In Rome, there is an ancient ruin or a renaissance monument around every corner. In only four days, we were barely going to see even a fraction of what the city has to offer. But, blessed by glorious weather, over the course of four days and 45 km on foot (yes, the kids too), we were able to hit most of the major sites, along with a whole host of other delightful spots. Ponte Palatino, spanning the River Tiber Piazza di S. Egidio Basilica of Our Lady in Trastevere Scenes from Trastevere, where we rested our heads each night. The Fiumi Fountain in the
Waking up to being yet another year older, it might as well be on a(nother) glorious sunny day in Rome. It was the boys' suggestion that we go to the top of the "wedding cake" monument to Italian unification to get what we'd be assured was the best view of the city. And so up we went, aggressive pricing be damned! The views were certainly excellent, if somewhat hard to capture on photograph given the extremely bright sunshine. The view of Rome to the north of the monument, including St Peter's Dome to the left Then it was down to loop
After some debate, we decided to focus our visit to Vatican City on St. Peter's Basilica, and skip the Vatican Museum. It's not possible to go see the Sistine Chapel without trekking through several kilometres of art museum that would not hold much interest for small boys, and Sam and I had been on a previous trip. Meanwhile, they do love to climb to a high point, so a visit St. Peter's and a visit to the top of its dome seemed a safer bet. We woke up at the crack of dawn in an attempt to avoid the crowds.
View from our window: Trastevere, Rome, Italy. 8:44am, 08 February 2023.
As we planned our drive from Bologna down to Rome, we chose Orvieto as a lunch stop, more-or-less at random: about 2/3 of the way along, some recommended restaurants for lunch, guide book says it has a good cathedral. (The guidebook seems to sing the praises of most cathedrals, to be honest.) The meal was nothing special, but what a place to stop. Orvieto is a walled medieval town on a hill, and to judge by the acres of parking garages, clearly handles major crowds in peak season. But on a Tuesday in February, even if it was beautifully sunny, we
Bologna is often described as an 'overlooked' destination for visitors to Italy. Even in our planning, we knew we wanted to come to the broader Emilia-Romagna region, but vacillated quite a lot between Bologna, Modena, and Parma, with the idea that we would visit all three famous foodie places. In the end, we're ever-so-glad we picked Bologna and ended up spending a full three days in the city. Bologna has very charming laneways, where red, yellow, and orange buildings cluster together. Ambling up a back lane in Bologna The city is famous for its porticos — there are dozens of kilometres
On one of our days in Bologna, we took a day trip to Modena. The highlight for the boys was surely the 30-minute train journey. Catching the train at Bologna Centrale. Train buffs (hi, Dad) will want to know that we didn't actually ride this high-speed train, since it was 5x the price and only saved 10 minutes. Plus regular Italian trains feel plenty fast for our Canadian boys. Modena's laneways were very similar to Bologna, and indeed the whole town feels like a smaller, quainter version of its neighbour. The steeple of Modena's Duomo through the lanes We visited on a Saturday,
View from our window: Bologna, Italy. 8:53am, 03 February 2023.