On the sixth day of our honeymoon, we woke up and were excited to compare this second hotel’s breakfast with that of the first. The Rome hotel definitely won out, but it was pretty decent at the second hotel. There was just regular coffee and no cappuccino machine, which was where they lost the most points. The spread had a little less variety, but we were always able to fill up for a long day of sightseeing. On this day, we had a morning walking tour of the city scheduled. Our guide was American, but was in his late 50s and had lived in Italy as an art student and sculptor most of his life. He was very thin and hunched over, with bad teeth, a beard, and a speech impediment, all of which combined to give him a drunk homeless guy vibe. I was pretty convinced he was actually drunk (at 9:30 AM) and the only thing I could find to convince me otherwise was that he didn’t smell of alcohol, and he remained the same level of “drunk” over the entire 3 hours, even though I didn’t see him drink anything. All that aside, he was a nice guy and gave a pretty decent tour. You’ll find that by now we were a little burnt out in terms of picture taking.
This tour talked a lot about the famous Medici family which plays a large role in Italian history. Here is a picture of a statue of a guy holding a scale. I forget the relevance of it, and can’t figure it out by googling, but I want to say that the scale was used to symbolize the Medicis (by the Medicis). Maybe some history buffs can help me out here.
We went inside of one of the Medici chapels and we also got to go inside the Orsanmichele church, which was originally a grain market and still has elements of that past visible in its current state, including chutes in the walls where grain was dropped down for people to fill their bags. I don’t remember what these next two pictures are, but they look kinda neat so I’ll include them:
At the bottom center of this picture, you can see our homeless chic guide:
We paused for a 15-minute break in the middle of the tour, and the guide suggested that we get a hot chocolate at the famous Caffe Riviore. He also instructed us that whatever you get in that cafe, and most of the others in the area, will cost about 5 times more if you get a table and enjoy the ambiance rather than standing at a counter and getting it to go. So we shared a hot chocolate and a little cake and stood at the counter where a grumpy man would clang your cup over to you and then clang it into his dirty dish bin when you were done.
I saw him put someone’s coffee down so hard that about 1/3 of it spilled out, and he didn’t apologize or top it off! Luckily, our hot chocolate came to us unscathed, and it was unlike any I have ever had. It was not too sweet, and it was super dark and thick. It basically seemed like it was melted bittersweet chocolate thinned out with a little cream.
We continued the tour which included the Palazzo Vecchio. This is where there is a copy of the David by Michaelangelo:
You can see the copy at the bottom of the above picture. The original was moved to the inside of the Accademia Gallery, because it was suffering wear from the weather. And also, an angry mob threw a bench from a window in this building and it took off David’s left arm! It has since been salvaged and reattached. Here are a few more shots of the Palazzo Vecchio and surrounding area:
After the tour ended, we stopped for lunch at a sandwich shop and got some nice paninis. By this point, homesickness and sightseeing burnout were setting in, so we went back to the hotel to relax until dinner. We eventually found ourselves taking a nighttime stroll across the Ponte Vecchio:
And from here we had a great dinner at Trattoria Marione on Via Della Spada:
I made sure to have Ilya take a picture of the place as we were leaving, so we could recommend it to others or check it out again if we ever go back. And you can also see the large group of people waiting to get in! Ilya ordered sausage risotto which was excellent. I had been craving pesto, so I ordered the pesto pasta, which they were out of. I quickly decided to get the lasagna instead. However, the lasagna I saw on the menu was a meat lasagna, but the server must have assumed I wanted spinach lasagna since my original pick was vegetarian, so I ended up with spinach lasagna, which was also excellent. I remember tasting quite a bit of nutmeg in it which was really interesting. We of course ended the night with gelato:
I have mint and Ilya once again has something chocolatey. I do believe that this was the night that we also got some roasted chestnuts from a street vendor. They’re all over the place, and we mostly ignored them, but I decided I wanted to give them a try. They were quite good! I liked the taste, and they were nice and warm which made for a nice snack on a chilly night.
This tour talked a lot about the famous Medici family which plays a large role in Italian history. Here is a picture of a statue of a guy holding a scale. I forget the relevance of it, and can’t figure it out by googling, but I want to say that the scale was used to symbolize the Medicis (by the Medicis). Maybe some history buffs can help me out here.
We went inside of one of the Medici chapels and we also got to go inside the Orsanmichele church, which was originally a grain market and still has elements of that past visible in its current state, including chutes in the walls where grain was dropped down for people to fill their bags. I don’t remember what these next two pictures are, but they look kinda neat so I’ll include them:
At the bottom center of this picture, you can see our homeless chic guide:
We paused for a 15-minute break in the middle of the tour, and the guide suggested that we get a hot chocolate at the famous Caffe Riviore. He also instructed us that whatever you get in that cafe, and most of the others in the area, will cost about 5 times more if you get a table and enjoy the ambiance rather than standing at a counter and getting it to go. So we shared a hot chocolate and a little cake and stood at the counter where a grumpy man would clang your cup over to you and then clang it into his dirty dish bin when you were done.
I saw him put someone’s coffee down so hard that about 1/3 of it spilled out, and he didn’t apologize or top it off! Luckily, our hot chocolate came to us unscathed, and it was unlike any I have ever had. It was not too sweet, and it was super dark and thick. It basically seemed like it was melted bittersweet chocolate thinned out with a little cream.
We continued the tour which included the Palazzo Vecchio. This is where there is a copy of the David by Michaelangelo:
You can see the copy at the bottom of the above picture. The original was moved to the inside of the Accademia Gallery, because it was suffering wear from the weather. And also, an angry mob threw a bench from a window in this building and it took off David’s left arm! It has since been salvaged and reattached. Here are a few more shots of the Palazzo Vecchio and surrounding area:
After the tour ended, we stopped for lunch at a sandwich shop and got some nice paninis. By this point, homesickness and sightseeing burnout were setting in, so we went back to the hotel to relax until dinner. We eventually found ourselves taking a nighttime stroll across the Ponte Vecchio:
And from here we had a great dinner at Trattoria Marione on Via Della Spada:
I made sure to have Ilya take a picture of the place as we were leaving, so we could recommend it to others or check it out again if we ever go back. And you can also see the large group of people waiting to get in! Ilya ordered sausage risotto which was excellent. I had been craving pesto, so I ordered the pesto pasta, which they were out of. I quickly decided to get the lasagna instead. However, the lasagna I saw on the menu was a meat lasagna, but the server must have assumed I wanted spinach lasagna since my original pick was vegetarian, so I ended up with spinach lasagna, which was also excellent. I remember tasting quite a bit of nutmeg in it which was really interesting. We of course ended the night with gelato:
I have mint and Ilya once again has something chocolatey. I do believe that this was the night that we also got some roasted chestnuts from a street vendor. They’re all over the place, and we mostly ignored them, but I decided I wanted to give them a try. They were quite good! I liked the taste, and they were nice and warm which made for a nice snack on a chilly night.
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