...and Rome wasn't built in a day!

The second day in Rome was devoted to Vatican City. We booked tickets the night before, so we got to skip all the lines. Definitely worth it!

So there were 22 rooms to visit... but we made it all the way through. Here are a few pictures 

I fell in love with the ceilings.. they were beautiful!

There was a hall way full of head portraits.. 

Galleria Charamonti                    

In the courtyard with the bronze acorn

Entering the Gallery of Maps...

A close up of Positano :)                           

We got to see the Sistine Chapel as well.. Here is a picture of St. Peter's Basilica. We arrived in Rome right after they announced 2 more saints. We did not book tickets for this.. and there was no way we were going to wait in a line that wrapped all the way around the square. But it sure was nice from the outside! 

We still had a little more time and energy left so we visited the bridge of angels and the Castle of S. Angelo. 

Cute allies inside the castle

  and cute allies outside the castle :)               

 Great view at the top!

I didn't realize it at the time, but the bridge and castle also feature in Angels & Demons. I highly recommend re-reading this before and/or after you visit. It is so cool to remember everything!

After being tourist, we retired to the hotel and got ready for dinner. While we do like to venture out and see and do new things.... I have found that we tend to be creatures of habit with dinner spots, we went to the same place for dinner again. It was so good the first night and she said they had fresh fish the next day, so we couldn't resist! haha Jeff is still raving about the salmon pasta that he had that night. It was delicious! and it even inspired our next day activities, we visited a food market and booked a food tour. 

Here are a few pictures from the Roman food market... We tasted some Italian Wine. I shouldn't be surprised but I had no idea there were 29 regions of wine production. One of new favorites is Primivito from around Rome. 

Look at the all the varieties of sun dried tomatoes!

Lunch was tasty. We got to try some new food and 

had a violinist playing some music and           

not hassling us for money!                

That evening we went on the food tour. Our guide was originally from the UK, so her english was great. She moved to Venice about 9 years ago and hasn't left Italy since. 

The first stop on the tour was a local place that served a fried artichoke and a glass of bubbly. She said the artichoke was in season this time of the year and was a typical Roman appetizer.  

The second stop was probably my favorite.. we went down several floors to a wine cellar in a restaurant. In Rome they don't tear down building, rather just modify the interior to fit the current purpose. This place has been a synagog, a school, a home, and now a restaurant. The cellar was really cool. They served us the house red wine... and I would have thought it was a $90 bottle of wine, it was great.  They also served lentils, meatballs, and some cheese for snacks. 

 

The third stop was to a place that sells biscuits. In Rome, a biscuit is the same thing as a cookie. This place was pretty cool and was another example of how the business had been passed down from generation to generation. They had a custom built oven in the store and have truly perfected great cookies. Our guide also pointed out how this place had no sign... the ultimate compliant to Romans is to have a successful business and get all business through word of mouth. 


To keep the mix of sweet and savory, our next stop on the tour was a local butcher and cheese shop. I always thought that the parmesan cheese was famous in Italy, but in Rome it is more likely that the cheese is to be made from goat's milk. In this shop, one brother operated the store and the other ran the goat farm 50 miles away.

The 5th stop on the tour was to try some street food. It was basically fried tomato rice with a ball of mozzarella in the middle.

The 6th stop was for some PIZZA! We got a behind the scenes view and saw the kitchen. The pizza served by slice is on the long dough that you see in this picture. 

This pizza shop is one of the few that still makes it the traditional way. The oven is unique in the fact that they burn hazelnut shells instead of wood. The hazelnut is a byproduct, so it is ego friendly, cheap, and easier to maintain the ashes and keep the oven clean. 

This place also sells bread to all the restaurants in the area, including our next stop on the tour! 

The next stop was a place that served some pasta. We got to try 3 different kinds and all were very tasty. It was served family style and we had house white wine to go with it. 

The very last stop was to try some gelato. As you may have heard, gelato is big business in Italy and we had a test to pass at the end of this tasting haha.  She said that 80% of the gelato in Rome was fake and told us way to pick out the real stuff from the fake. 

A few other fun facts we learned while on the tour 
- Italians don't eat until around 9pm for dinner
- Italian food is all about going back to basics, with simple and few ingredients
- We saw several pictures of the Virgin Mary in allies or over windows. When the Roman Empire fell the crime rate was really high. To help reduce crime, these paintings were placed all over the city. The thought process was that no one would commit a crime under the eyes of the virgin Mary. Unfortunately, that does not hold today as we saw numerous signs to watch out for bag thefts. 

Overall - We were absolutely stuffed at the end of the tour but it was one of our favorite things we did here. Our tour guide was great and we got to taste some amazing food. A food tours will definitely be on our list the next visit back to Italy.