This was our first full day in Rome. We woke up surprisingly rested and without much jet lag. We did have to set our alarms so we didn’t oversleep and miss breakfast, though.
By the time we got down to the breakfast area, it was fairly crowded, but we found a place to sit. There was a normal selection of eggs, sausage, cereals, fresh and canned fruits, yogurt, pastries and breads. The quality of the food was just okay, but was good enough for us to fill up for the day.
The Morning
After breakfast we went back to our room to gather our stuff for the day. At the front desk we asked about getting bus tickets. They directed us to a newsstand next to the hotel where we would by a pack of tickets. They didn’t accept credit cards so I was happy we had gotten enough euros the previous day at the airport ATM. The pack of tickets ended up costing 1.5 euros for each ticket for the adults. Children under 10 were free so we only needed tickets for my wife and myself when we rode the bus.
With tickets in hand, I fired up Google Maps to figure out how to get to our first destination, the Pantheon. The bus stop to pick up the bust was directly across from the hotel and we only had to wait a couple minutes for it to arrive. It was a 10 minute ride along the road the hotel was on to get off at our stop. Seeing the traffic, cobblestone roads, and ancient buildings along the route was quite an experience.
At our stop we had a couple more blocks to walk. The streets were more likely alleys and I was thinking it was taking us to the wrong place. Suddenly we turned around a corner we had arrived!
The Pantheon has been around for literally thousands of years. It was originally a Roman temple but is now some sort of church. Since we were visiting on a Sunday morning, there was a service going on when we arrives so we had to wait in order to go in.
There were several people trying to get people to go on tours (in English) of the building and it’s history. At first we resisted, but for about 20 euros we figured we’d learn a lot more about the place than we would otherwise. In the end it was well worth it. The guide was engaging with the kids and knew much about the history of the site. We got to go inside when the church service ended and it was fascinating
Despite the rainy weather outside we all got quite a bit out fo the tour that we wouldn’t have known about otherwise.
The Afternoon
After the tour we headed towards the Trevi Fountains in what had turned into a pretty steady rain. On the way there we passed some restaurants that reminded the kids that they were hungry so we stopped for lunch. Tomatico and my wife went to a nicer sit down restaurant and our youngest and I went to a deli sort of place to get some pizza slices. Our slices were barely edible while they had what they considered a fantastic lunch.
After lunch we headed towards the Trevi Fountains:
They were quite the sight and luckily the rain had mostly let up by that time. The fountains didn’t really hold the interest of the kids for long, though, so we were off to find a gelato shop my wife had read about. Google Maps got us there eventually. The store was really hard find. The kids weren’t interested in any of the flavors by my wife tried one the owner recommended. We ended up going to a different gelato shop just down the street for the kids. The owner got along great with the kids and they really liked him and the gelato.
Our feet were getting tired so we decided to head back to the hotel to rest for a couple hours.
The Evening
We rested at the hotel watching TV and catching up on email. As it got towards dinner there was a burger place my wife had researched that we wanted to try out. We had had too many bad pizza experiences so far in Rome that we wanted to try something else that was a can’t-miss for our youngest.
We took the bus to the same drop off point we had gone to in the morning and walked a couple blocks in the opposite direction of the Pantheon. Following Google Maps we again through it was leading us astray until that final corner when we suddenly arrived at the burger place called Open Baladin.
It was a casual burger joint with excellent burgers. The biggest hit was fresh made potato chips. The kids really enjoyed that treat. We had finally got the little one a solid meal that he enjoyed.
We of course found some gelato for dessert before taking the bus back to the hotel to call it a night.
The next morning we had to get up early as we had scheduled a tour of the Vatican.
Tomatico Travels 
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