It was my intention to blog regularly while on our trip but something odd happened when I saved this post that it took me a few days to fix the glitch and get the app to allow me to blog again. So I’m a little behind. In real time we are currently in Cinque Terre. But first I need to bring you up to date. So…. 

We made it to Rome! The first city during our 11 day stay. It’s even more beautiful than I remember it! 

The last time I was here was about 18 years ago on a tour group with Contiki, which caters to 20-something year olds. It was a total fluke I even ended up in that group tour. My mom had just began to babysit for a living and the parents of the little girl she took care of told me how they had booked a tour to Europe but the mom’s sister couldn’t go after all and would I like to join the tour. I didn’t want to be the third wheel with them so I invited my cousin and thankfully she was able to get the time off and join me. So I got a taste of about 12 different cities in Europe. But that’s not what this post is about. And I must say that so far this second visit to Rome with my husband and children has been more memorable. 

After our long day of flying we made it to our hotel at about 7:50pm. Once we settled in we went out to find a place to eat and found this delicious place just a few feet away from our hotel. Caffe Del Terre. We were walking by it and my husband was browsing at the menu when he read “chicken and potatoes” and his eyes opened wide with happiness. The place did not disappoint! It was absolutely delicious comfort food. Just what we needed after so many hours of traveling. And especially because the breakfast they’d given us on the 1st flight left something to be desired. 

That first night we were so out of whack on the time change that Elysse, our youngest, woke up at 2:30am on Sunday morning. That morning we had our Imperial Tour booked for 2pm which would be visiting the Coliseum and the Forum. So in the morning we decided to visit The Pantheon after breakfast. Oh! I must say making sure that your hotel stay includes the cost of a full breakfast (in other words not continental) is huge. It’s so convenient, especially with kids, to just be able to go to the breakfast area and know you’ve got that first meal of the day taken care of. I can’t emphasize this enough. 

We did some awesome sight seeing that day and visiting the sites went pretty smoothly. We had a minor glitch when we got off the tour bus at the Coliseum because the couple of minutes it took us to get Elysse into the child carry backpack caused us to lose our group. We found them fairly easily but of course not without a bit of stress and frustration. I was so distraught with trying to find the group that when the second street vendor got in my face about buying a selfie stick I snapped in his face “No!!” 

All in all it was a great Sunday! 

The jet lag for the girls has been pretty bad, especially for Elysse who again woke us up on the 3rd day (Monday) at 2:30am. At least she’s consistent haha. Only problem is Monday we had our Vatican tour scheduled for pickup between 6:45am – 7:30am. Trust me when I say if you schedule a Vatican tour you don’t want to do it in the afternoon when everyone else has also decided to visit it. Early morning is great! Not so much on 3 hours of sleep though! 

The tour was great and our tour guide Max was EXCELLENT!! Of course when traveling with kids minor set backs always seem to be the norm. Near the end of our Vatican tour one of us had to stay outside with the stroller because we hadn’t checked it in. I told my husband to go ahead but then he said no we should. So I went in with both girls. Within a minute or two at most of walking in, Elysse started to scream bloody murder so I hauled ass out of there with both girls. I went to the spot where I expected to find my husband but he was gone. Wtf? So we stood there for about 5 minutes and I had no intention of moving so we wouldn’t end up in a mess of trying to find each other. Except at that moment Celeste decided she needed to pee. So in the time I left to take her pee with Elysse in tow, my husband came out of the museum with no idea where to find us. We finally found each other but we were both annoyed. 

From there we went on by metro to the Borghese Gardens that my husband wanted us to see. Remember I said we were up since 2:30am? Well by the time we made it to the entrance to the park I was so damn tired all I wanted to do was stop and sleep because I felt I was going to fall over at any moment. We were both grumpy and tired. The girls and I ended up falling asleep on the grass while my husband kept watch. We never did make it into the park but from the little I saw from the main entrance, it was beautiful and would be well worth the visit. Sometimes we just have to be flexible. 

That was our last night in Rome. We went straight to the hotel and rested. The girls were so exhausted that my husband brought us food to go from that delicious little caffe we ate at the first night. He even ordered a delicious treat for me! Yum. 

Next city…. Florence. 

Here’s some of our pics…