Rome! The one thing I knew for sure about being near Italy was that I wanted to revisit Rome. I was there for 2 1/2 days 20 years ago, at the end of a busy trip (bike from Venice to Florence, week in Florence, few days in Rome), I loved it, and I wanted to go back.
I found a hostel recommended by Rick Steves (The Beehive) and booked a single room for 3 nights ($80/night - a very good deal). I gave myself permission to stay longer if I loved it - though I wanted to get to Pompeii, and I needed to return to Zurich eventually.
The thing is, this time I didn’t love Rome. It’s still super cool and filled with so much history, but it was also extremely full of a billion tourists. I speculated that the weather was decent, we’re all rebounding from covid grounding us, and anyone in Europe can check the weather and just decide to go to Italy. I was surprised by how very busy it was everywhere.
Last time I was in Italy I skipped touring the Colosseum. I was happy to finally fix that!
However - I certainly made the most of my time there. I took a food tour in the Testaccio neighborhood; I paid for a guided tour through the Colosseum and the Roman Forum; I downloaded and enjoyed at least 3 free walking tours from Rick Steves. And staying at the hostel was perfect - they had a social hour every evening where I could meet other travelers and get tips on where to go next.
The food tour was the best thing I did by far! The other people didn’t show up - an expensive choice! - so I got the tour guide to myself. Fortunately she agreed to eat at each stop with me, because .. it was a lot of food in some cases. But it was all insanely delicious.
Food tour took me to a place making and selling locally-produced cheese and charcuterie.
The porchetta they gave us was still warm from the oven!
This was the first stop - so I was at peak hunger - but it was my favorite. It’s pizza Romana/Roman-style pizza.
It’s thin but very crisp, freshly made but not necessarily hot out of the oven. You can order by size (gesture “this much”)
or by price (“two euros’ worth, please”) - the two of us easily ate all of this.
There are three staple pizza sauces in Rome, carbonara, a simple tomato, and cheese & pepper.
Since this was a food tour, they brought us platters of each type - even though only two of us were there!
I took the leftovers home to my hostel and ate at least 2 more meals (and gave the rest away).
Once I realized 3 nights in Rome was enough, I started making my plans for the rest of my time in Italy. I decided to stay 2 nights in Sorrento, which is a small town on the north side of the Amalfi peninsula. I thought I might like to try to see Amalfi, or Positano, but my fellow tourists at the hostel let me know - they were hard to access. There isn’t a train to those towns, so my options were to take a public bus or a private tour. The seasonal ferry had just stopped running for the year, so that wasn’t an option either. What really clinched my decision to skip Amalfi this time was being told that the towns were absolutely swarming with visitors - after the busy-ness of Rome, that held no appeal.
The courtyard at the hostel was a nice little oasis.
Sample meal eaten on the fly - grabbed during one of my self-guided audio tours.
I guess I’ll just have to go back to southern Italy someday!
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