Happy Easter from Rome! I was fortunate enough to spend Easter in Rome, which was an incredible experience.
On Easter Sunday, we arrived to St. Peter's Square at the Vatican a bit later than when the 10:15 mass started. The Basilica, where the mass started, holds 15,000 people and the square holds much more. Approximately 150,000 people showed up from all different religions to gather and see the pope. Pope Francis came out onto the balcony and addressed the people in Latin and Italian. It was quite a different Easter morning that what I am used to having. Here, I don't have to wake up for the sunrise service but I missed seeing all my relatives at home.
The rest of the weekend sped by. Some friends and I stayed at an Airbnb apartment near the Piazza Navona. The Piazza is famous for it's grandeur, the oval shape of the plaza and it's pickpockets. We ate our Easter dinner in the area at Osteria dell'Anima, a restaurant I'd gone to a few weeks before when I visited my friend Connor who's studying in Rome. He and his friends introduced me to their pear pasta, tortellini stuffed with cheese and pear, with a carrot cheese sauce. It's as interesting as it sounds. This time around, however, I ordered the eggplant parmesan (they apparently don't do chicken parmesan here and think it is the worst thing in the world to combine those two ingredients). Our evening ending in perfection when I brought my friends to the Frigidarium (introduced to me by Connor), which not only produces the best gelato in Rome, but the gelato of your choice in dipped in either white or dark chocolate and hardens over your dessert.
Saturday was one of my favorite days. While two of my friends went to take a tour of the Colosseum, my friend Courtney and I went to the Trastevere neighborhood of Rome, and is known as the Bohemian area. We found this unique shop that sold anything from crystal balls and compasses and old maps and jewelry. It truly is an artisan area. It was quieter than the center of Rome as well, and if I ever was to live in Rome one day, I would want to rent an apartment in the Trastevere area.
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| Shop in Trastevere |
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| A quiet, Trastevere neighborhood |
We saw most of the famous sights too. I'd been to Rome before and taken tours of the Vatican and the Colosseum, and seeing them again brought me back to 16 year old me being out into the world for what felt like the first time. I remembered making my Trevi Fountain wish and made the same one this time around. The Trevi Fountain is beyond anything I had ever imagined, and even seeing it for the second time I was surprised at how large it really is.
My favorite part of the trip was when I split up with my friends and went into the Keats Shelley House, the museum next to the Spanish steps that honors the great poets John Keats, my all time favorite, and Percy Shelley. The museum was once the apartment that Keats lived and died at. I was not too familiar with the life and works of Percy Shelley, but seeing the original letters, first edition copies of his poems and the room where he died was unbelievable.
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| View from his apartment |
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| His bedroom where he died |
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