Finally we've made it to Italy, after a few years postponing it as I tend to prefer the colder northern climates. But Rome is definitely an unavoidable destination in the world, and I'm very glad to have been persuaded to go at last.

This post is just an introduction to the trip, and the city, illustrated with the photos I shared daily while there. The weather on the first two days went from grey and gloomy to short strong showers, so not the ideal to leave a good impression or take pretty pictures. But when you're in a city so steeped in history and full of art, a decent photographer can produce some illustrative images. The bad weather also meant that we could just walk into an almost empty St. Peters square in the middle of the Vatican City, without any queues. Just two days later, on a sunny Sunday, you could hardly see the street leading to the Basilica for all the tourists and pilgrims that headed towards the Vatican.

The second day started with a quick visit to the Vila Borghese gardens, and a lengthy visit to the Galleria Borghese which houses an impressive collection of works by my favourite sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini, and also a great collection of paintings and frescos organised over two floors. If you like classical art this is an obligatory visit. 

At the end of the day, we went for the two other well-known tourist traps in Rome, the Spanish Steps and the Treviso Fountain. And don't be fooled by the images in all the movies and television were these places aren't completely overrun by visitors and people selling all kinds of useless knick-knacks like selfie sticks and strange, gooey, dolls that make annoying noises. Even on a rainy Thursday evening, both places were full of people, so I would say to try and go there early in the morning if you want some space to photograph.

By the third day, we had a glorious sunshine and a, boring cloudless, sky. I know, only photographer complain about a blue sky. And we decided to go to the Colosseo, the Foro Romano and the Palatino. These are basically two attractions and you can get a single ticket for both. I would advise to buy this in advance, as the queue to buy tickets on location was huge. And then there is the queue to actually get into the sites. I was not expecting these sort of amount of visitors waiting to get in. You can see on the picture to the right the huge amount of people present at the time. If after you visit these sites you can still walk, you can visit the imposing monument to the fatherland, the Altare della Patria pictured below.

I think that a four-day visit is great to get a feeling for the city, but there are things that we didn't get to visit, and will probably come back for, like the museums which we didn't get to visit any. It is definitely worth staying in the old part of town and just walking everywhere, which we did. We stayed in an apartment from Airbnb, just of Piazza Navona. Gabrielle, our host, was great and the apartment had the perfect location and a great neighbourhood feeling.

This is for the first impressions, soon I'll start showing the full-colour images, and more in depth posts.
Until then,
Keep wandering, keep looking...