I'll start where I left off yesterday after my nap! We did go for a gelato - I had mango and chocolate which was rich with flavour. It was getting close to supper so we skipped the patio and came back here to get ready for dinner. We went to a little hole in the wall about a 15 minute walk from here with some traditional Italian dishes on the menu.
Carm had spezzatino which was veal & peas - he loved it! June had a much enjoyed beef dish with arugula. Anthony had stewed rabbit which was moist and flavourful. I had… wait for it… TRIPE! It was on my list of things to try so I can cross it out and never have to eat it again! The taste was fine but I found it incredibly rich and faced with a giant plate over-flowing with food was a bit overwhelming. I ate about half. Plus we shared a plate of cacio pepe - third time having it here, this one was the best.
Back at the apartment I got some snacks ready for our picnic while Carm cracked open a bottle of prosecco to celebrate the anniversary of our first date! We scandalized June and Anthony with the story of our beginnings and had a lot of laughs 😉
We tried to have an early night as today was another crack of dawn morning, but I didn't have a lot of luck with sleep again… I eventually fell asleep but was wide awake at 4am. My sleep schedule is totally f'd and all these sleepless nights are eventually going to crash my mental health but there’s not much I can do - missing my sleep aid from home!
So awake at 4… stay in bed until 6… get up and out the door by 6:45am… final destination: the Appian Way! The coffee shop that we were aiming for wasn't open so we continued on to the bus stop, passing an open cafe on our way. Carm and I missed seeing the cream puff things (I'm not even going to try to remember the name of it as I'm still groggy from a long nap), so had an Italian style croissant which of course has some other name.
We ended up waiting for the bus in the wrong spot so missed the first one… found the right stop and waited 20 minutes for the next bus. It was a quick bus ride to the start of the Appian Way - we got out right at the beginning, walking down a narrow and somewhat busy road with high stone walls for what seemed like ages, before the traffic died down and the walls shrunk.
As we walked, the landscape started opening up in front of us. We passed wide open fields with the city in the distance and the mountains on the horizon. The path was dotted with ancient ruins. It was bucolic. We mostly walked on uneven cobblestones but there were stretches of huge rocks that required a lot of attention to avoid twisting an ankle - why didn't I take a photo?
There were private estates dotted along the road with high gates, set in acres of land. I wonder how many billions of dollars you'd need to live in this amazing spot! As the day wore on, more and more bicycles whizzed by, and we were even passed by a few horses!
The weather was perfect, slightly cool with not a cloud in the sky! Perfect for a 5.5km walk following the path of the Roman legions from years gone by. The air was thick with history and the scent of flowering hedges. Wild poppies dotted the fields with red, perhaps representative of the blood of soldiers.
We walked on and on until we hit the road where we could catch a bus back - sadly the bus stop was over a km down a narrow and busy road, but we made it in one piece. Actually, there were lots of times where I flattened myself against the high wall to avoid being crushed by a speeding car.
Carm was happy to have made the journey - we almost skipped doing the walk, which would have been a shame as that's partially why we chose Rome for this trip! It was on his bucket list! I enjoyed myself immensely, often walking ahead of everyone, lost in the atmosphere. My brain was busy watching my step and taking it all in, no space for the distraction of conversation. I find that's often the way for me - I don't have the brain cycles for everything all at once! Not to mention, in much of the walk it was very much single file, praying to not be hit by a car!
The early start got us ahead of the crowds and the heat. Our way to the bus was peaceful with hardly any tourists - on our walk back we had to press through thick crowds to get from the bus to our apartment. We made a quick stop into a little grocery store for a few things for lunch, making it back around noon! It's been a good strategy for us and even June & Anthony have been onboard with our pre-dawn alarms!
We all made our little lunches and then disbursed to our rooms. I may have been asleep before my head hit the pillow… I vaguely remember the noise of passing pedestrians under our window… I was asleep for almost 2 hours!
We haven't decided on a plan for tonight - I don't think we'll venture very far!
Ciao!
Awesome!
“everything everywhere!”
“the Apian Way!”
“another day with incredible weather”
No comments:
Post a Comment