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| I'm not sure what this was, but it stands next to the tower |
We left after 5 or 10 minutes, purchasing a key chain and a few post cards on the way out(the tower was in an area enclosed by an old Roman wall).
Since the guidebook we were using had said it was important to get to Florence early and it was already mid-morning, and we were two days ahead of schedule anyway since we skipped Milan, we decided to drive down to Rome and see what we could. Mr. Steves warns his readers of the headache of Roman driving and the dangers of parking, and he recommended a specific parking garage that was supposed to be comparatively safe. We put said parking garage in the gps and expected it to take us around the city on the beltway to the other side where this place was. Instead it took us right through the heart of Rome. It was insane, scary, fun, and indeed a great, glorious headache. The only thing one knew for sure was which direction traffic was moving and even of that I was uncertain at times. Lanes and traffic signals were completely disregarded and sometimes non-existent. We drove around for an hour or two, crossed the Tiber River 3 times, saw the Vatican, and never did find that parking garage.
Eventually, it got so late that we had to abandon the search and make our way to the hotel Mum had found for us which was in East Rome out beyond the beltway. This place also proved difficult to locate. We were in what seemed to me to be a rather sketchy area, and all we could find was a bar by the same name (Vitti). Finally, we parked as close as we could to the bar (a few blocks away) and Dad went to go check it out. After about 20 minutes of waiting in a very hot, stuffy car, Dad came back. We girls did NOT want to stay at this place as it appeared to mean that we would have to walk down a trashy street dragging all our food and luggage behind us and stay in what was probably a trashy little room over a bar. But Dad came back with good news. The hotel was quite nice and they really did have the parking that they had promised (it was a little parking garage underneath the building). We would have two rooms, each with their own bathroom and balcony, 4 floors above the bar. Dad took one room and we girls took the other. Ours had a much larger balcony and faced the street and the hills beyond the city.
After we got settled a bit, Dad and I went downstairs to talk to the guy at the front desk and ask him a few questions. He was nice and very helpful and recommended a pizzeria down the road. Dad and I walked there and it probably took 10 minutes each way, but it was nice and cool and not too crowded. The place was called Pizza & Coffee and was on a street corner. I believe it was family-owned + run, because there was an older man and woman and a younger man, though I think there were a few more people back in the kitchen. Only the woman spoke English and not much at that, but it just made the experience all the more real. They had lots of weird kinds of pizza and we ended up getting two large pizzas, one that was just cheese and one that was half hot dog and fries and half vegetarian (zucchini and pepper and stuff like that). The latter pizza was not particularly appetizing, but their cheese pizza was THE best pizza I have ever had. They also gave us four of each of two different sides for free. One was mozzarella sticks or something like it. it haad potato and cheese and was fried. They tasted okay, but the others were amazing! I don't know what they were or what was in them, but it was rather like rice and tomato or something fried. I loved it!
We took it all back to the hotel and ate it on our balcony which had a table and chairs. It was a nice end to a rather stressful day.
