While there are few cold nights in Rome -- especially at the end of September -- and I believe it's the Spanish steps rather than stairs, Bob's right on the money when he says that ancient footprints are everywhere. Thanks to Mrs. Joelle flying in on the AC123, Joelle and Pemulis were recently able to add to those footprints when they spent five days and four glorious nights in the City of Seven Hills (you might know it as the Eternal City) during the first official days of autumn in this year AD 2023.
With Helga and Heinrich left behind, the original stars of the blog were able to try to recharge after nearly eight years of whatever the opposite of childless vacations are ("child vacations"? anti-paradise?). We arrived on a warm (they were all warm) evening and checked into our colosseum-adjacent hotel before rushing out to our first of many delicious meals. The negronis and the red wine flowed along with cacio e pepe, carbonara, cicoria, and other Roman delights. After dinner we took advantage of the much less peopled streets and took in a tiny portion of the unlimited ancient sights of the city.
We of course had cappuccinos with sticky sweet pastries for breakfast every morning, we walked on the Spanish steps both during the day and on a dark night (but it was never cold), we walked all around the colosseum, we ran along the Tiber and past the Castel Sant'Angelo, we visited the German cemetery at the Vatican that only citizens of the former Holy Roman Empire may visit (but don't tell anyone because we're of course not really Germans... but we managed to get past the Swiss Guards with only our cunning to guide us), we got a guided tour of the Domus Aurea which was actually really quite amazing and I would highly recommend it. It's crazy that it -- like most everything else around those parts -- is 2000 years old and the art on the walls is that old too.
It was sunny every single day, the food and wine were delicious, the prices are incredible especially in comparison to Munich/Germany, the people are actually nice (especially in comparison to Munich/Germany), and I didn't think about work once (probably since I was "between jobs" at the time as they say). You know, I think maybe we should move there...
