long as 4 hours! So I pre-booked these online before we went for 9:30am, just after opening time. Turns out being pregnant means you can pretty much skip any line anyway - but it was good to have a backup plan. 

The Vatican museum was vast and had different areas. I think we managed to explore it all. It was great to end up at the Sistene Chapel to see the famous Michaelangelo ceiling. You weren't allowed to take photos in there however. We ended up walking absolutely miles this day, mainly around the museum.

After our morning of exploring, we decided to grab some lunch. I once had a friend tell me he bought 2 gelatos and 2 drinks in Vatican City and it was something ridiculous like €60, so we left the area and went and found somewhere local to our apartment in Borgo. We found a place that had been recommended by many other bloggers and vloggers called Pizzeria Bonci. When we got there we could see it was very popular as the queue was huge. We took a ticket and awaited our turn in line. The counter was stacked with many different types of pizza with all different toppings including broccoli, potato and then your standard pizzas too. You choose what pizzas you want, and how big and then you pay for them according to weight. It's a great idea. We had 3 fairly large pieces each and it was just over €20. They box it up for you and you can then take it away and eat it as there isn't much seating outside.

We then went and got our first Gelato of the trip from Old Bridge Geletaria, which was absolutely delicious and a huge 3 scoop cone was only €4!

For the afternoon, I had plans for us to head back to the area of Piazza del Popolo, Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon and Piazza Navona so we could wander in our own time but I think the previous day had caught up with us so instead we just chilled out at the apartment for a few hours before dinner.

We both had a bit of an upset stomach (we think it was the pizza, as it is sat out and then re-heated when you order) so we stayed in for dinner and cooked bolognaise jacket potatoes.