Tuesday August 15

This was our day to "sleep in" until 9. We woke up at 9 to find that due to the holiday (Ferragosto) the breakfast service was cancelled so they gave us prepackaged croissants instead! We ate and lazily woke up. Eventually we tried to leave but kept forgetting stuff in the room! After we gathered all our stuff, we started walking towards Castel Sant'Angelo. We walked next to the river for a bit. At the castle, there was a long line to get in so we walked around outside instead. The loudspeaker was playing a song that the West Philadelphia Orchestra covers, which is the band that played at our wedding. We crossed the bridge with all the statues. Then, we visited Piazza Navona and peaked into a church. We looked at the obelisk in the center of the piazza and marveled at the Egyptian symbols. After that, we walked to the Pantheon, and tried to go to a cafe but it was closed for holiday. However, we did see my favorite elephant and obelisk sculpture! We then waited in a fast and long line to get into the Pantheon. It was confusing and impressive as always. A man kept getting on a microphone to shush everyone, which Mike really wanted to get on video, but it never happened. We went to Caffe Tazza D'oro and Mike got a fancy organic espresso, which was pretty good. We walked to the Trevi Fountain. It was very crowded, and the people who worked there kept whistling at everyone. "Hey you! Don't sit on the fountain!" (But in Italian.) We took some photos and refilled our water bottles, then we decided it was lunch time. We had trouble finding something good. Eventually we got some pizza (they cut and folded it as they should) and ate it outside on the curb. Energized, we ventured to the Spanish steps and saw my favorite house that has faces for windows and doors. We walked to the Bone Church, which has been updated since the last time I was there. It costs more now and I had to buy a shoulder covering in order to enter. There was a lot of info on some monks but the bones were still cool to look at and interesting. After that, we got some gelato and Gelateria La Romana, which was super fresh and really good. They used seasonal flavors, and basically we had the best peach ice cream that we will ever have. We then walked to an art museum called "MACRO" to see a street art exhibit. I felt weird paying money to see street art in a gallery. The show gave me some good ideas for lessons for the upcoming school year. We explored the whole museum and by the time we were ready to leave, it was close to 7! We walked to the Villa Borghese and saw five dogs playing in the grass! They were all small, white, fluffy dogs, but they were not related, according to the woman who owned them. One got lost but I think he eventually found his family. We walked around, saw the secret gardens and the sculptures that are just heads, and then watched the sunset over the Piazza de Popolo. Somebody there was joking in English about using airdrop and sending random photos to people nearby, and he said "haha, let's send it to Mike's iPhone," and Mike told him that it was his iPhone, and then they exchanged photos. We got some great photos of the sunset over the Piazza, and they got a picture of Mike with one of the dogs that we had met earlier. Afterwards, we wandered around looking for dinner eventually sampling foods from several places. We got two little pizza slices that were very good from Granno, Frutta e Farina, and the man behind the counter taught us how to say cute in Italian (it is carigno, same as Spanish.) He said "are you calling me or the pizza cute?" Then we got some fresh pasta with pesto from Pastificia Guerra and ate it at the counter. Mike decided he wanted wine and lasagna so we wandered and then found Hosteria al 31. We got excellent fresh lasagna with ragu, red wine and tiramisu. Full, we walked through the Piazza del Popolo, past Temple Rome, and back to the hotel for bed!

This same mural was on a building in our old neighborhood, Fishtown. The building has since been knocked down.