Well, we’re almost done with Rome. I haven’t uploaded all the pictures yet, so I’ll just hit yesterday’s events in today’s post. It was a lot of fun, and a lot of walking!
The Pantheon and Museo Nazionale Romano
We hit two major sites yesterday – The Pantheon and the National Museum of Rome. The Pantheon is about a fifteen minute walk from our hotel – if you’re a healthy young adult. With a stroller on the streets of Rome everything was a little bit of and adventure – including finding a place to feed the baby. Let’s just say McDonalds is a welcome sight in any country.
Anyway, it was weird seeing Baby M in the Pantheon. She is tiny and six months old, it is huge and two thousand years old. What a contrast.
I think the Pantheon is an amazing piece of architecture, and one of the highlights of Rome. In fact, Rome is great for anyone who likes architecture. I’m a little less impressed with the art museums. Before we hit one, we had lunch at a Rick Steve’s recommendation, Cul de Sac, which was on a busy street near the Piazza Navona with no cul de sac in sight. I had a purported Roman specialty, Cacio e Pepe pasta, which is basically a cheese and pepper sauce. It did not disappoint.
Then of course we had to go to Giolitti Gelato which Jess and I hit on our honeymoon four years ago. I was pretty full so I took a picture with Baby M on the Piazza Navona instead.
Jess and my sister, on the other hand, did not leave Giolitti’s disappointed.
After gelato, Baby M took her first cab ride. Italians LOVE babies and were very helpful in terms of her getting strapped in. She slept through it – she always misses the fun stuff. We went to the National Museum of Rome which is by our hotel. It had some neat sculptures but I wasn’t too blown away. I was also pretty tired at this point.
After all that, Baby M took a much needed nap.
After the nap, we went out for one of my favorite dinners of the trip thus far. I had Pizza Margherita which is what I order 50% of the time, my brother in law got this cool fettucini dish with a boiled lobster on top, my sister got this Calzone thingie that was more like a sandwich, and Jess got a white pizza with arugula and prosciutto. Yum! Baby M played with all our leftover pizza crusts, although unfortunately I didn’t capture it on film.
Final Thoughts
For those of you who are parents, I can hear your voices in my head. Isn’t that too much stuff in one day for an infant? Isn’t Baby M overtired? Jet-lagged? Why, yes she is, yes she is very much. Nighttime has been very…strenuous. We are working on it and I will get to that later.
Still despite the…strenuousness…we (or at least I) are having a lot of fun. How cool is it that the first solid food Baby M has touched is pizza crust in Italy? Also, Italians are gaga for babies, including the men, so the locals are keeping Baby M entertained and happy. We’ve also taken measures to work on the sleep situation, which I’ll hit on later in the trip (since who knows if they’ll work!?). When we decided to take this trip, we decided that in the worst case scenario, we’d still be in Italy. It’s nowhere close to the worst case scenario and we’re still in Italy, so that’s pretty awesome. Plus, as you’ve probably gathered, there are two grandparents and an aunt and an uncle here helping out, so it’s all good.
Other posts in this series: