I think the highlight of our entire trip to Italy was our Roman Food Tour. We were exhausted after our Colosseum & Roman Forum tour, but managed to get a small lunch, then make our way back to our apartment with enough time for a small nap (& grocery shopping) before our big 4 hour food tour.
We met our wonderful guide in front of the "turtle" fountain. The kids had to look for the turtles, but they found them.
This tour was a blast. Our tour guide walked us through the streets of Rome & took us to 7 different locations to try some of the best foods Rome had to offer. Just walking up & down the streets was amazing, but adding food to that experience was even better.
Our first stop was in the Jewish Quarter of Rome. All the restaurants there serve fried artichoke as an appetizer. I've never had fried artichoke before so I was excited.
The kids weren't too sure about it, but amazingly enough, they loved them. Craiger said they tasted like a giant french fry.
After enjoying our artichoke, we made our way to an amazing butcher shop in the middle of a beautiful square. It was a tiny little shop that specialized in meats & cheeses of Italy. Bladen was fascinated by all the dried meats hanging from the ceiling. I thought it was SO fun to see something totally new to me.
Here they let us sample four huge trays of different meats & cheeses. The cheese was my favorite part of course (what's not to love about fresh Parmesan?), but the meats were really good too. Some had truffle (the kids loved the truffle meat), some had pepper & hot spices, & others were basic salami type meats. All of them were delicious.
That area of Rome was really beautiful. It opened up into a big square with a big fountain in the center. We let the kids play around there for a bit while the grown ups finished up the meat & cheese platter.
The kids also found another water fountain so they filled up their water bottles & played in the water a bit.
Then we were off to our next restaurant.
Next on the menu. . . . pizza. Our guide took us to this adorable little mom & pop shop that has been making pizzas for a hundred years. The Roman pizza is NOT like American pizza at all. Some doesn't even have cheese. . . just a cracker like crust & sauce.
They brought us the sauce pizza to try as well as a typical margherita pizza with mozzarella cheese.
We also had a bunch of arm wrestling at the pizza place too. The kids were cracking me up. Olive "beat us all." ;-)
The kids really really loved this part of the tour. I think it's a law that kids love pizza. They ate SO much pizza.
And then we were off again. The sun was beginning to set & it was beautiful.
We found yet another fountain & our guide showed us the "trick" Italians use with these fountains. They don't normally fill up water bottles here (that's a tourist thing). They plug the fountain stream & it squirts the water up out of a small hole in the top, making it a literal drinking fountain. All the kids wanted to try which eventually turned into the kids trying to squirt the water has high & far as they could to land in Uncle Talon's mouth.
After water fun, we made our way to an adorable little pasta restaurant. It wasn't overly busy & it was almost hidden. It truly was a diamond in the rough. Not many tourists come here, just locals so they were excited to share their delicious food with us.
The kids were excited to be "fancy" with their wine glasses of water.
"Clink, clink!"
I love "scary Cadence" in the background.
Everyone enjoyed dinner. They served us carbonara which is the traditional Roman pasta, & some spaghetti with meat sauce. They also served us an amazing bean soup which everyone HATED except for me. I ate ALL the bowls of the bean soup. It was AMAZING.
Night had fallen by the time we left the restaurant. Rome is so beautiful at night.
Our next stop was the famous Italian dessert: Tiramisu
We aren't coffee drinkers, but we learned that not all Tiramisu has coffee inside. This little shop had traditional Tiramisu, but also had strawberry, caramel, chocolate, & pistachio.
I got the strawberry & it was beyond delicious.
All the kids & adults LOVED the Tiramisu!
After enjoying our first dessert of the evening, we made our way to a cute little cafe where we had the choice of drinking a Roman coffee, cappachino, or a hot chocolate. Most of us got the hot chocolate & it was SO THICK you could eat it with a spoon. It was amazing!
The kids were thoroughly enjoying it when Trek accidentally dropped his hot chocolate & the cup shattered on the cobblestone below. Not only did it shatter, but the chocolate itself jumped up into the air & landed perfectly on poor Craiger & Bridger. Bridger was covered from the waist/arm down, but Craiger got it smack dab in the center of his face. Both kids were good sports about it & we couldn't help but laugh. Always an adventure right?
And last, but not least on our tour, we stopped for double scoops of gelato from a well known gelato shop there in Rome. The kids were SUPER excited about this one.
I was happy because I got to have my ananas (pineapple) gelato which is my very favorite. It's hard to find so I was thrilled to get 2 whole scoops.
We said good-bye to our tour guide & started the journey back to our hotel. The kids played ninja while the parents talked about what the best way to get back to the hotel would be.
We decided to walk back a little bit so we could see the Pantheon at night. The Pantheon is one of my favorite buildings in Rome. I love that it is circular in shape (but rectangle from the entrance), I love the hole in the ceiling for light to come in, & I love the beautiful columns in front of the entrance. It was closed this late at night, but it was fun to see it in the dark.
Then we piled back on the bus & headed back toward our hotel.
But the weirdest thing happened while riding the bus. . . the bus driver pulled over to the side of the road (about 10 minutes into our ride) & literally kicked everyone off the bus.
"I want to go home. Get off my bus."
There were several people on the bus still & he made everyone get off on this random street nowhere near where we wanted to get off. And then he drove off in his empty bus. It was so bizarre.
The kids were exhausted, the adults were tired, we just wanted to get home. But we wound up having to walk another mile or two back to our hotel from where we got kicked off. Luckily, we did get to see the Vatican & St. Paul's Basilica on our way back.
We finally made it home to our apartment, got everyone showered (because we sweat so much during the hot day), & in bed.
Day 4 we were to travel to Pisa & Florence so Trek started working on bus & train routes as soon as we got the kids in bed . . .
Turns out, there was to be a transportation strike the next morning starting at 8:30. No busses or taxis would be running. How on EARTH were we going to get to the train station without busses or taxis?
Trek started texting taxis at 1 in the morning desperately trying to find someone willing to drive 19 people from our hotel to the train station so we could get to Pisa. We had told everyone they'd get to sleep in on Day 4, but if we didn't find a way to the train station, we might have a MUCH earlier start than originally planned.
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