Day 1 – Our First Evening of Rome New Year’s Vacation — Pantheon for Dinner

For our Rome New Year’s 2015 vacation, we took an evening flight from Chicago to Frankfurt; we had a few hour layover and caught a Lufthansa to Rome. We arranged with our hotel, Hotel Artemide, to meet us with a mini van and take us straight to the hotel.

We checked into some really nice rooms right away. They were newly refurbished.

From there we went for an evening walk. We started at the Spanish Steps, we enjoyed seeing the crowds of people shopping along Via Borgogona, Via del Corso, and Via del Frattina. We sneaked through Galleria Alberto Sordi and walked over to the Trevi Fountain.

It was under construction. That was okay, we still threw coins into the empty pool area. We stopped by the near by Gelati place for a snack. We continued our walk over to the Pantheon, then headed over to the Colosseum and Imperial Forum. All really nice at night. The Christmas lights were beautifully decorating the streets and people were out, everywhere — Sunday night in Rome is a busy time!

We had dinner at Scusate il Ritardo on Parthanon Square. We ate outside; it was cold. The waiters were really friendly and funny. We then headed back to the hotel. We went to the top floor and had desert in the very nice hotel bar area.

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Day 2 – Colosseum and Forum

For Monday, the weather was cold, high 40. We walked from the hotel, to the Roman Forum and then we queued up for the Colosseum. The line was 45 minutes long; the ticket windows are awkwardly place — wishing we had done tickets in advanced.

We enjoyed walking through the Colosseum, first its museum and its two levels. We stayed a surprisingly long time. Then we used our tickets and entered the Roman Forum. We climbed up to the Paletion / Paletine Hill — great place for pictures. We walked through the rest of the forum and exiting up some stairs out through an area that used to be wide open (back when we visited 10 years ago).

We walked over to the Pantheon, went inside and took pictures. It was a nice time of day, mid afternoon.  One square away, we stumbled upon the Eglise Saint-Louis-des-Francais; its a French church that had a beautiful Caravaggio painting.  We saw for the first time, a coin-fed timed light switch: you put an euro in the box and soft lighting is turned on the painting — good for photos.  We saw this in a few other churches.

We walked over to Piazza Navona — it was a very nice holiday decorated public space.  We paused for a late light lunch at the  Risorante Vacanze Romane cafe.  From there we continued our walk, stopping at the  Roma Memories tourist spot on Via Dei Pastini and got him a scarf — it was cold.  We were tempted by and ended up buy crepes at Gelateria Blue Ice on Via dele Muratte, then each got a Macaroons from La Durée on Via Borgognona.  And finally Mike and I got belts and I got a wallet from Pier Caranti near the Spanish Steps.

On the way back to our hotel, we stopped at the Church of San Silvestro in Capite — very old.  Nice.

For dinner, we walked over to the Santa Cristina on via della Cordonata al Quirinale.  We went here on based on Tripadvisor reviews.  The family wanted me to write a good review on this place when we get back.

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Day 3 – The Vatican

Tuesday 12/30
For Tuesday, the weather was in the low to mid 30s; cold with lots of wind, but clear sky. We had a nice early breakfast and left for the Vatican at 8:30. We took the Metro from the nearby Republic stop we got off at the Ottaviano stop, which was closest stop to get to the Vatican Museum.

Thanks to Cathie, we got our tickets several weeks in advanced and skipped a very long, slow line.  We didn’t check our coats (good thing!) and proceeded to follow the full walking tour.   Our tickets  included a luncheon at 11am; we did it ok, but the food wasn’t all that good, the part that was good was that they guaranteed us a spot… which we really didn’t need, the cafeteria wasn’t that crowded.

We finished seeing the museum proper and then entered the highlight of the tour, the Sistine Chappel.  Some of us were able to sneak pictures, was was really beautiful.  Afterwards remember the guards shouting loudly Silencio! No, no, no!  To save a bunch of steps, we exited thru the tour group door which had a direct path to St Peter’s — the coat check was a long far ways away, it was good we kept our coats.

We toured St Peters, we saw the new St John-Paul II chapel, went to St Peter’s crypt below (cool!), we bought post cards, walked out onto St Peter’s Square then left the Vatican.

We walked back to the Ottaviano Metro stop, stopped at a friendly Italian language only cafe called Ritrovo la Dolce Vita, on Viale Giulio Cesare and had hot chocolate and tea.  We had a very nice and very long day at the Vatican.  We were tired and a little cold, but that was ok.

We rode the Metro back to the hotel, took a two hour break then went out for dinner.  We originally planned to go to the Il Gabriello on Via Vittoria near the Spanish Steps.  It was all full, but they referred us to the nearby Casa Conti, located on a dark alleyway near Il Gabriello.

We were glad we came!  It was like we were eating in someone’s home. Our group of 6 were sitting at the kitchen table.  Our food was prepared just a few steps away.  The menu was pre-set — we all had the same 3 courses.  The restaurant was the home of a famous artist, Claudio Conti. He told us his story, showed us some of his work. He was proud of a recent magazine article feature.  He autographed a post card; He said it was worth more than our dinner.  Credit cards weren’t accepted; we had the cash, but he offered to let us come back the next day to pay.  We were glad we came!

From here, we walked over to the Spanish Steps, found an ATM machine and every got paid back!

We then took the Metro back to the hotel and had desert on the top floor of the hotel.  Great day!

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Day 4 – Ostia Antica and New Years Eve

Wednesday, 12/31. Sometime on Tuesday, I don’t remember when, we realized that if we were going to Ostia Antica, we had to do it today, New Years Eve.  We checked with the front desk of the hotel and confirmed that everything would be open.  So after a nice early breakfast, we set off for Ostia Antica.

It was a cold (low 30s) and windy day.  The coldest day by far of our visit.  We walked over to the Termini train station, got on the Metro B line to Piramide, changed to the C line (Roma-Lido line).  The Ostia Antic stop was about 8 stops from the Piramide station.  We walked over the pedestrian bridge straight to the entrance to the archaeological site.  8 euro per person, 1.50 euro each way for train fare.

We arrived at 10am, walked through most of the site by 2pm; we had lunch at the cafe, then we went to the gift store. They sell some excellent picture books that have photos of the ruins, with plastic overlays to show what the building looked like 2000 years ago. The book was excellent. We bought it and then walked back through the city and found sites pictured in the book and compared the original/present day views. Very interesting! 

We took the same train back.  Eek!  The ticket machine was broken — it couldn’t print tickets.  It automatically open the gates for us to get on the train, just in time for the next train.  We rode back, but it was late in the afternoon and the trains were full (packed!) with people going into Rome for New Years.  We made it back, but it was getting dark, and we were afraid we were going to get separated in the truly overflowing train cars.

After we got back, we went shopping some more.  Liane bought a purse and Mike and I bought coats all from the tailor shop (Mazal on via Quattro Fontane) across from the hotel.  This place would only accept a credit card with a chip — good thing Cathie was there with her card.

We were lucky to get early dinner reservations at Berzitello Ristorante — we made reservations for 5:45pm.  By the time we were seated, the restaurant was turning away people; they were booked for the reset of the New Years Eve evening.  We had a full four course meal, the food was good.

We bought a bottle of Prosecco, a traditional cake, and some styrofoam cups from the nearby grocery store.  Surprise! Our hotel put a bottle of Prosecco in our room! Our plan was to celebrate New Years Eve at the Colosseum.  We hung out in our rooms until 11:15 then went walking.  The streets were really crowded, but we were still able to make it the Via del Fori Imperiali the street that goes directly in front of the Colosseum.  

The fireworks were just to the right of the Colosseum over the pillars of the Roman Forum; there was a second show going on the same time behind us. The view was great and the crowd was rowdy.  Nearby people were setting off their own fireworks.  There were several vendors selling bottles of Prosecco.  The fireworks were really good, much like we’d see at a full Forth of July celebration.  Everyone cheered!

Getting back to the hotel was a challenge.  The crowds were pushing really hard, and we thought it was safest to stand off to the side and let the people traffic die down a little.  We walked back Via Cavour, then Via d Serpente, then to via Nazionale — the street our hotel is on.  We a paused for a final group picture at the Fontana di S. Maria de Monti.  We were back by 1:30

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Day 5 – Visit the Churches

Thursday, 1/1/2015. Buon Anno! Well, we planned on getting up normal time, but we were late coming down for breakfast.  That’s ok, they were serving breakfast anyway.  For New Years Day, lots of places were closed, so we planned on seeing churches.  On our way to our first church, we stopped and Liane bought herself some shoes.

First we saw Santa Maria della Vittoria — this is the church that featured the beautiful Bernini statues.  We then posed for pictures in front of teh Fontana dell’Acqua Felice / Fountain of Moses.  Next we walked over to the Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martir; this church used to be the public space of a Roman Bath; it featured a really cool astronomical clock.

The church of the day, Santa Maria Maggiore, amazed us with its size and the beauty of its mosaic art work.  The church dates back to the 400s and pre-dates St Peter’s as the original pope’s church.  We had lunch at the Conte di Galluccio on via Veneto. Same place we ate at 10 years ago, but inside, not on the street.  We had  pizza and parma ham and cheese.  This was a very late lunch.  Would this spoil our dinner?

We enjoyed walking through the nicely lite Piazza Navona — the Obelisco Agonale at the center of the plaza was featuring an animated holiday season light show.  From there we walked over to the St Augustine church in Campo Marzio behind the Piazza Navona; it’s a church that features a Raffael fresco and a Caravaggio painting.

We then walked over to the Campo Fiori and had drinks at the Mercato Hosaria cafe.  We sat outside, but under a heater with some wind-break partitions.  It was cold, but we were happy to sit there for a while.  Cold or not, we stopped for gelato nearby at the Flor Gelato Italiano shop on Piazza Campo de’ Fiori.

We walked along the Tibor river.  We got some nice photos of St Peter’s, Ponte Fabrico, and to top it off, we got some beautiful pictures of the lite-up Septimius Severus Arch in the Roman Forum.  We walked past the Piazza del Campidoglio, then back to our hotel.

We finally made it back to our hotel room.  It was 10pm at night and we decided to have light appetizers at the roof-top restaurant at the hotel.  We toasted our last night in Rome.

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Day 6 – Last Day in Rome

For Friday morning, our last breakfast before checking out, we had the usual; by now, the staff knows our favorite table and our breakfast beverage preferences.  We were sorry to go, the place was so nice.  We checked out at 9am, stored our luggage with the hotel and went out for some walking.

It was much warmer and sunny; no wind.  We walked over to the Il Convento dei Cappuccini.  We toured the really educational museum, then we walked through the frighteningly gruesome crypt — too many bones.  We finished walking through the church.  A little shell shocked, we moved on to the  Spanish Steps.

We helped Liz find the Star Shop Roma, a comic book store on Via Laurina, just south of Piazza del Popolo, just off of Via Del Corso.  We then walked over to the Piazze, saw the Obelisk and the twin churches of Santa Maria dei Miracoli (went inside) and Santa Maria dei Monte Santo.

We walked further down the Via del Corso and stopped briefly in the Basilica S. Giacomo.   Nearby on Via Borgognona, we tipped an excellent pair of opera singers —  they were just outside of Les Copains clothing store.  We got Mike a jacket from  Franceschini on Via del Corso.  We picked a gift for Hanna (she watched the cats) from Ladurée Roma on Via Borgognona.  We got Liz a purse and Cathie some gloves from Il Bisonte (Buffulo) on Via Borgognona. Nora got some boots from Camper, at the  base of the Spanish Steps in the Piazza di Spagnaa.

We had our last lunch at the Teichner Caffe  in the Piazza di San Lorenzo in Lucina.

We then went up the escalator under the Spanish Steps, over to Via Veneto. Walked past our old hotel from 10 years ago, past the US Embassy, and then down to Piazza Barberini, then over to Via Sistina and back to our hotel. We ate Gelati from the neighboring place, but in the CNN room of our hotel.

Our Limo arrived at 4, as scheduled. The same bellstaff that welcomed us, helped us pack up and leave. Bye-bye!!  The Mini-van limo to airport (70+5euro). With no traffic, it took about 35 minutes.  We checked in and went to the gate for our flight to Frankfort.

There was a big mixup at the D04 gate with Ryan Air. Luckily we boarded first, no problems.  The Ryan Air people weren’t happy.

We were on a short flight to Frankfurt. (-LH239 FCO->FRA 6:45pmCET to 8:45pm).  We landed, pickup our luggage and walked over to the  Airport Hotel Hilton Frankfurt Airport The Squaire Am Flughafen.  It was good we didn’t have to take a bus, but we had to walk a long way.  We followed the long distance trains signs from the Terminal 1 baggage claim.

We checked into 3 rooms, no problem. Cathie and I were upgraded. We had a late night dinner in the hotel bar  “The Fifth Lounge and Bar” — the bartender was from Prague and was really nice and friendly with us.  We had to get up early the next morning, so we headed to bed.

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Day 7 – Travel Frankfurt to Chicago

The next morning, Saturday, we got up, checked out and walked over to the United check in counter.  We checked in just fine and walked our way over to customs.  It was closed.  They didn’t open until 6:30am.  When they opened, we got through quickly and were at our plan by 7am.  Our flight home (UA945 FRA->ORD 8:05am to 10:40amCT) boarded at 7:20am to we didn’t really have a lot of spare time.  That was ok.

When we landed in Chicago, the lines weren’t that bad to get in.  We watched the beagle catch people try to sneak fruit into the country.

Our car was waiting for us in the parking lot.  We got home; the house and the cats were fine.  What a great vacation!!