Rome in a Day Rome in a Day - Playground Travel Family

Here is a direct quote from my daily diary about our one-day visit to Rome:

“I don’t really have words for Rome. It just felt like my eyes were popping out of my head with every turn. Honestly, I felt like that heart eye emoji the whole time. I couldn’t even take it all in. For me, Rome was love at first sight.”

I still don’t really have words for Rome (although, I am going to have to try to find some or this blog post will be pretty worthless). It’s just that Rome, in my eyes, is beyond explanation. How can one city hold so much beauty, so much history, so much grandness?

After taking a break-of-dawn train from Florence, we started our early morning at Trevi Fountain. I should stop here and explain that I really, really knew nothing of Rome or it’s landmarks, so get ready because you’re probably going to read sentences like the next one several times in this blog. Trevi is shockingly beautiful. Paul kept telling me “I remember the first time I saw Trevi…” and I was thinking, “I mean, it’s a fountain, what’s the big deal?” The big deal is Trevi. It’s just so unlike any other fountain. Of course, how I didn’t know this considering that there are about 500,000 Instagram videos in front of Trevi, is beyond me. But I’m sort of glad I didn’t know, and I got to be surprised.

From Trevi we walked over to The Pantheon. There was a line to get in (plus side though: admission is free). We probably waited half an hour, but the weather was nice and the Piazza della Rotunda, the square surrounding the Pantheon, was lovely. Once inside the Pantheon (shockingly beautifyl) it’s hard to believe it was constructed nearly 1,900 years ago. It’s just in remarkable condition and the size of the dome is unbelievable (still the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome). I will say that maybe one of us wasn’t that impressed with the Pantheon because as we were leaving Nora turned to me and said, “Mom, is this a bank?” 🤣

From there, we walked – I feel like I should interject here and note that Rome is SO walkable, we put in something like 30,000 steps walking around Rome and we were able to see pretty much everything we wanted on our own two feet – to Vatican City to check it out. I’m going to be careful with my thoughts here because I know the Vatican means a lot to some people. It does not hold that kind of value for me. But I will say, the basilica and its surrounding square are really impressive in both size and beauty. Much like all of Rome it just all felt SO BIG. Unfortunately, it also feels very, very touristy. Vatican City is filled with tourists and all of the shops and street vendors and peddlers that go along with that. We didn’t go into the palace, but the Clarks did, and they reported that the artwork is absolutely amazing.

After lunch, which consisted of amazing pasta, of course, (Omg, they aren’t lying about how delicious true Italian pasta is. 10/10 must eat), we headed to Il Gelato di San Crispino, the gelato shop shown in Eat Pray Love (one of my favorite books of all time). It is supposed to be one of the best gelato shops in Rome, which is saying absolutely something. I have to admit though, my gelato distinction taste buds aren’t great. All gelato is pretty darn good to me and I’ll Gelato

No trip to Rome would be complete without a tour of the Colosseum. Spoiler alert: its’s grand! But, something that no one talks about is the walk to the Colosseum. The ancient plaza, the Roman Forum, has been largely excavated and is on full display as you walk to the Colosseum. If I have any regret about only spending a day in Rome, it’s not having more time to explore around here (well, and not having more pasta of course). If we were to go back, I would absolutely do a tour of the Forum, but we were running late for our appointment at the Colosseum, so I was only able to admire it as we walked by.

Talk about needing more time, you could dedicate half a day to the Colosseum itself! We were all pretty exhausted by the time we got there, but it is absolutely worth scheduling several hours to tour. It is just mind boggling to walk around the almost 2000-year-old colosseum and imagine how in the world it was built back then (actually, probably not something you want to spend too much time thinking about) and has managed to stay in such relatively amazing condition for all these years. It really is a super interesting tour and kind of wild to think about how in so many ways humans are just the same now as we were thousands of years ago (check out the graffiti on some of the seats).

By the time we left the Colosseum, evening was setting in and after a quick stop for sandwiches (and wine!), we had to book it to catch our train back to Florence.

One more place I’d like to mention, even though we really just got to walk by is the Altare della Patria (Altar of the Fatherland). It is shockingly huge. As you leave the Colosseum, it rises up out of nowhere towering over the below square. I was absolutely in awe and in love. It’s on my must-see list when we go back for sure.

Rome is near the top of my list of places I would like to visit again. Despite what all of the “Rome in a Day” guides say, I’m here to tell you, it’s just not enough time to see and do it all. Rome needs to be taken in. It needs to be savored. It’s too much to comprehend at breakneck speed. Rome is larger than life and this little blog post doesn’t do it justice.

Here are a few bonus pictures of our day in Rome. I hope the photos capture just how BIG Rome is. Around every corner you find something that takes your breath away.