One Month in Rome: 3/31 through 5/1

 

It has been 7 years since I posted to the blog. Does anyone read blogs anymore? Is anyone out there?

 6 or 7 years ago I started to think about retiring from teaching and traveling in the off season and no longer be imprisoned by the school year calendar. And then, in 2019, my son, Noah, went to Italy. The way he talked about Rome inspired me. Wandering around the small, cobbled streets in the old sections, walking into every church he came across. Of course, there are spectacular ruins and museums you can pay to enter, but Rome has so much to offer that one can stay away from the crowds and still have amazing experiences. So that was my plan – a month in Rome. Now I am not a “big city” kind of guy, and I had spent the overwhelming majority of my time abroad in Asia, but, what can I say. When inspired, go with it. And then we all experienced the Covid pandemic, and everything got put on hold. But here I am, five years later, at my Airbnb for a month in Rome.

 3/30: the start

 I caught an evening flight to Dublin, then an afternoon flight on 3/31 to Rome.

 

                          Dublin: walking onto the runway and then up the stairs to the plane to Rome

4/1 First Day in Rome

I did not sleep one minute last night. The time difference threw my body for a loop. So at 6am I started to walk. I overdid it a little bit my first day, walking over 50,000 steps (23 miles). At first I followed the river until the sun came up, from my Airbnb near Trastevere train station towards the doorsteps of Vatican city.

 

 

And then I just wandered. The smaller the street the better. Later on I had some missions to accomplish: a one month transportation pass, a grocery store, some adapters for the electrical current. I found that I enjoyed myself much better when I did not have a destination. 

 

Chiesadi di Sant 'lgnazio di Loyola (linked here)

 

View from the balcony of my Airbnb