36 Hours in Rome

Taking the train back from Bari, we arrived in Rome for our final day and a half before flying back to the US. We stayed at the Room Mate Filippo hotel, a new modern hotel near Piazza Barberini and the Spanish Steps. We had a wide variety of lodging on this trip, ranging from this boutique hotel to a top floor AirBnB to a cave! We've also stayed in a few different neighborhoods in Rome now, and all of them are good options. This location is a bit quieter, very convenient to the subway, and still walking distance to all of the main attractions.

The Altar of the Fatherland, complete with giant flag, welcoming us back to Rome!

Our room. Very modern!

The over-the-top lobby of our hotel.

We didn't do too much on this rainy evening. We had dinner at a tiny restaurant called Fraschetteria, just a few blocks from our hotel. When we say tiny, we do mean tiny - there were only four tables, one chef, and one waitress (the co-owners). The food was great. The power went off briefly during our meal, but luckily didn't seem to affect the tiny kitchen. We took a short post-dinner walk, stopping by Piazza Barberini and the Triton Fountain, and picking up some limoncello from a corner store. We then took in the view from the hotel rooftop before heading to bed.

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A lovely (but rainy) night in Rome.

Dinner time!

Cheese and meat board.

Date night in Rome!

The piazza near out hotel looked lovely in the rain.

Hotel rooftop views.

The next day, a Saturday, was our last full day in Rome. After breakfast, we walked to the Basilica Papale di Santa Maria Maggiore. This is the main church in Rome (keeping in mind St. Peter's is in the Vatican). We tried to visit on our last trip to Italy, but there was a massive line to get in. This time, during the winter and a pandemic, there were no crowds. This is a truly impressive church, with a variety of interesting art. It has a much older feel than St. Peter's, as it was originally founded in 432 and has extraordinarily well preserved 6th century mosaics. These mosaics served as the foundational art for the depiction of Mary and other figures.


After visiting the church, we went to a pharmacy to get our required COVID-19 test. It was a relatively easy process - we created an online account, got tested in a tent right outside the pharmacy, and a few hours later the results were available to us digitally, which we uploaded in the Delta app to pre-clear us to fly. David briefly considered bolting when he saw how far the swab vanished inside Paul's head...but reluctantly held his ground...the fight or flight reaction is one hell of a thing.


Our next stop was a museum not too far from our hotel, the Palazzo Barberini. This is a good museum if you're in to paintings. They did have a few interesting non-paintings, including a really old globe. Leaving the museum we walked to the Spanish Steps area and had a nice lunch at Dilla. After lunch we walked around some more, checking out the Trinita de Monti church at the top of the Spanish steps, having a quick espresso, and then returning to the hotel for a bit.

The soaring and expansive interior of the basilica.

Fascinating 6th century mosaics line the arches in front of the altar.

The mishmashed front of the basilica.

The Palazzo Barberini museum is an impressive complex.

Well that's interesting. Impressive marblework.

A really cool old globe in the museum.

The Spanish steps weren't exactly empty, but were WAY less busy than a pre-pandemic summer visit.

Lunch was delicious.

Wine in the morning, wine in the evening, wine at supper time...when you're in Italy, you can have wine anytime!

Plaza at the bottom of the Spanish steps.

In the late afternoon we took a taxi to Museo Centrale Montemartini. This fascinating museum is in a giant former power plant, opened in 1912 to supply power to the city. The plant closed in 1963, and the building re-opened as a museum in 1997. Many ancient Roman sculptures and artifacts are placed among the boilers and machinery. The temporary exhibit was a really cool collection of mosaics. After the museum, we walked to the nearby Basilica San Paolo, but we couldn't find a way inside, and assumed it was closed for the evening. 

From there we walked west and then north across the Tiber river to the Portuense neighborhood. Despite being only about 2.5 miles south of the historic center, this neighborhood is completely off the tourist radar. It's more of local residential and shopping neighborhood. We stopped by an AS Roma Store to buy some gifts, and then had a beer at Birifficio Marconi. This was a nice little brew pub with some interesting beers, including one with mint. Since we weren't near a subway or direct bus line, we caught a taxi back to our hotel (fighting quite a bit of traffic since it was a Saturday evening), and relaxed for a bit before dinner at Mazze. It was a good meal with a quirky waiter - would recommend.

Realistic fish mosaics from ancient Rome.

The museum has the pope's train!

Such a cool contrast between statues and machinery.

Marble and steel.

The bell tower of the basilica.

Happy hour!

We drove by Rome's Christmas tree in a taxi.

Our last dinner in Rome.

There's no upper limit to the amount of pasta we can eat, honestly....David made a tiktok about it!

Of course there was dessert...

Sunday morning we woke up around 7AM to start getting ready to go to the airport, but instead awoke to notifications that our flight had been delayed 5 hours. Our plane was just leaving New York City on its way to Rome. On the one hand this was not ideal because we wouldn't end up back in our home in Atlanta until after midnight, but on the other hand it gave us an extra half day in Rome. The weather was the most cooperative of the entire trip - a cloudless, sunny, cool Sunday morning. After a leisurely breakfast at the hotel we set off on a meandering multi-hour walk passing many sights including the Trevi Fountain, Roman Forum, and Colosseum. We also entered the Basilica de Santa Maria in Ara Coeli, a 12th century church that is a bit hidden behind the massive Altar of the Fatherland. We also walked back by the AirBnB we had stayed at earlier in the trip, and stopped by the store across the street to pick up some more biscotti to take home. After grabbing all of our stuff from the hotel, we went to the airport and flew home to Atlanta, with some nice sunset views of the Italian and French coasts.

Trevi fountain on a Sunday morning.

David taking in the view.

The interior of Basilica di Santa Maria in Ara Coeli.

After raining all week, of course it was a brilliant sunny day right when we had to leave. 😂

The Campidoglio, or Capitoline Hill.

One last walk by the Pantheon.

Monaco in the foreground, and Nice in the background.

We've been to Rome a few times now, and it's no surprise that we love this city! There are still museums, neighborhoods, and attractions we'd love to return to visit. Until next time, Ciao, Roma!

More Road Tripping Around Puglia

Continuing our rental car road trip around Puglia, after lunch in Putignano we didn't have any concrete plans. Checking the weather and some driving times, we decided to head northeast to the Adriatic coast. It was about a 35 minute drive to our first stop, the Museo Nazionale Archeologico di Egnazia. This is a surprisingly large museum, but is not very popular (at least not on the day we visited) - we were the only patrons. The museum had a nice introductory video that was only in Italian. No problem with modern technology - David stood by the speaker and had his phone live translate into English! We spent some time exploring exhibits about the ancient city of Egnazia, which was occupied from the 16th century BCE until around the 13th century CE. Outside the museum was the necropolis, where visitors are able to enter a few tombs. There's also archeological remains of the city itself nearby, but it was closed to visitors on the day we visited.

Leaving the museum we made a quick stop at the coast to take in some views of the sea. This area has a number of beaches and small resorts that are probably popular in summer, but in winter it was very quiet. We enjoyed watching the surf on the rocks for a while, then went to our car to drive back to Alberobello. On the way back we got stopped at some train tracks for about 20 minutes while a couple of passenger trains passed. Luckily there was a local waiting there in her car too, otherwise we might have turned around and tried to find another crossing since we weren't sure how long it would be closed.

Scenic drive through old stone walls and groves of trees.

Coming over the top of a hill we got a panoramic view of the Adriatic Sea.

David translating the video on his phone.

Remnants of a mosaic.

The museum was really well organized and looked like it was recently updated.

Overview of the necropolis.

Inside a tomb, with some wall decorations still visible.

Walking down into the tomb.

A lot of the area looked like this - pleasant farms with twisted olive trees.

David on the coast.

There's our car! Not much traffic around these parts.

Another bucolic view. Love those walls and olive trees.

Back in Alberobello we walked around a bit - it was much quieter than the previous day, since it wasn't a holiday. The town is quite charming at night with all of the lovely Christmas lights. We had dinner at Casa Nova, which was in the barrel-vaulted basement of an old building. It's definitely a touristy spot, but the food was good and the space was unique. We ordered a regional sampler plate to get a taste of some local foods.

The streets were much less busy than during the holiday.

A nutcracker in the rain.

David enjoying the atmosphere.

Did we mention Alberobello at Christmas is adorable?

The regional sampler plate. Can you guess all of the foods?

More orecchiette and some olive gnocchi.

Could you imagine an American restaurant bringing out a giant knife on a board?

The next morning, we left Alberobello in our rental car heading back to Bari to catch a train to Rome. On the way, we stopped in the city of Conversano, about a 30 minute drive away. We didn't spend too much time here, but it was a cute little town. We wandered around the historic center, which was pretty quiet since it was still morning. Christmas decorations were being set up around town. We walked by the city's castle, saw the inside of the 11th century cathedral, and the Monastery of San Benedetto. Exploring these little towns in Puglia with hardly anyone else around was really interesting.

Coca-cola Santa and beer reindeer.

The imposing castle on the edge of the old city.

Just a cat hiding in a castle wall.

A Christmas market - we wish we were here at night when it's open.

Yay, Christmas tree.

An impressive side door of the cathedral.

Conversano's cathedral on a quiet morning.

The inside of the cathedral.

Some old art in the cathedral.

A pretty fork in the road.

The monastery's bell tower and dome have colored tiles on top.

The inside of the monastery is small but impressive.

The morning light in the interior of the monastery's chapel.

Bye bye, Conversano!

After visiting Conversano, we drove to the Bari airport and dropped off our rental car, officially ending the "road trip" portion of our vacation. Bari has a nice train from the airport into town, so we took that straight to the main train station to await our train back to Rome.

We present proof that not all meals in Italy are great - train station pizza! Actually it was OK.

Another rainy train ride.

Next up - one more full day in Rome before we fly home.