After I returned home, a friend asked me if I was amazed by the Vatican Museums. "Yes" I replied, "but I loved the Capitoline Museums even more." He was surprised, but I'm not planning on changing my answer anytime soon.
Itinerary of the day: Piazza Barberini → Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini → Spanish Steps → Via Condotti → Trevi Fountain → Musei Capitolini → La Bocca della Verità
Other than Old Bridge's gelato, the other thing I would miss about Rome would be the potable fountain waters. Not only were they everywhere and so convenient for travelers, but they tasted really good.
First refill of the day was at Bernini's Fontana delle Api at Piazza Baberini.
About one block from Piazza Baberini is Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini. Ever since the Peru trip last year, I've grown to enjoy mummies and ossuaries.
No photos were allowed inside, so these postcards I mailed out at a tabacchi might give an idea of what it looked like inside. Not sure how this measured up to Sedlec, but some arrangements were very creative indeed! My favourite was the room of pelvises.
The yellow cardboard box operated by Swiss Post seemed so sketchy...I sent out two postcards here, one arrived in Ame's hands one month later, and the other friend never received hers...OTZ So yes it's true, the Vatican postal system is by far the more reliable one!
Then we took the metro to Piazza Spagna. Need more tourists sitting on the steps to Fill those gaps!
I didn't understand the appeal of the steps, but the Fontana della Barcaccia across was worth checking out. The ice cold water has a bit of a sweet taste to it, definitely the best tasting fountain water of all.
The Piazza is the starting point of Rome's most notorious shopping street, Via Condotti.
Shopping was secondary, my main intention of coming here was to see the headquarter of Sovereign Military Order of Malta. So fascinating to see the reminiscent of Knights Hospitaller!
Baroque is not my favourite artistic style, perhaps that was why I didn't fall in love with Rome. The Trevi Fountain however was impressive by size alone, so I wouldn't miss it despite its popularity.
I did the typical tourist thing and threw 5 cents into the fountain (wow cheap), but not entirely sure if I want to return to Rome though.
Lunch was at Piccolo Buco nearby. We were so excited to finally get our hands on some coffee!
Ok I know we were silly tourists, ordering cappuccino in the middle of the day. So far, all coffee from my past visited country taste better than Canada's, and coffee in Italy was no exception. After a few days of consuming expresso we became quite addicted to it!
Arugula salad and prosciutto e melone were ok.
Pizza was of dried herring and olives. Really spicy! Pizza looked like their specialty, but this turned out a little bit disappointing.
The two primi, risotto ai frutti di mare and gnocchi ai frutti di mare, were what made me give this restaurant a positive review. Both the gnocchi and the rice fully absorbed the seafood flavour, and the gnocchi were small (good indication), chewy and not starchy.
We saw a costume parade on our way to the Capitoline Hill. While I enjoyed looking at costumes, someone perhaps can enlighten me on what this is parade could be about...
Entrance to the Capitoline Museums and a replica statue of Emperor Marcus Aurelius.
The Vatican Museums felt a little bit scattered in terms of the type of art they exhibit, but Capitoline Museums placed their focus on ancient Rome. It possessed just as many notable artworks as the Vatican Museum, yet maybe a tenth of visitors make a stop here.
Hall of the Philosophers, also known as the room that gave me a lot of feels.
Hi guys
This may not be some world-renowned artwork, but the use of natural marble patterns was amazing.
The Dying Gaul dfjkladsjfldfkjsdklfjlksdj
The Capitoline Venus.
Caravaggio's John the Baptist (Youth with a Ram). Kind of a combo breaker among all the Roman sculptures, but nobody is going to complain about seeing Caravaggio.
This was my must-see, The Capitoline Wolf.
Colossus of Constantine (internal screaming). Perfect ending to a wonderful art feast.
Capitoline Hill had a good vantage point to look over the Roman Forum.
We managed to make it just before closing time of the famous set of Roman Holiday entrance to sleeping pillar men, La Bocca della Verità. Considering pretty much everywhere I walked was a set on JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, this one wasn't particularly special...
On our way back to the metro, we passed by Circo Massimo , an ancient chariot racing stadium turned public park.
Dinner was at Da Vito e Dina near the Vatican. It was not THAT bad, but just in comparison to others this was the worst restaurant of the trip.
Since the Amalfi Coast was not in the itinerary, I tried limoncello here. It tasted like cough syrup OTZ.
We had such great lunch that we wanted to order the same things again, but was disappointed as the gnocchi here are big filler balls of starch. The pasta of fettuccine frutti di mare was obviously factory...and tasted quite bland.
We were still pretty rusty with ordering food at this point in time. Hopefully we would get better in the next few tries!
