amyb

I also used Stefano and Rome Cabs and would again in a minute.

Great trip report so far LCI, keep it coming!

nwtraveler

Hi LowCountryIslander

My guide for the 2004 tour was Robin. She was really good and very knowledgeable; but I have to say that Francesca, our local guide for Ancient Rome and the Borghese blew me away. As she stated, she is a native Roman, and she was incredibly enthusiastic about her city. My website for my trip is http://cherylbryant.homestead.com/

LowCountryIslander

Hi nwtraveler...

We had Francesca for our Colosseum/Forum/Pantheon tour and our Borghese Gallery tour and I whole-heartedly agree. She was AMAZING!!!!

I'll talk about her more later in the trip report, but when I'm back in Rome (see I say "when" and not "if"!) I would contact her and set up a private tour with her of just about anything in Rome!

Kristina

LCI-I'm so glad to hear about Francesca. We have her booked in March for the Colosseum/Forum.

We were just going to do the Borghese tour offered by the museum. Now I'm wondering if I should try to book her for more...

LowCountryIslander

Kristina...

As great as Francesca was at the Colosseum and Forum I thought she was phenomenal at the Borghese. She really has a knack for presenting art in a way that would make anyone really understand it. Honestly when she was explaning the paintings and sculpture at the Borghese shivers ran down my spine...yes I think she is THAT GOOD! And her enthusiasm could not be beat!

I say book her for the Borghese if you can!

nwtraveler

LCI

I have a trip planned to Italy in October 2008 and I plan to schedule at least one private tour with Francesca.

I agree with you about her tour of the Borghese. She presented the information in such a way that I left the museum in love with Bernini. Her enthusiasm is very contagious. Even as she spoke to our group you could see other people stopping to listen.

Kristina -
I second LCI's recommendation. If you can get Francesca for the Borghese, do it.

LCBoniti

What a great beginning! I'm looking forward to the rest - particularly the Rick Steves tour portion. I actually have a good opinion of him and am curious to hear your first hand experience of one of his tours.

thursdaysd

LCB - if you're interested in reports on RS tours, his web site has a lot of scrapbooks put together by people who've been on them.

LowCountryIslander

Day Two, December 24th

We got an early start today because I had booked a walking tour of the Jewish Ghetto and Trastevere with Rome Walks (http://www.romewalks.com/). The starting time was 10am, and we were to meet the guide at Largo Argentina. We left the hotel at about 9am and it took roughly 30 minutes to walk there, with our trusty map and only asking one police officer if were heading in the right direction we arrived at Largo Argentina 30 minutes early. We walked around the ruins and took lots of pictures. The weather was holding out so far, it was still a bit overcast, but the sun was starting to peak out from the clouds.

There were 4 of us on the tour and the tour price was 40 Euro per person. The tour lasted 2 and a half hours. Our guide was Consuela and she was good, but at that point we didn’t have anything to compare her too. We walked through the Ghetto area and got a good overview of the Jewish history in Rome, then we walked over the Tiber to Trastevere. We stopped to see the Santa Maria in Trastevere church and we walked to Campo de Fiori where the tour ended at about 12:30pm.

From Campo de Fiori mom and I headed over to Piazza Navona where the Christmas/Befana market was held. If you ever wanted to buy a befana this was probably the place to do it. There were lots of stalls selling the little witches as well as nativity scenes and other various crafts. There were also several stalls with games and clowns walking around. It was a rather festive atmosphere and had the feel of a community fair.

It was shortly after 1pm and we were getting hungry. In my pre-trip research I had come across a write up on a mozzarella bar/restaurant called Obika (www.obika.it) located at Via dei Prefetti 28, in Piazza di Firenze not far from the Pantheon. We thought that would be an interesting place to try. Again, using our trusty map we were able to find the place…thank God for that map! And while walking to Obika we passed the restaurant we had dinner reservations at that night…good karma…we were finding our way around!

The menu at this place was extensive and making a decision was tough. In the end we decided to try a sample platter of 4 different mozzarellas on a bed of fresh spinach with dates. It was all delicious, but the definite winner was the smoked mozzarella. The sample platter was 28 Euro and with water and a soft drink the bill was 34.50 Euro.

After lunch we took a leisurely walk back to the hotel and stopped by the Pantheon on the way. We went inside to see the oculus and the nativity scene all pretty impressive. We would be back here tonight for mid-night mass.

After taking a brief rest back at the hotel we got ready for dinner and decided to take a taxi. When planning this trip I figured it may be a good idea to have a restaurant reservation for Christmas Eve. After doing some internet research and reading a review on Chowhound I found a place called Ristorante SanGallo and made a reservation there before leaving home. The restaurant is located at Vicolo della Vaccarella, 11/a. The restaurant is about 4 blocks from the Pantheon. The web address is
(http://www.ristorantesangallo.com/english/index.html)
We decided to take a taxi to the Pantheon and walk the rest of the way to the restaurant. We arrived a few minutes before our 7:30pm reservation but had no troubles being seated, in fact I was a little nervous because there was only one other table occupied at this point, but I kept telling myself 7:30 is still early for dinner in Rome. Believe me, after 30 minutes I had nothing to worry about, the place was full!

As soon as we sat down 2 glasses of prosecco were poured for us and when the waiter ascertained that we wouldn’t be having a started he brought us each a small tasting plate of mozzarella, olives, tomatoes, and eggplant puree, all very good. We ordered some Pinot Grigio and perused the menu. I decided on having the cod fish fillet served on top of thinly sliced eggplant (I LOVE eggplant!) and pecorino cheese, it was wonderful. Mom had roasted red mullet and she was very pleased with her food too. We then treated ourselves to dessert since it was Christmas Eve. I had a pear and almond torte with raspberries & chocolate fondue. Mom had a chestnut chocolate meringue and white chocolate ice cream trio. The entire meal was outstanding. We topped off the meal with espresso and just when we thought we couldn’t eat another bite the waiter brought us each a plate of 2 different panetone and it was the best panetone we have ever had it was moist and citrusy. This was clearly our most expensive meal at 125 Euro, but we enjoyed it so much and really liked the atmosphere of this restaurant it was a small dinning room (there was second dinning room downstairs), but the décor was clean lines and muted beige tones.

One thing that really impressed my mom with this place happened while I stepped away to the ladies room. The table of 4 across from us was complimenting the waiter on the starters they were having. The waiter went and brought the chef out. When the customers were finished complimenting the chef he went back into the kitchen and brought out his sous chef who had been the one who prepared what they were eating and she got to experience the praise from the customers first hand. Now, some may not thing this is a big deal, but my sister is a chef and it really made a nice impression upon my mom that the executive chef would do this small gesture. Of course all this took place in Italian and we are not fluent, but mom said it was pretty clear what was going.

After dinner we walked over to the Pantheon but it was only about 10pm. We took some pictures and ran into the couple who had been on the walking tour with us early in the day so we talked with them for about an hour. At 11pm we walked down to the area near the front doors of the Pantheon to wait with the others for mid-night mass. From reading some of the posts on Fodors about the mid-night mass here the year before I thought it would be a cast of thousands, but that was not the case, maybe a couple hundred people at the most. We waited for about an hour and at 5 minutes to mid-night they opened the doors and let people in a few at a time. Mom and I had no trouble finding seats and sat down just as mass was starting.

After mass we decided to walk back to the hotel and yes, we walked back via the Trevi Fountain again! But it was actually to our benefit because there was no on at the Trevi fountain at this time and I got some pretty nice night photos of the fountain. We got back to the hotel at around 1:30am and crawled into bed…it was a great way to spend Christmas!

mebe

Also enjoying your report. I hope be going in May -- Rome at Christmas sounds magical.

KL467

I really like Rick Steves tours.

SandyBrit

LowCountryIslander:

Nice trip report - interested in the Rick Steves part and have noted all the positive remarks by others so far.

Thanks for sharing

Sandy

LCBoniti

What a great day and evening you had! Ristorante San Gallo sounds wonderful and your menu had me drooling.

LowCountryIslander

Thanks everyone for continuing to read. Here is my Christmas Day in Rome....

Day Three, December 25th

The weather was absolutely perfect today, we could not have special ordered such a pretty day. The sun was shining, the sky was blue and the temperature was in the mid-high 50’s (F). We started the day with breakfast at the hotel and then walked over to Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica and we were just in time for the 10am Christmas day mass. Mass was being said by a Cardinal, but not speaking Italian we never did find out which Cardinal it was. We found seats without a problem, but within 15 minutes the church was just about full, with lots of people standing in the back, and believe me, this is not a small church! We stayed for the entire mass which ended at about 12 noon. As the procession left the church mom and I were standing at the end of the row on the aisle and when the Cardinal walked by he blessed us…I’ll take any blessing I can get! After mass we went outside and took lots of pictures. If you haven’t already guessed, I like to take lots of pictures and this trip was no exception, in 8 days I took about 700 pictures.

After mass we walked to St. Peter in Chains church to see MichelAngelo’s Moses. Oh My Gosh…just amazing to look at! Unfortunately we had arrived just before 12:30 and the church closes at 12:30 so we were shooed out. This afternoon we were to meet the group so we took the next few hours easy and made our way back to the hotel.

At 3pm we meet the tour group and our guide for an orientation meeting. Our guide was Donato and as I briefly alluded to above he was fantastic. He spent 2 hours getting to know our group and finding out our travel experience, discussed his background, he has been doing Rick Steves tours for 15 years and for the last 9 years only tours of Italy. He is a wealth of information. He could answer questions ranging from art, history and culture to politics, religion and in our case where some good specialty food stores were! He had a terrific sense of humor and was sincere in making sure each and every tour member was enjoying their time in Rome and he would assist with any special needs tour members had. I have to say that this was my 4th Rick Steves tour and the other 3 tours I had terrific guides, all wonderful in their own way, but Donato gets the gold star of guides in my book.

I also want to mention the demographic make-up of this particular tour. The other RS tours I have been on, have been longer in duration, between 13 and 17 days and on those tours the majority of the participants were in the 50-70 age range usually making me one of the younger ones, but I also took those tours either I the spring or fall. This tour had a much more diverse age range. There was a family of 3 with a 14 year old, a mother/son pair with the son in his 20’s, a married couple in their mid-20’s and 2 solo travelers one in her mid-30’s. The remainder of the group was between 40-70.

Shortly after 5pm (yes, it was a 2 hour orientation meeting), the group set out on a walking tour and covered basics in the neighborhood around the hotel and then we went into the Centro Storico. We passed the Pantheon and it was much more crowded then the night before. We made our way to the Piazza Navona which was an absolute mad house packed with people out for the evening. We made our way through the throng of people to the restaurant we were having our first group meal at. The restaurant, Trattoria der Pallaro was located a block south of Corso Vittorio Emanuele, down Largo del Chiavari to Largo del Pallaro. The meal started with an antipasto of prosciutto, olives, lentils, salami, fenel salad, and rice balls…it couldn’t have been better, I would have been happy with just the lentils! House wine and water were always on the table (the group had a wine kitty…each person put in 10 Euro…so Donato always made sure we had house wine on the table at every group meal). The first course was a pasta carbonara, again delicious and I mean REALLY GOOD! The second course was veal saltimbocca, which was a little dry; the pasta and antipasto dishes were really the highlight of this meal. I really enjoyed this laid-back restaurant and thought it was a great start to the tour.

After dinner the group took the #40 bus up Via Nationale to the hotel and we poured ourselves into bed for an 8am start the next day.

Mamaw

Unless I go back to my italy report I can't remember exactly which time we went to St. Peter in Chains, But when we took one look at Moses I felt like someone hit me in the heart. It may sound corny but it's 100% true. I had never seen such a statue. And the word "statue" is the wrong word, I can't explain that feeling so real, it's sur-real,if that makes sense?

Can someone help me on this? Are there priests there doing confesions at St. Peter's? I think that may have been the church we went in and their were priests doing confesion (somewhat in the open) and when one smiled at Me I couldn't resist going over and saying Hello (being a good catholic girl)and he was very sweet and spoke excellent english. But what blew me away was he had been assigned to a Church right here in Warren Mi in the early 90's. And it was a Church my Aunt and Cousin went to. Now talk about God crossing your path with someone. So we stood there and talked about Detroit for the longest time.

LCI, I am just LOVING your post. I hope you enjoy your group and can't wait to hear all about it.

LowCountryIslander

Mamaw...

I think I did see some priests doing confessions at St. Peter in Chains. I definitely saw confessions going on at Santa Maria Maggiore on Christmas day. It was interesting because at each confessional above the door the language in which the priest was hearing confession was posted.

Now onto...

Day Four, December 26th

We were ready to go at 8am this morning and the group walked from the hotel to St. Peter in Chains church. I was happy that we got to go back to the church and take our time and really get to see the Moses sculpture.

We then had a short walk to the Colosseum to meet Francesca our local guide. As I said before she was absolutely fantastic! She had such an infectious joy for Rome, the history, the culture and wanting to make all of us fall in love with the city seemed to be her goal, which she accomplished without any difficulty. She made ancient Rome come alive in my mind.

As we made our way through the Colosseum the grey threatening sky won out and it began to rain. It continued to rain as we went through the Roman Forum and the Pantheon.

After spending 3 and a half hours with Francesca we had the rest of the day free. Mom and I went over to Santa Maria Sopra Minerva church to take look at the frescoes, but it was closed. Since it was cold out and we had been walking outside for hours we decided to try and find one of the famous coffee bars near the Pantheon. The first one we found was Sant’ Eustachio. We went in, paid for 2 cappuccino and went to the bar to order our cappuccino. They were delicious, the BEST I have ever had! As we stood at the bar the place was packed, we finished our coffees and decided to walk over to Campo de Fiori. Being the day after Christmas most shops were closed but we had fun window shopping. We continued on to Largo Argentina and caught the bus back to the hotel. One of the great things about the RS tour is that when moving around on public transport with the group, the bus or metro tickets have been paid for. But it was really simple and easy to buy the tickets at a Tabacchi or from a ticket vending machine at metro stops. And remember to validate the ticket in the machine on the bus!

When we got off the bus we decided to check out the Ristorante Target around the corner from the hotel and choose to have dinner there. We were going to go to Trattoria Monti near Santa Maria Maggiore, but since it was cold and gray-ish outside we voted to stay close to the hotel.

We went to dinner at 7pm and Ristorante Target was a huge hit! The restaurant is located at Via Torino, 33 (www.targetandcompany.it). This place was really a delightful surprise. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect form the name, but the menu outside looked good and Donato had given it a pretty good recommendation.

This was definitely another splurge meal, but since we had only had breakfast and a cappuccino this afternoon we didn’t mind! We had bruschetta pomodoro and basil, a total of 3 glasses of wine (yes, we probably should have just gotten a bottle!), bread, I had pasta e fagioli (sorry for any misspellings), mom had pearlized barley soup, both were excellent and warm on this chilly evening! For second course I had roasted turbo with roasted rosemary potatoes and tomatoes and mom had fillet of beef with green pepper sauce. We couldn’t have enjoyed it more. We also had an order of grilled vegetables which included the much anticipated grilled raddicho, eggplant, zucchini, mushrooms, and tomatoes…again all delicious. Just when we thought we couldn’t eat another thing my sweet tooth called to me and I had the most delectable chocolate cake that was presented beautifully with chocolate and lemon sauces and we each had an espresso. The espresso was the only disappointment for me with this meal.

This was clearly, for us, another great meal and it wasn’t even a restaurant I had previously researched. I will say I really enjoyed the atmosphere of this restaurant too, kind of modern-ish, but very comfortable, we sat for 2+ hours and felt right at home. The menu was fairly extensive with lots of salads, pizzas and pasta dishes as well as the second courses. I know some people would think the prices for the meals are a bit extraordinary, but we had such a good time at every meal that it was a pleasure, and neither my mom nor I purchased any big souvenir items…the meals were our souvenir memories!

After dinner we walked back to the hotel 2 very happy ladies and climbed into bed very satisfied and delighted with our Roman holiday!

LowCountryIslander

nwtraveler...

Thanks for sharing the link to the website of your RS tour of Rome in 2004. I love looking at pictures and reading about other people's travels...guess that's also why I'm hooked on Fodors!

SusanP

LCI, I'm still enjoying your report. Don't feel that you have to apologize for enjoying a great meal, just because you think it cost more than some people like to spend! I always try to spend less on a hotel or apartment and don't spend a lot on taxis (in Rome, I take the bus or walk most of the time) so that I can spend a little more on great meals and some shopping.

samsmom1127

I am so enoying your report, LCI! I was in Rome and Florence last February with my 14 y.o. daughter, and you are bringing back some very sweet memories. I am looking forward to hearing more about your RS tour. We usually travel independently, but I am considering RS for a tour of Greece. Can't wait to read more!

LowCountryIslander

Day Five, December 27th

It was another 8am start today and the sun was shining and it stayed that way all day! We took the metro as a group to the Ottaviano stop which is just a few blocks from The Vatican. We met our local guide, Judy, at The Vatican Museum and did not have to wait in the enormous line that was down the block and around the corner and it wasn’t even 9am yet. I had heard horror stories of the line for the museum and was grateful we did not have to wait in it.

After we donned our audio system we started the tour of the museum. It was unbelievable to see so much art in one place but my favorite was the map room. We made our way to the Sistine Chapel. Let’s just say…WOW! When I was there in 1984 it was before the restoration and I remember the Sistine Chapel to be dark. Well, it was nothing like that now. The colors are vibrant and it feels like the paintings are coming to life. We were very fortunate that although it was crowded it was not shoulder to shoulder jammed with people and we were able to spend about 20 minutes in the chapel. The guards were not even pushing us through, which I also heard happens often when there are big crowds.

Once finished in the museum we went through the crypt and then to the front of St. Peter’s Basilica. We said our good-byes to our local guide Judy there and Donato took over and guided us through the Basilica. Here is one example where I think Donato went above and beyond for us…I thought when we finished with Judy Donato would give us brief directions and “set us free”, however this was not the case. He brought us into the basilica and spent well over an hour taking us around and pointing out various things that I would never have noticed had he not taken the time to show us around.

We finished in the basilica around 1pm and then mom and I got on the line to go up to the cupola. We took the elevator to the roof level and got to walk around the interior of the dome. Mom was thrilled with herself for being able to do this, she wasn’t quite sure how she would handle being that high up in the interior of the dome but she did a great job and we have a celebratory photo of her in the dome! At this point I left mom for a little while on the roof level and I walked the 320 winding steps up to the top of the cupola for an amazing view. It was the perfect weather for this…sunny and clear blue sky! It was also very crowded, so I took several pictures and headed back down to meet up with mom. We did wait about 1 hour in the line to get to the elevator to go to the top and the price was 7 Euro per person. If you wanted to walk the whole way (not taking the elevator to the roof level) the price was 5 Euro per person.

When we came down and left the basilica we stopped at The Vatican post office to buy stamps and mail our postcards. Then we headed off in search of a bar for cappuccino and somewhere to sit. We found a place on Via Borgo Pio called Bar Latteria Giuliani and ordered our cappuccinos and sat for about an hour. I have to give this place the award for most interesting cappuccino we had one with a heart shaped smiley face and the other with a devil face !

After having our little break we did some window shopping in the area and met for another group dinner at 6:30pm. This dinner was at Hostaria Dei Bastioni located on Via Leone IV, 29. I have to say that this place was really nothing special and our least favorite of the whole trip. We had antipasto which included fried zucchini blossom, bruschetta and fried olives stuffed with meat. The pasta dish was farfele with curry shrimp and the second course was roasted chicken with rosemary potatoes. We ended the meal with fruit and lemoncello, which was the highlight of the meal!

We ended the evening taking the metro back to the hotel and feeling that we had another great day in Rome!