Our Italian Honeymoon: Villa Borghese Gardens, The Spanish Steps & The Trevi Fountain

Our plane landed in Rome around noon.  After we found our hotel and freshened up a bit, we went exploring.  First stop was to find a good piece of pizza.  Actually,  in Italy, a "piece" of pizza is an entire pizza.  But hey, I'm not complaining.  I love Margarita pizza and Italy did not disappoint.  After filling our stomachs, we walked to Villa Borghese Gardens which wasn't too far from our hotel.

The gardens are similar to Central Park in New York City, minus the Zoo.  There are walking trails, vendors renting out bicycles, scooters and trebachets.  There are also several museums within the gardens.

 This is an old home that now houses a modern art collection.  I love to picture the type of family that might have lived there.  Could you imagine the lives they must have led?  Before we went to Rome I had read the "Mark of the Lion" series by Francine Rivers.  It really brought the history of Rome to life for me.

Unfortunately we could not do as much walking around the gardens as we had hoped.  I have an old leg injury that loves the continually give me problems.  Flying makes it swell really badly and I was having a lot of pain from the swelling that day.

I convinced Jeremy to rent a trebachet to drive around the park.  How fun!  It was a blast getting to see the park this way.  Well... it was for me :)  Jeremy did all the peddling.

There were many temples throughout the gardens.  What a crazy world it must have been during a time when people openly worshiped multiple gods and built temples to honor them.  

 There are so many fountains around the city of Rome and honestly this is only one of two fountains that I saw people putting their feet in.  It's actually considered to be very disrespectful to put your feet into a fountain, so I'm assuming these are all tourists.

The Spanish Steps

The Spanish Steps are center of one of Rome's social scenes.  Locals and tourists alike gather to sit on the steps to people watch, or wonder through the alley's below full of high-end shopping.  It was about 2 miles from our Hotel, so Jeremy and I would often stroll by here during our stay.  

The alley's below house well known fashion icons such as Valentino, Gucci, Luis Vuitton and so on.  What amazes me is Italians LOVE designer brands.  Nearly every Italian I saw from the high class to low class carried a Luis Vuitton bag.  You would have thought they were exceptionally cheap in Italy, but they were even more expensive there than in the States.  

The Trevi Fountain

About 1/2 mile from the Spanish Steps is one of my favorite places in all of Rome.  The Trevi Fountain.  It is the largest fountain in the city.  Throwing a coin in the fountain is suppose to ensure you a safe trip back to Rome.  (However, we just realized we threw our coins over the wrong shoulder!  Oh well, hopefully we will return to Rome anyway!)

It is an excellent place for people watching.  It's amazing the different cultures you can observe while in Rome.  It's also peaceful to just listen to sounds of the fountain.

Around the Trevi are many alley's of food and local shops featuring wine, olive oils and other delicatessen.  The eateries are just what you would imagine.... little outdoor cafes with very entertaining waiters.  It was always hard to choose which place to stop at for dinner each night.

The area surrounding the Trevi also has some of the best gelato in the city.  Our favorite was at a shop called "San Crispino".  It was hard to find, but once we found it we realized that it came so highly recommended.  We tried several different flavors of gelato, but in our opinion, the limon (lemon) is the best.  We still crave it.  Most days we had gelato twice a day.  I think if we could go back Jeremy would eat it breakfast, lunch and dinner.  It was THAT good.