485. Day 8 - Rome

I almost made it to the end of my trip by daily posting, but on the last day I just wasn't able to. I had to wake up at 6am for my flight the next morning so I didn't have time that evening..so now I am posting this from back home in Toronto (unfortunately)! I really wish I was still there, especially in Rome as I didn't have nearly enough time there. Actually when I booked the trip, I didn't even think about visiting Rome. If I had planned it better, I think a week in Rome would be ideal. The architecture, Piazzas, and everything in the city are so beautiful. I love art and photography so I had a lot of fun just walking around and taking photos of everything. I really have to return one day. I've visited once before when I was 17 and don't remember much at all..but that was a very different experience as I went with my mom on a tour.

So on my final day in Rome, I started with breakfast at my hotel's restaurant - Aroma. Aroma is on the rooftop of the building with the PERFECT view of the Colosseum. They are a Michelin-Starred restaurant and book up months in advance for dinner especially. As I only sorted out my stay there maybe a week before I arrived, I unfortunately couldn't get a table for dinner but they reserved me a nice table for lunch. I will do a full review on it in a future post. Their breakfast was very good. The atmosphere was nice and relaxing, with my favourite lounge music (some of Hotel Costes songs) playing in the background.

After my breakfast, I walked out to realize it was extremely windy and quite cold that day. I very impulsively decided to buy a Louis Vuitton scarf. I don't know if it was impulsive actually, since I had wanted it for a few years now lol. But I never had a good enough reason to buy it until that day. I really love it, especially in this colour (as you probably know, I love navy blue/all shades of blue). I also realized that Louis Vuitton, and most designer items, are a lot less expensive to purchase in Europe than here in Toronto. For example this scarf I got for about ~$300 LESS than I would have paid here..after taking into account the currency conversion & VAT refund!



My first stop of the day was the Colosseum. My hotel had kindly arranged tickets for me so I didn't have to purchase them on my own, and technically my tickets should have allowed me to bypass the line. In the photo above, you can see how crazy long the line was. I couldn't even get the whole line up in the photo lol. I can't even imagine how much worse this would be if it was during the peak tourist season. To get an idea of how packed it was...my "line bypass" tickets had its own line up!! It was just for the security check but luckily went pretty quickly and I only waited about 10 minutes.

Many people recommend going in here to get an idea of how large it is but to be honest I wasn't too impressed..I think a lot of other sites in Rome are more interesting. It was nice to go in but if I had to, I would not spend more than 30min lining up to go in. I really loved the Roman Forum though so if you are tight on timing, I recommend lining up to go in there instead. I also waited about 10min only with my line bypass tickets and the actual line there was a lot shorter than the Colosseum.

After the Colosseum, I just walked around aimlessly. This is my favourite thing to do when I travel on my own. Rome is perfect for this as there is so much to see and so many tourists to follow behind (so you don't need to plan out your route)..so wherever you walk to, you know you'll end up finding a good spot. Here is the Pantheon. There was this street performer there singing "Time to Say Goodbye". I guess that was a fitting song for my last day of the trip lol. He was so good! I love all the musical street performances there (there are a lot)..really adds to the atmosphere of the city. I took a quick video. I don't know how to upload it on here but it's on my Instagram if you want to take a look - CLICK HERE

Another thing I love about Rome is all the Piazzas. One of my favourites is Piazza Navona. I went here and sat at the patio of Ristorante Tucci for awhile, enjoying some gelato, tea and free WiFi.


Towards the evening it started to get really cold, so I started to head back to my hotel while stopping at (my favourite) Trevi Fountain one final time. If it wasn't so cold and if I didn't have to wake up so early the next morning, I would've walked around all night. This would be a great city for night photography.


This is inside the small church across Trevi Fountain.



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