Toronto, Canada

We were up early again today, this time to catch our flight back home. The hotel's checkout was very efficient, our taxi arrived at 6:45am just like we booked, and we were at FCO in less than 30 minutes.

Checked in and then had a croissant and tea. Went through security (we were flying via Amsterdam, so there's wasn't passport control here) and then waited in the lounge. Flew to Amsterdam, and then had only 50 minutes for our connection so rushed through the terminals and immigration to our gate, and boarded immediately.

The flight to Toronto was uneventful. Then we had to make it through Pearson. They've somewhat improved, but still rank near the bottom of airports in my opinion. Took us 80 minutes from landing to get into a taxi (about twice what it takes at the other end of the scale, e.g. in Singapore).

Overall I really enjoyed the trip. There's definitely more than enough to see and do in Rome over two weeks. We got a good sampling of Roman food, and saw the major sights (and lots of the lesser ones too).

My favourites, in no particular order, include:

• Midnight Mass at St Peter's Basilica with the pope
• Climbing to the cupola at St Peter's
• Seeing the Roman Forum
• Tour of the Vatican Museums
• Borghese Museum
• Palazzo Barberini
• Capitoline Museums
• Castel Sant’Angelo
• Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterno

We walked everywhere, averaging about 10-15km per day. We needed to walk that much, what with all the big meals we ate. We were very lucky with the weather. On average it rains about 50% of the days at this time of year; we did not get rained on at all. In fact, we only had a couple cloudy days. Rome is relatively crowded over Christmas, but it's easy to beat the crowds at major sights by going either first thing in the morning, or after 4pm.

And finally, for those counting (Gerry and Tanya), the Vatican is country #78 for me.

Rome, Italy — Vatican Museums

Our last full day in Rome started very early. We had booked the 'Waking up the Vatican Tour' of the Vatican Museums back in July, and even then were only able to get a booking on our last day here. It's limited to 20 people per day, starting at 6am and going through each room with the clavigero (key keeper) as the rooms are opened up for the day. As an added bonus, pictures are not only allowed, they're encouraged.

So we were up at 4:30am (!) to make sure we were there on time. The tickets said to be at the entrance to the Vatican Museums at 5:50am, even providing the exact latitude/longitude to make sure people went to the right spot. We got there around 5:45am, and were the second-last to arrive of our group. Looks like we weren't the only ones making sure we were there on time :) We waited eagerly for the key keeper to open the doors, saw the sliver of light under the door at 5:59, and at 6:00 he opened the door and welcomed us in.

During normal hours this is the exit to the Vatican Museum, at the bottom of the Bramante staircase. We took the old elevators up and started our tour! Our tour guide said that we would be going through most of the rooms with some pace, in order to maximize our time in the Sistine Chapel, so to please stay with the tour! First the key keeper picked up the giant 8-inch diameter key rings with dozens of keys on each. Then we went through the museums, at each door the key keeper gave one of us the key to open the door and then turn on the lights. Our guide had mentioned that the tour is more impressive in the winter, because it's still dark outside. The early summer sun ruins the impact of turning on the lights :)

Passed through the Egyptian and Etruscan museums, Octagonal court, Raphael's rooms, the Gallery of Maps and Tapestry Gallery, maybe not in that order. There were four of us in the tour who were keen on photography, lagging behind the group to get our tourist-less pictures. There was a lot to take in, and the time seemed to fly by. Heather felt it was similar to seeing the gorillas, it seems like you could blink and miss it all, even though it's a couple hours. Finally we were at the door to the Sistine Chapel, the grand finale of the tour. One of the tour participants unlocked the door, and we all entered by the key keeper's flashlight. Then, the lights came on and the full Sistine Chapel was before us! Everyone went camera-happy. Another couple took a timed selfie from their phone on the floor pointing at the ceiling, with their fingers lined up to touch Adam's and God's. It was silly enough that we took a similar pic.

The tour finished with a brunch. As we had read earlier in a review, you're not going on this tour because of the food.

Bought some souvenirs at the gift shop, and then took a whole lot of pictures of Heather walking down the spiral staircase. Luckily at this hour, there was no one else leaving (the early-access tours were just congregating in the lobbies to start their tours), and so we were able to get a few takes in without worry about other people on the staircase. It was one of the two pics I was looking forward to taking in the Vatican Museums (the other being God reaching out to Adam).

We were back at our hotel by 10am, in time to catch the tail end of breakfast. So had our 2nd breakfast of the day :)

We had originally thought we would spend more time at the Vatican Museums after our tour (the ticket allowed us to re-enter and wander at our own pace) but part of the magic was seeing the Museums tourist-free and that would have been ruined if we went back through.

So instead we took a taxi back to Via Appia Antica and to see the Catacombes that were closed a couple days earlier when we attempted to visit. Stopped in at Catacombe di San Callisto and bought our tickets. It's only possible by organized tour (our timing was good, we arrived at 11:20 and the next tour was at 11:30). I had hoped to not have to take a tour, but oh well. The mandatory tour made more sense when we we got down there -- it's a maze where one could easily get lost. Our guide was not the greatest, and it was cold and damp in the catacombs. We were shivering at the end. Also, pictures aren't allowed at all. The catacombs themselves were cool to see, but we didn't feel the need to see Catacombe di San Sebastiano just down the road. Even walking along Via Appia Antica wasn't the experience we had hoped, but that's because it was much colder today with a biting wind. At least we had brought our toques along.

Walked back into town and went to Vinando's for lunch. We had had lunch there last week and really enjoyed their artichoke and pecorino pizza the last time. So ordered it again, along with a charcuterie platter. They messed up the order and brought us lasagna instead of the charcuterie. The service went downhill from there so we just finished up and went back to our favourite cafe by the turtle fountain for dessert, and some craft beer.

I was starting to hit a wall, having woken up at 4am. Both of us took a short nap and then later went to Gino 51 for dinner. We had eaten there our first day in and enjoyed it. It was also one of the hotel manager's recommended restaurants. We discussed what we wanted, but then the restaurant person provided her suggestions for us (the benefit of name-dropping our hotel manager). Her suggestions were actually similar to what we had discussed, so that worked out well. Started with the zucchini flowers (stuffed with cheese and anchovies, battered and deep-fried, very yummy) and battered squid. We then had the zucchini and shrimp tonnarelli. For the main we had sea bass with sliced potatoes, and contorni of roman artichoke, and roman salad. We misunderstood the sea bass and potatoes -- when the dish arrived, we thought it was a plate full of scalloped potatoes. But the sea bass is actually baked in a pocket of sliced potatoes. Also very yummy. The roman salad had greens that we couldn't identify but were excellent, I think we had seen people prepping them in the market. We were stuffed so just had espressos. It was an excellent way to finish our tour of Roman food.

Rome, Italy — Museo Borghese

We were up early because we had tickets to Museo e Galleria Borghese at 11:10am. The Borghese is one of the top-listed sites in Rome. You need to book about a week in advance, which wasn't really clear in the guide books or any websites / blogs we had read. We only found out when we tried to buy tickets last week and had to get a guided tour ticket because the regular tickets were sold out.

It's about an hour walk from our hotel. Followed google maps the whole way which took us through the heart of the city but down streets we hadn't seen before. Picked up our tickets, and then had about 20 minutes to kill so checked out the gift shop.

Our tour started at exactly 11:10am. Most organized tours nowadays have a earphone for each participant so the guide doesn't have to yell and disturb other visitors. It's the first time I've used one, but that's because mostly we just explore on our own.

Our guide was really good. He knew his art, and explained what made a piece baroque or other styles. He also had a good sense of humour. There's some really expensive art at the Borghese for a relatively small museum. Plus, right now they have a temporary exhibit of Picasso juxtaposed with the permanent collection. From the museum's website:

The exhibition at the Galleria Borghese takes into account his experience of contact with Italian art to return to reflect on great themes related to painting and especially to sculpture from the Renaissance onwards.

The guided tour was 90 minutes and then we had 30 minutes to wander on our own. The Borghese museum was one of our highlights. If you're going to Rome, I'd recommend it, but book in advance!

Had lunch at the museum cafe which was pretty good, then wandered back home. Along the way stopped into some stores but with exchange rates it was cheaper just to buy stuff back home.

We had dinner at Taverna Trilussa. Our hotel manager booked it for us, and as usual for all his recommended places, he wrote down the name of the owner with which he was friends with, to make sure we were well received and not getting a tourist experience. Trilussa was probably the most upscale place we ate at over the two weeks. They had several kinds of prosciutto on the menu, so tried a 36 month aged for the appetizer. I would have liked it if there was the equivalent of a flight of prosciutto, so that I had something to compare. It did taste good, but how much better, I'm not sure. Split the bucatini all'amatriciana for the pasta (for Heather it was served in the pot it was cooked in, which I think is in fashion right now). Had the grilled lamb for our main which had really nice flavour. We were too full for dessert so just had an espresso. Overall a very good meal.

Rome, Italy — Via Appia Antica

We had big plans to walk along Via Appia Antica, which the Lonely Planet rates as one of the top highlights in Rome. There's a few catacomb sites to visit along the walk too. It's another nice break from the usual tourist sites. We debated taking transportation to the starting point, but ended up walking because it was through different areas of Rome that we hadn't seen yet.

It's about an hour to the starting point. Unfortunately the gates to the park were closed, so we had to take the road, where there's not much sidewalk. Finally we got to Catacombe di San Callisto, which is closed on Wednesdays :( So walked down to Basilica of Saint Sebastian Outside the Walls, which also has some catacombs. They were closed on Jan 2 because of repairs to the electrical system :( we weren't having much luck today! (the name 'Outside the Walls' is a reference to the ancient Roman law forbidding burying of the dead inside the walls)

So we walked back into the city. We realized we had walked right past Terme di Caracalla on the way in, cause we saw it on our way back. Looked it up in the Lonely Planet but it didn't sound interesting enough and we were hungry and tired and cold so just continued on.

We went back to the cosy little place in the turtle fountain plaza. Same as last time, the lady was overwhelmed at times with customers. We had a soup and chicory torte with a red wine. It was still overly busy so went across the plaza to have dessert and an espresso. Realized they had craft beer (we had read that same as everywhere else now, there's quite the craft beer scene in Rome) so I tried a witbier (Seta, by Birrificio Rurale). It was pretty good.

They had wifi (pronounced 'wiffy' here too, maybe it's a European thing) at the bar so we searched around for a place for dinner. Made a reservation at DanEl Tavernae based on the tripadvisor rating.

DanEl was more experimental with food, and very big into instagrammable plates. Had the tuna tartare for the starter (the tuna, as with all the ingredients here, was excellent), carbonara for pasta (which turned out to be deconstructed), and almond-crusted veal tenderloin for the main (served with about 15 ingredients in the presentation, but really just needed the veal, crusted almonds, potato slices and greens). The espressos were good too.

Rome, Italy — MAXXI

The art galleries are some of the few attractions open in Rome on New Year's Day. We decided on MAXXI (Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo), in part because the building extension is designed by Zaha Hadid. We'll be seeing another of her buildings in Baku on our next trip.

So after breakfast we headed out. The walk there went through Piazza del Popolo, much less crowded in the early hours. They were taking down the NYE stuff in the square. Apparently, the Roman thing to do on NYE is to walk from Piazza Venezia to Piazza del Popolo. This is normally crowded with tourists on an average day, I can't image it at NYE.

Heading north from Piazza del Popolo, we were in non-touristy areas, with just locals walking their dogs. It took about an hour to reach MAXXI from our hotel.

Took some pics of the Hadid extension, and then entered. I found the temporary exhibit, THE STREET. WHERE THE WORLD IS MADE, the most interesting. It was a nice break from all the historical stuff we've otherwise been seeing.

The museum restaurant was closed for renovations (or something). There was a street food truck just outside the entrance, serving freshly-cooked pastas. Ordered a couple different pastas, and while I waited for the order, Heather bought some red wine from the coffee shop inside the museum. Ate our lunch in the remaining sunshine in the modern plaza (it was about 2pm by now). Got a couple espressos and cookies for dessert. Not bad for a street food lunch.

We had dinner at Ai Bozzi yet again, this time with a reservation. (There's not much open on New Year's). Kept to their seafood specials which were excellent. Also had their homemade pistachio gelato again for dessert.