Rome-ing around

I think I've realised that 'shoulder season' is one of my favourite times of the year. What could be better than taking a trip somewhere sunny when it's starting to get properly cold at home? So at the end of October, me and Laura jetted off for a long weekend in Rome, where the temperature was still around 25 degrees, the sun was still shining and the aperol spritz' were still flowing.

I always think that 4 days/3 nights is the perfect length for any city break, so once we'd picked the weekend, we started searching for flights. Annoyingly, the flights to Rome are consistently atleast triple the price of everywhere else in Italy (I'm talking like £40 to Venice or £250 to Rome on the same dates). But that was just something we had to suck up, and so we booked flights with Ryanair that were good times to give us the maximum amount of time in the city. Which meant a super early start on the Thursday (like 3am)! But despite being tired, we arrived in beautiful Roma!

I'd obviously looked at the weather forecast for the weekend (with love hearts in my eyes) and decided on a summery-yet-casual wardrobe. Starting with this outfit; denim shorts, white bralet and white striped linen shirt over the top. I actually bought this shirt from Stradivarius on my last holiday with Laura! Anyway, our first stop was to go off in search of food, which we put a massive onus on the whole time we were away. Laura and I are both huge foodies and we knew that Rome would be absolutely full of tourist traps serving inauthentic, low quality food. So we got our detective hats on and made sure to research before. It also didn't help that we didn't fancy either pizza or pasta for lunch, which made our options a little limited. But we hit the jackpot when we found Benso, where we got an amazing antipasti sharing board. It was so big they had to bring us an extra table to put it on!

We'd planned our whole itinerary for the trip down to a tee and decided to start with the Colosseum, which felt very fitting to see the iconic landmark of Rome as soon as we got there. We booked our tickets in advance which saved a bit of queuing on the day, although it was super confusing to work out where to actually go because literally nothing is signposted. In fact, we basically ended up doing a lap of the Colosseum before actually getting inside. atleast the view was good the whole way round! When we finally did find the entrance, it was so stunning. The whole structure is incredible, and the museum that accompanies it was fascinating. The only downside was that it was super busy, with walking tour groups literally everywhere. Another plus side to going in shoulder season though, as I can't imagine how busy it'd be in peak summer!

Something that had come highly recommended from everyone I'd spoken to about going to Rome was the Roman Forum, which was included in our Colosseum ticket. The recommendations weren't wrong, as it was really stunning and fascinating how old some of the ruins were. We had an audio guide along with it so learnt a lot about the artefacts and had a lovely time wandering round seeing everything. We also got entry to Palatine hill in our ticket, but by this point, we were sort of all-ruined-out? There's only so many ancient Roman things you can see in one afternoon (especially when you've been up since 3am) so we only gave Palatine hill a brief look before heading off in search of an aperitif.

We timed it just right to see the Colosseum at golden hour, before finding a little spot to have a drink, where we *technically* had a view of it. I mean, yes it was an obstructed view, but the nearby rooftop bar we'd found was fully booked so we made do with the option we found. Plus, it was a lovely Aperol Spritz.

Then it was time to finally head back to our hotel and check in! Like with the flights, most hotels in Rome are crazy expensive, especially if you want to stay right in the centre. After looking through loads of options, we decided upon The B Place in the Prati district. When selecting the rooms, we went for one in their annexe building, which ended up being a beautiful traditional building just round the corner from the main hotel, with an amazing old fashioned lift. It actually felt very Parisian!

Then it was time to get ready for our first night out! I went with this colour block bodysuit which makes a statement in pink and red! Naturally, there weren't many other colours I could've thrown into the mix so I kept the rest simple with black bralet, black shorts and chunky black heels. We'd chosen well with the Prati district because it had loads of cool bars and restaurants right on our doorstep, which was especially perfect for night 1 when we were still running on no sleep and hoping to cut out any sort of long trip home. We ended up at a restaurant called Margot, which gave us good vibes straight away since the menu was unique and written on chalkboards. We didn't quite manage the classic 4 Italian courses (starter, pasta (primi), main (secondi), dessert) but we gave it a good go; we shared 2 pastas and then a tomato swordfish main, before finishing with the most amazing desserts. They came served complete with an after dinner shot too, and the waiter brought us 3 more free ones each when we said we liked it!

Day 2 and we were ready and raring to go! Despite the fact that our hotel had good public transport links, we were hoping to walk as much as possible, as we know from our other city breaks that it's the best way to see somewhere and stumble upon things you wouldn't by being underground. That theory proved to be a great one almost instantly, when we walked through the beautiful piazza cavour, across the river and then to the first stop on our official list for the day; piazza navona. The architecture is incredible in Rome and everywhere you look is just another amazing sight to behold. I could seriously never get bored of exploring Italian cities. I was also very happy with the outfit I chose to do it in; this playsuit was one I bought specifically for Rome and I loved it.

Then it was time to continue our walking tour of the day! Next up was the Pantheon, which we'd deliberately scheduled for the Friday because it's free to enter and you don't need to book a slot, other than on weekends (when you have to book ahead). We were initially a bit worried when we saw a massive queue but it moved super fast so it only took about 5 minutes and it was definitely worth doing. The dome was super impressive! Obviously once you've seen it though, you're mostly done, so then we were on to the next thing, which was the Trevi fountain. I was actually a little underwhelmed by this. Yes, it was beautiful and a very impressive structure. But the crowds totally ruined it for me. You couldn't get down to the the fountain without having to push through loads of people, while having people in your face trying to sell you selfie sticks and other useless things no one wants. So beauty aside, we actually found ourselves wanting to get out of there pretty quickly! How anyone wanted to stick around in the restaurants that surround it was baffling to me. Instead, we did a grab and go for food, because when we saw this cannoli shop, we simply couldn't resist a pistachio flavoured treat.

It was lunch time by this point, which proved to be a whole fiasco! Because we were in such a major tourist area, we found it harder than ever to avoid the low quality places. And I had in my head that I wanted a pizza, which proved to be weirdly difficult. I know Rome is more pasta, and it's Naples who hold the pizza crown, but I still didn't expect it to be as hard as it was to find a good place. We did eventually though, but then disaster struck when I didn't read the menu closely enough, and accidentally ordered one without a tomato base (in my opinion, not a pizza FYI). I've never sent food back in a restaurant before but I couldn't take wasting a meal in Rome, so I had to swap it! So embarrassing but atleast I ended up with a great pizza in the end.

In the afternoon, we escaped the hustle and bustle of the main city centre by having a wander down south to the Jewish ghetto. It was so beautiful and peaceful there, lots of lovely churches and buildings. Then we crossed over Isola Tiberina to explore the Trastevere district...

Trastevere was actually my favourite part of Rome! It was very venetian in style and I liked that it was a little quieter and sleepier than some of the other main tourist areas we'd visited. It was still jam packed with beautiful architecture, amazing restaurants and lovely churches, so we could've easily spent longer there. However, we settled for enjoying the view with an aperol spritz and a load of cichetti that they brought over with them. Although we definitely could've done without any extra food!

At this point, we definitely didn't need any more food and yet we were out and heading for dinner in no time! I love this lipsy top and paired it with nude and black shorts for night 2. Rome wasn't an overly dressy city (as I find with most European destinations) so I was striking dressy casual for the most part, although I risked a skimpier outfit this time since we were going to be heading for some drinks after dinner. We certainly didn't go for the full 4 courses for dinner this time - we kept it light and I had an amazing lamb and chestnut dish.

We didn't really know what to expect from the nightlife in Rome. We thought it might be more of a dinner-and-drinks kind of place rather than actual bars and clubs, but we actually found a number of cool places. There seemed to be a few with a speakeasy theme, which I always love! We went to wisdomless club first, which had really cool cocktails and was open until 2am, and then we headed to Jerry Thomas afterwards since it was open until 4:30. It was a really cool experience actually! Although not one to attempt if you were too drunk, since it was a minefield to actually get in the place. It was an unmarked door that you had to knock on, there was a website link you had to go to, fill out a quiz and get emailed a secret passcode, knock again and then say the passcode to the person at the door. I've honestly never jumped through so many hoops for a drink! But once you finally got inside, they had a great cocktail menu with piano music playing so it was worth a trip.

We were off to somewhere holier than thou the next morning, as well as to tick a new country off our list. The smallest one in the world in fact; Vatican City. We nipped into a cute Italian bakery to grab some brunch on the way and then we spent a few hours exploring the Vatican museums. It's crazy just how much there is to see and to learn about. We did the audio guide again and learnt a lot, although we definitely didn't listen to everything; some of the rooms had hundreds of statues in, each with their own audio section. You could easily take the whole weekend just to get through it all! It was truly fascinating though and obviously great to see the famous Sistine chapel too (something you apparently weren't meant to photograph which I didn't realise until I'd already snapped a few shots). You did have to dress more conservatively in the Vatican so I'd opted for a long skirt (I love all the colours in this one) with a black tshirt and black Birkenstock dupes (which were super comfy).

It may be the smallest country but it's home to the largest church in the world! St Peter's Basilica was seriously impressive and so gorgeous. Well, I can confirm from the outside anyway. The queue to actually go in looped round and round the main square; it would've taken hours to get in. Which feels like rather a large commitment for an atheist, so we opted to enjoy the square instead and then headed off in search of the city's best carbonara.

Rome is famous for having invented the carbonara, so we obviously had to sample one while we were there. But we didn't want just any; we wanted the very best, most authentic one we could find! Think online reviews, tripadvisor ranking and all the rest of it - we committed hard to finding a good one. And it paid off big time! We loved that Borghiciana Pastificio Artigianale was a tiny, hole-in-the-wall kind of place, and they made all their own pasta on site. The carbonara was as amazing as we'd hoped and we definitely made a good choice. Another good choice we made? Dessert! You just can't beat proper Italian tiramisu.

After discovering that Rome had more nightlife than we initially suspected, we were planning a bigger night out for the Saturday. So I wore my dressier outfit; green bardot top, black and white printed skirt and chunky black shoes. We obviously didn't need any food at this point, since we'd done nothing but eat since landing in Rome, but we started our night with dinner none the less. Although for once we actually tried to choose a lighter option so as not to write ourselves off!

There was definitely a wine bar culture in Rome but given that we'd had wine with dinner and it was gone midnight by this point, we went off in search of more of a late night bar. We found a cool place called Salotto 42 which did amazing cocktails and had the good girly music vibes too. And by this point, we obviously wanted to dance! So we headed to a place called Nur Bar, which was an underground club. We had a fabulous night drinking way too much vodka and attempting to loudly (and badly) sing along with a number of the Italian songs that were played. Well, when in Rome (sorry, couldn't resist).

The next morning was not so fun. After only 3 hours sleep, it was time to pack up, check out and head out to explore. Not what I felt like doing. Laura and I were certainly a lot less chatty as we dragged ourselves around the city that morning. Our first stop was the Spanish steps which were very pretty but akin to the Trevi fountain in that they were very busy and touristy. We also didn't have the energy to drag ourselves up them to the top so we basically just enjoyed the view from the bottom!

We probably could've done with some classic hangover food to make ourselves feel better but we weren't going to stoop to visiting somewhere like a McDonalds in Rome (!!) so we went for one last pasta dish instead. I always love a filled pasta so although it was classic post-night-out food, it was very yummy. Then after lunch, we just had enough time to have a wander round the villa borghese gardens, before it was time to head home. We had an amazing time and anyone considering squeezing one last summery city break in around this time of year, I'd highly recommend it. We ate amazing food, we explored a beautiful city and I had the best time with my best friend - a successful weekend all round!