February 2018: Rome Diary – Day 6

We woke up to a cold and overcast day. We slept in a little and managed to make it to the hotel breakfast before it closed. We had a relatively relaxing day planned.

Borghese Gardens

We took a bus to arrive at the Borghese Gardens. It is a large wild park area in the middle of the city. It’s sort of the Central Park of Rome only more natural and less developed. There are trails and some woods as well as some grassy areas. There is also a zoo which we visited.

There were not many people in the zoo as the weather was on the colder side and it was threatening rain. That just meant more room for the kids to run around, see things, and play. The zoo had quite a diverse population of animals from giraffes to elephants to different types of birds to reptiles of all sorts.

After a couple hours we ended up leaving the zoo portion to go to the park area where the kids played some soccer.

Lazy Afternoon

The weather was worsening so we headed back towards the hotel and found a sports bar for lunch. It was pretty good and my youngest especially enjoyed it. Back at the hotel we visited the gym for a little bit and then retired to the room to watch some TV and relax. It was just too cold and rainy outside to do much and we needed a day to recharge.

Pizza and Gelato Tour

My wife had read about these types of tours and found one that had good ratings. It was family friendly and included, well, pizza and gelato as well as some history of Rome. The kids were definitely on board.

We met the guide in the specified place and met the other family who would be joining us for the tour. The were from New Jersey and had a son similar in age to our boys. The tour had to be one of my favorite activities. The historical perspective the guide brought explained the stories behind the different piazza’s, buildings, monuments and sculptures we saw. They were just buildings, squares and open spaces before, but after being put in a historical perspective they became so much more interesting and I’m really glad we took the tour.

The pizza portion of the tour was in the beginning which helped keep the kid’s attention. The pizza was above average and fresh out of the oven. After that we walked to PIazza Navona to learn about that before getting some gelato at Punto Gelato.

Oh boy, the gelato we got was a cut about everything else we had tried in Rome up to that point. It was was so good we spent the rest of the vacation thinking about it. Nothing we’ve had since comes close to it.

After the gelato we walked past several landmarks including the Pantheon, Trevi Fountains, and some newish government building that were build before the time of Columbus. The tour wrapped up near where we started and we sadly said goodby to our guide. We learned so many interesting things we never would have know about otherwise. She was really knowledgeable and great with the kids and even had a souvenir for the kids to remember the tour. We would definitely recommend this type of tour.

After the tour it was starting to sprinkle again so we decided to head back to the hotel and call it a night.