Rome, Italy

We got a flight to Rome direct from Los Angeles, CA and landed in Rome around 6pm in the evening. We highly recommend planning your flights to land around this time in the evening so that you can grab a quick bite to eat for dinner and go straight to bed. This will help you get ahead of some jet lag!

So we landed in Rome and took a train straight to Trastevere where our Airbnb was. We loved staying in Trastevere, Rome for the week! It gave us an authentically Italian feel with the neighborhood vibes and local spots for dinner or gelato.

The view out our window of our Airbnb! For this first week in Rome, we stayed in Trastevere. We highly recommend the Trastevere neighborhood for a truly authentic Italian feel.
Mid-day on our first full day in Rome in between two tours. First tour was in the morning through the Vatican and Sistine Chapel and second tour was of the Colosseum. All with What a Life Tours - we highly recommend this tour company and were very im
Of course we had to stop for gelato before our tour of the Colosseum. This was mango gelato. I was very into the fruit flavors during our time in Italy!
We bought a Polaroid camera right before our month in Italy and I am so happy we did! This photo was taken right in front of the Vatican.
On the rooftop of our Trastevere Airbnb.
The Colosseum!
We had lunch right outside of the Colosseum.
One of many stops for pastries as we walked around Roma!
We highly recommend waking up early in the morning for beautiful photos of the Trevi Fountain before it gets too crowded.
Andrew's strawberry gelato on his birthday!
The Trevi Fountain
So much strawberry gelato consumed during our month in Italy! The strawberries were perfectly ripe and the gelato was so tasty.
We loved the cobblestone streets of Trastevere.

We had scheduled a full day tour through Rome for the following day with What a Life Tours! We LOVED this tour company. They were very organized and clearly experienced in the tour guide industry. They provided several guides for different tours, all that spoke great English and that were very knowledgeable about the history of the city. We toured through the Vatican and Sistine Chapel with one tour guide in the morning and then toured the Colosseum in the afternoon with a second guide. In fact, we happened to have a private tour of the Colosseum because no one else had signed up for that part of the tour! What a treat!

One small adjustment I would make to our first full day in Rome: don’t tour all of those things in one day! Haha. Slow it down a little. We had a full week in Rome so we definitely could have spaced our tours out more and toured the Vatican and Sistine Chapel one day and the Colosseum the next. The reason we did it the way we did was because that particular tour package happened to be cheaper when I bought it. But, they discontinued that package because it was…. A LOT for one day! If you are able to, space out your tours across multiple days, really have time to walk through and ponder the things you are seeing, and enjoy the slower moments.

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Venice, Italy