My wife and I took our first trip abroad together over the Mardi Gras break. We left Friday night from MSY on British Airways. We landed in London and then caught our connection to Rome. We were delayed a bit leaving Heathrow and arrived in Rome around 5:30 pm Saturday night. By the time we got our bags and transportation, we arrived at our Air BnB in Trastavere around 7 pm.

Our itinerary was as follows: Saturday-Tuesday in Rome, rent a car and spend Tuesday-Friday in Monticchiello. Friday night Hilton Airport Hotel in Rome, fly home Saturday morning. We had amazing weather each day, only one day of clouds while we were driving around the Tuscan countryside. It was chilly in the mornings (40's) and would warm up to the 60's during the day. Most of the medieval hilltop towns in Tuscany were very windy, but not as bad in the valley.

This is our street when we arrived to our apartment in Trastavere

That night we ate at a restaurant next to our apartment, it was okay, nothing special. We had focaccia, pasta bolognese and past cacio y pepe (salt and pepper). We both found everything very salty. Much better meals to come.

The next morning we stopped at a corner cafe in Trastavere for a quick breakfast. It was a neat place, you could tell it was locals coming in on their daily routine. The people behind the counter were loud and surly at first, but we wound up stopping here every morning before heading out. By the last day they had our order ready before we approached the counter.

We then caught a cab to the Colosseum for an early tour of the Colosseum, Palatine Hill and Roman Forum. We were able to get inside the Colosseum while it was nearly empty. Our tour was wonderful, we booked it through LivItaly, and we only had 5 people in our group.

The tour ended a little after noon so we had the rest of the day to walk around Rome. We loosely followed Rick Steves' Heart of Rome walk, and made a few wrong turns but it was a lot of fun being out and about. We ate a late lunch at Osteria da Fortunata. I had read several reviews talking about their Carbonara. It did not dissapoint. We waiting in line for about 45 minutes but the restaurant is next to the Campo de Fiori, so we had fun people watching. This is the restaurant that has the ladies in the window making pasta. We wound up at the Spanish Steps around sunset, then made our way down Via Condotti & Corso doing some window shopping and of course gelato tasting. We stepped in a cafe for a pizza that night's dinner.

Day 2 we were up early again for the Pristine Sistine Tour at the Vatican. Our group was about 10 people, and 6 of us were from South Louisiana. Going early into the Sistine is worth it. There was maybe 30 people in there. We passed through again later on the tour and it was so packed you couldn't see the floor. The Vatican and its museums are massive, so I picked just a few photos to post. We also did the Scavi Tour- pics weren't allowed but it was amazing to see the catacombs and how well preserved they are.

We caught a cab back to Rome that afternoon and walked the Circus Maximus and up to check out the sunset and the Knights of Malta keyhole. We waited in line for about 30 mins but it was a really neat thing to see, especially with the sky just turning purple. Tried to take a pic with my phone but didn't come out too well.

We had dinner that night in Trastavere at Grazia & Graziella. Pasta was great and the house red was good as well.

The next morning we slept in a bit, had breakfast and then caught an Uber to the Hertz office on the northern edge of town. We had a smooth pickup and were on our way to Tuscany. First stop was in Orvieto.

This post was edited on 3/6/20 at 11:12 am