Travel Back To LA

Rooftops of Venice from The Fortuny Museum (taken yesterday)

We got up super early to catch the very first water taxi of the morning (4:30am). We took the water taxi to the stop with the bus station on the mainland just outside of Venice, and then waited there for ~40 minutes because we missed the previous bus by about 30 seconds (mostly because Dan didn't know what he was doing). We eventually got on the next bus, got to the airport, and it all was all smooth sailing from there. We flew from Venice -> Heathrow, had a brief layover where we got to enjoy one of the lounges for some food and rest, and then we caught the long flight from Heathrow to LAX. We were back in our place in LA by 4pm. Really long day, but man we are glad we have an extra day to settle in in LA, and we were very thankful to have our friend Juan to watch our place while we were gone, and to take us to and from the airport which made everything much easier.

Ciao Italia, until next time!

Venice at sunrise while waiting for the bus to the airport.

Last Day In Venice

San Marco Campanile

Franca, Piero, Norma, Marco, and Dan

It is hard to believe the two weeks have already passed by. Today is our last day of vacation before we jump back on a plane to LA. We are excited that we get to meet up with Labe's wife Norma, their two boys, Marco and Piero, and Labe's mom. They came in to Venice to meet with us for a bit in the morning. We met them in Piazza San Marco for a couple of hours where we got a chance to sit in the square, let the boys run around chasing birds, all while one of Labe's cousins was playing the piano outside for one of the restaurants on the square. We didn't even know Labe had a cousin, and turns out he looks just like Labe!

Yvonne and Dan from the balcony on Saint Mark's Basilica

Yvonne and Dan from the balcony on Saint Mark's Basilica

After spending time with Labe's family we decided to go into Saint Mark's Basilica. There was a lot of explore inside the church (but no cameras allowed), and you could even go upstairs in the church which allowed you to go outside on a patio that overlooks all of Piazza San Marco. After leaving the church we decided to check out the Fortuny Museum. This came as a recommendation from someone we were talking with at the Arsenale who said this was a pretty incredible building and collection to check out. The museum was interesting in that it had such a wide variety and somewhat eclectic collection of work. We wandered the building and saw as much as we could before the museum closed.

We really wanted to make sure we had a really great last meal to close out our trip. We remembered walking by an interesting place called Osteria L'Orto dei Mori which was not too far from our airbnb, so we decided that we would try that out. We were able to grab an early reservation and a table outside in the very quite, neighborhoody square. We enjoyed a great meal outdoors on the canal and then went home to start packing. We have a crazy early flight which means we need to wake up even earlier to catch a boat and then a bus to get to the airport. We will need to wake up early enough to catch a 4:30am boat.

The last photo we took! Yvonne and Dan on the Grand Canal one last time.

Murano

View of Murano

Glass blowing on Murano

Glass flowers on Murano

Today we had two goals, one to go visit Murano and the other to squeeze in some more time at another site of the biennale. So we woke up early to catch a water taxi over to the islands of Murano which is not too far from the main islands of Venice, and just so happens to be closer to the side we are staying on. Murano is famous for their glass. So on the islands you can see glass blowing and of course many options to purchase Murano glass. The islands themselves are also very beautiful. It is like a smaller Venice, in that it also has many small and large canals that split the islands with shops, restaurants, and homes all lining the canals. Overall it is much smaller than Venice but pretty cool to see all the glass and people working with glass all over the island. We also wanted to hop out a bit further to the islands of Burano, which are famous for brightly colored buildings and fabrics but we instead went back into Venice when we were done on Murano so that we had enough time to see more of the biennale. 

Dan as just another face... 

Yvonne at the Arsenale

We took a water taxi from Murano to Piazza San Marco so that we could visit the exhibits at the Arsenale. Instead of many small individual buildings, the Arsenale was one huge building that went on forever, that was kinda split up inside to showcase a variety of work. Just like the day before, the work of many artists and many styles and experiences were shown. It was again really fun to explore and we stayed until close again and of course were still unable to see everything. 

pasta with bolognese at Harry's Bar

We decided that we want to try dinner at Harry's Bar that night. This is a very famous restaurant in Venice that has been around forever, and very well know for being frequented by many famous people over the years and the origin as such things as the bellini and carpaccio. So we walked from the Arsenale back up to Piazza San Marco to make a reservation at Harry's. We made a reservation and had to quickly run back to our place since they do not allow shorts and sneakers in the restaurant. We jumped on a water taxi, ran home, changed, and the head back out to Harry's. Here were enjoyed another amazing meal. We tried their fresh artichokes, pasta with bolognese, and a baked pasta with cheese. We also had a bellini since Harry's Bar is the creator of the drink. It also turned out that two tables down from us was the owner of Harry's Bar. He later stopped by the table to say hi and ask how the meal was. 

Dan and Yvonne at Harry's Bar

Happy Birthday Yvonne!

Riding a taxi down the Grand Canal

Today is Yvonne's birthday!!! It also happens to be the one day that Ben and Isabel are also in Venice so we make plans with them to hang out for the day. We decide that we want to check out the biennale which is an art exhibition that takes place every other year in Venice.

A piece from 'Treasures From the Wreck of the Unbelievable'

We met up with Ben and Isabel first thing in the morning to go check out Damien Hirst's exhibit in the Punta della Dogana before heading over to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. While neither of these were part of the biennale, they were both very cool to check out. The Hirst exhibit was titled 'Treasures From the Wreck of the Unbelievable' which was based on a made up shipwreck and the art shown were the pieces discovered in the wreck. Kind of a cool idea with some pretty impressive pieces. The Peggy Guggenheim was a totally different pace. Instead this museum was her former home and it was showing her personal eclectic collection of art which was pretty impressive to see. In both cases, not only was the artwork impressive, but the buildings themselves were worth seeing alone.

Yvonne, a work of art!

From those two museums we head out to lunch across the Grand Canal. Ben and Isabel got a good recommendation that we decided to check out, Corte Sconta. Our meal here was really incredible. Lots of fresh seafood and we even tried out a dish local to Venice called Sarde in Saòr, which is basically sweet and sour sardines. The meal was great and on our way through one of the alleys we stumbled upon a ceramics shop with the work of an artists named Merlin Alessandro that caught the attention of Ben and Isabel. We explored the shop and bit, and they bought a bunch of new dishes/cups which was some pretty cool stuff. 

Yvonne & Dan at The Giardini

After lunch we walked over to one of the biennale sites at The Giardini. Neither of us really knew what to expect, but were pleasantly surprised by it all. This location is a large garden/ground with a bunch of small pavilions scatted around. Each pavilion was dedicated to one artist from each country that sent an artist to the exhibition. You can think of it as a bunch of bite-sized museums/exhibits, each with a pretty unique variety and style of work. The four of us explored a bunch of different pavilions before Ben and Isabel had to take off. We were enjoying ourselves there so much that we still stayed around after they left until they closed at 6pm.

Dinner at Vecia Cavana

Once we got out of the biennale, we started to walk back across the city to make our reservation at Vecia Cavana. The reservation was made by our friend Labe's father, who eats here often when coming to Venice. He also said he left us something nice there for Yvonne's birthday. We enjoyed another great meal here, the highlight was a really fantastic branzino. Then for dessert they brought out a cake and candles, and Labe's parents got us champagne. It was super nice of them to help us out, as well as leave this as a gift for us. We really enjoyed the meal, and then walked around Venice that night just taking our time to get back home. Yvonne was also on the hunt for some pesto potato chips, which we later figured we must have made up in our head since we never found them no matter how many places we checked. Overall, we had a lot of great experiences today and we were happy we could share them with Ben and Isabel, and even better it was all on Yvonne's birthday!

Yvonne, Ben, and Isabel on the Grand Canal

Train To Venice

The Grand Canal from the Rialto Bridge

Today was a travel day. We checked out of our airbnb in Florence, walked to the train station, and grabbed our train to Venice. Our train left Florence at 11:30am and we were in Venice by 1:30pm. When you get off the train in Venice you are right at the edge of the city. There is a vaporetto (water bus) stop right outside the train station so you can easily jump on a boat to take you where you need.

view of our neighborhood

Our airbnb in Venice was in a pretty unique area. It is in a bit of a residential area in the northeast side of Venice. It is right on the water, and kinda away from the heavy tourist areas. Even better, there is a vaporetto stop only steps from the front door of the building. We met our host, dropped our bags off and then just head out for a walk.

Yvonne & Dan in Piazza San Marco

Resturants along Fondamenta della Misericordia

We had no plans for our first day in Venice since we weren't too sure how long our travels would take. We hopped over a few bridges and found a really nice strip of restaurants for us to grab a late lunch. Venice is not particularly known for its food, but we hope to find some of the best places to eat. This place was fine for lunch, nothing too special. We had some seafood pasta and salmon with toasted bread. After lunch we continued to explore the city. We walked over to the Rialto Bridge and sat along the Grand Canal for awhile, then walked over to Piazza San Marco. We figured we might as well just keep walking and see some of the main areas to get familiar with where they are and how far of a walk they are from where we are staying. While walking around we also tried a locally made chocolate shop, VizioVirtù, which was pretty awesome. 

Cappellacci from Ostaria da Rioba

Eventually dinner time came along, and decided to take a recommendation from our host about a place nearby our apartment, Ostaria da Rioba. Our meal here was really incredible. We started with a shrimp appetizer, then shared some homemade cappellacci that were filled with cheese, potato, then finally shared a risotto with fish on top. All of these dishes were incredible, and made us question all the talk about food not being great in Venice. We were super full and quite tired, so thankfully our place was only a 2 minute walk away. 

Gondola's outside Piazza San Marco

Wedding Day

View entering Villa La Pietra gardens

We slept in this morning with last night being a late one, and we expect the same for tonight. Tonight is the actual wedding, whereas the past few nights have all been part of the celebration leading up to the big day. Dan, along with a few other friends, are ushers for the wedding which is as close to groomsmen for this wedding as there will get since there are no groomsmen. So the group of groomsmen spent the day with Ben before he needed to take off for the ceremony. 

Villa La Pietra

Before heading over to Ben's hotel room, Dan and Yvonne grabbed brunch at Ditta Artigianale since we enjoyed the food and coffee the first time around. After wrapping up at brunch, Dan grabbed his stuff and went over to Ben's where he and the other ushers hung out for the afternoon and grabbed some pizzas to hold us all over until the wedding. Ben took off in the late afternoon and the rest of the guys got ready and took off about an hour after Ben left. Everyone was bused to the wedding venue, Villa La Pietra, which was about a 10 minute drive from central Florence. The location is a florentine renaissance villa which made for an amazing home with some amazing gardens. The ushers were given their instructions in advance of the rest of the guests arriving. We were to help seat guests at the site of the ceremony since it was on grass terraces that made for some tricky steps and footing. Yvonne hung around the airbnb for the afternoon while Dan was out, and later grabbed a bus with some of our friends to get to the ceremony with the rest of the guests.  

A bit deeper into the gardens at Villa La Pietra

They had some amazing weather all weekend, and the ceremony also had great weather, maybe just a little hot in the sun (which made for a pretty sweaty usher job). They had a Jewish ceremony, and their rabbi did a great job on explaining everything that was happening. Their rabbi ended up being a huge hit all weekend as he is a good looking guy that does triathlons, studied physics, and is an entrepreneur... and has a wife and kids... and is a rabbi. He joined us on the morning runs which is where Dan got to meet him for a bit.

Photobooth photos!

After the wedding there was a great party. The group moved over to a neighboring garden for a cocktail party that was complete with a salad station, chef station, and a cheese station. The cheese station had more then 3 different types of mozzarella cheese!!! We spent an hour or two at the cocktail party before everyone moved to another neighboring garden where there were tents and wooden floors set up with some great market lights hanging between the tents. We had another great meal to cap off the weekend, a few more great speeches, dessert/coffee bars, and an overall great party. It ended up being another late night, but we had a blast while at the same time we had to say goodbye to our friends Labe and Norma as they were leaving early the next morning. We hope to see Norma when we go to Venice since she is staying a bit longer in Venice with Labe's parents. 

Such an incredible and busy weekend. Hard to believe it is over now since there was so much going on, and every event continued to impress. It was also great for us to catch up with a bunch of friends. We now have one more day in Florence before we take off for the last leg of our trip in Venice.

Yvonne & Dan after the wedding ceremony

Dan & Yvonne at the end of the night

Piazza Party

Giotto's Campanile, Florence, Italy

Yvonne & Dan @ Tuscan cooking class in Mercato Centrale Firenze

As part of the wedding, Ben organized group runs in the morning. So Dan woke up early Friday morning to join the group for a 4 mile running tour of Florence. This morning there were only three of us on the run but we had a great time. We ran along the Arno River where our guide took us to a somewhat hidden running track in the hills below Piazza Michelangelo. After the run Dan and Ben caught up over coffee. In the afternoon Yvonne and Dan signed up for a Tuscan cooking class (another activity offered by the wedding). We walked over to Mercato Centrale Firenze which has a ground floor of fresh fruit, vegetables, meats, fish, and cheese, and a second floor of prepared foods. On there second floor there is also a cooking studio where we took the class, Lorenzo De' Medici. At the start of the class they gave us a tour of the market. Everything cooked in the market comes from the vendors who bring fresh foods to the market, our cooking class is no exception. After the tour we began the class. We made pasta and a simple sauce with vegetables. The class was super fun, we met some more people from the wedding, and got to enjoy a very fresh, handmade meal.

Yvonne & Dan in Piazza Della Passera

After the class we walked around Florence some more and then head home to get ready for the first official event of the weekend, a friends and family dinner at Il Santo Spirito and then a larger party in a nearby piazza. The dinner was amazing, with some good speeches and an incredibly funny song by a couple of friends of Ben and Isabel. From dinner we moved down the street to meet up with a much larger portion of the wedding (dinner was only 50 or so people) where we found a few hundred guests eating and drinking in the square, Piazza Della Passera. This was super cool. All of the restaurants and cafes were open to us. So we all were able to enjoy the square and explore each restaurant on the square to try pizza, pasta, gellato, and coffee. We stayed here until about 2 in the morning meeting more friends and family for the wedding and watching various street performers that came by to play music and preform. Dan and Yvonne even participated in one of the performances with the bubble guy who by the end of his show was lighting bubbles filled with gas on fire. Dan & Yvonne each held one of these bubbles and watched it go up in flames in their hand. This also gave us time to catch up with our friends Labe and Norma who arrived in Florence just in time for the Friends and Family dinner.

On To Florence

Il Duomo di Firenze, Florence, Italy

We finally got a chance to sleep in a bit! Check out was at 10am, so we slept in until 9, packed, and walked over to the train station around 10am. There is a pretty good food market in the train station so we decided to wait there and grab a bite to eat while waiting for our 11:50am train. We shared a crepe and a waffle, each with an overwhelming amount of nutella spread on top. So much so that we had to remove some of the nutella just to finish the meal. Dan also got two coffees since there was a really good coffee stand there too! Then we jumped on our train to Florence!

View from our patio of Ponte Vecchio, Florence, Italy 

Walking across Ponte Vecchio the first of many times after coffee with Ben & Isabel

Once arriving at the train station in Florence we walked to our Airbnb. The place we got was incredible. We had no idea it would be so nice, but we knew it had a great location. Once we walked into our airbnb we looked out the patio across the Arno River only to find our friend Ben sitting on his hotel patio. We sent him a message and waved across the river at each other. After settling in we went across the river to his hotel, Portrait Hotel, to catch up and grab a coffee with both Ben and Isabel. They invited us to a dinner that night at Trattoria Cammillo. Between coffee and dinner we just walked around Florence a bit to explore. For dinner, they basically took over the restaurant with how many people they had (even though this was not part of the wedding) and the food and wine was just pouring out. All of the food was amazing, this was one of the places that our airbnb host suggested that we must go, so that worked out. We also had a chance to sit with Isabel's mom at this dinner which was really nice as we've never met and it was nice to catch her before a crazy weekend. After all the intense eating, we still had room in our stomachs for gelato. We ended the night with a scoop of stracciatella gelato from Gelateria la Carraia. 

Pompeii & Positano

Positano,Italy

Yvonne & Dan @ Pompeii Forum w/ Mt. Vesuvius Behind

Pompeii, Italy

This morning we woke up at 6am since we had to meet our tour group in the middle of Rome by 7am. Luckily it was not too far from our place, so we just had a short 10 minute walk. We jumped on a bus with 8 or so other people and drove to Pompei. Turns out that Pompei ended up being even more amazing than either of us thought. We also were very lucky to have such a great tour guide. He walked us through a lot of Pompei, but there is so much to see there that there is no way to see it all in one day. It is a really incredible site to see, and we learned so much information about Pompei as a city as well as how it developed over time and was eventually impacted by an earthquake and the volcano eruption that covered the city in ash. It is incredible how well preserved the whole city is and even the process by which they've had to dig up the site over the years. There is still 1/3 buried that they will one day dig up. We took so many pictures and will only be able to post a few here but we will be sure to post them all on our flickr page.

Positano, Italy

After the few hours of exploring Pompei, we moved on to Positano on the Amalfi coast. The bus navigated narrow, winding roads down the coast and then we eventually came to Positano which is a small beach city built into the hillside of the Amalfi coast. We only had a couple of hours to spend here so we explored the town, spent some time at the beach, and ate some delicious seafood at Ristorante La Cambusa. This area specializes in everything lemon so we also enjoyed a Delizia Limone for dessert. After exploring the city and getting some beach time we hit the road back to Rome, where we got back into the city around 8pm.

Collessum, Rome, Italy

Since we are crazy, we decided to walk even more once we got home to go back to the Colosseum to take some long exposure shots from a bridge. Then we walked down closer to Circus Maximus where Dan wanted to check something out that he saw years ago when he first visited Rome. On top of some hills there is a keyhole in a door that if you look through it you see an amazing garden that perfectly frames the dome of the Vatican. Kinda random but very cool. From the keyhole we walked down the hill to a restaurant we found on Eater called Taverna Volpetti. Here we had the best meal on our entire trip so far. We shared a cheese and salami board, then had spaghetti with raw shrimp, and finally roasted squid with pappa al pomodoro. The spaghetti with raw shrimp was by far one of the best things we have ever eaten. Doesn't sound amazing, but it was such a unique taste that we could not figure out. We asked our server what the sauce is and he said it is made from the remains of the shrimp that they don't serve you. We now know the secret!

Vatican City

St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City, Italy 

Popemobile back when it was a carriage

We got in the day before Trump got there! Upon hearing of his visit we were worried it was on the same day as our reservation, but we lucked out and didn't let him ruin our trip (but then we got out of town the next day to avoid him even more).We got up early in the morning so that we could try to avoid the crazy crowds. We got a guide at the Vatican who took us through the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica. Our guide was this older Italy woman with an incredibly dry sense of humor that was pretty amazing. She took us through an underground room that has years and years of popemobiles which she says is not on the tours but she likes to go there. We then walked through some amazing hallways with incredible artwork of paintings, frescos, and tapestries. So many incredible pieces of art that we had no idea were there. It is kinda hard to describe the experience of this part of the tour. It was an overwhelming amount of people jammed into a tiny space all moving at a pretty rapid pace, and all trying to keep up with fast moving tour guides. While beautiful, the pace and amount of people was overwhelming and uncomfortable at times.

Sending postcards to our parents from Vatican City

Sending postcards to our parents from Vatican City

Eventually we found our way into the Sistine Chapel. You cannot take pictures in there, and there is supposed to be no talking. It was quite noisy in there. Again, another experience that was amazing as the frescos on the walls and ceiling are unbelievable. However, being shoulder to shoulder with many people, all looking at the walls or ceiling makes for some uncomfortable experiences. And turns out, a gold mine for pickpockets. Which we did not experience ourselves thankfully but our guide let us know they arrested 22 pickpockets the day before. After the chapel we made our way into the Basilica where we toured around, took some photos, and eventually just found a spot to sit and rest. Another intense morning and it was just a nice place to sit and relax.

Our pizza at Pizzarium

From there we moved on to pizza! We read about a place that many claim to be the best pizza in Rome. It is called Bonci Pizzarium. It was great, hard to say best pizza ever since so many pizzas are good, but this was delicious. We ate as much as we could and took some home with us. We jumped on the subway to head home where we rested for a bit before heading out to dinner. For dinner we tried another place we read about called Retrobottega. This place apparently is made up of young chefs from all over Europe who have trained at Michelin star restaurants, but this place itself is intentionally not a Michelin star restaurant.  The meal was amazing. We had a beet & avocado salad thing as a starter, then risotto and lamb ragu pasta as our main, and we shared a dessert that was made from chocolate and medlar. It was a long and slow paced dinner, but great and we enjoyed a slow midnight walk home across the city when we were done.

Ancient Rome

Colosseum

Yvonne & Dan @ Colosseum

Roman Forum

Today we did more than 13 miles of walking!! We started the day off with a tour of the Colosseum, Roman Forum, and Palatine Hill. We used a tour company called Walks of Italy and they did a really nice job of walking us through the ancient ruins. Once we wrapped up our tour we explored things some more on our own and eventually took off to grab some food. We walked over towards the Pantheon where we grabbed a Salami and Cheese sandwich at Antica Salumeria. We enjoyed the sandwich while sitting in the square then walked into the Pantheon to check it out. We sat inside for awhile to have some rest and enjoy the shade as by now it was mid-afternoon and pretty warm outside.

Fountain of the Four Rivers (1651) @ Piazza Novona

After the Pantheon, we walked a few blocks over to enjoy some coffee at Caffé Sant’Eustacchio and also tried the coffee across the way at Cafè et Caffè. Both were our first good Italian coffee of the trip. From the coffee shops we checked out Piazza Navona. We sat here for some rest and people watching. We started to get a little hungry and tried to find a place we wanted to try and found it to be closed. So instead we went to nearby Giolitti for some gelato. We walked back home from there across all of Rome (more or less) and then rested for a bit at home. It was a long day with us spending the entire morning in an around the ancient ruins, then heading over to the Pantheon to then only have to walk back across town to head home.

Night Time @ Colosseum

For dinner we walked to a nearby place called La Carbonara, but neither of us ordered the carbonara (which we later realized we should have given that dish to be the specialty of Rome). Instead we had some amazing cheese along with two great pastas one with an extremely memorable pistachio sauce. We will try to replicate this when we get home. After dinner we walked back over to the Colosseum for some nigh time shots and to just sit outside and enjoy a really nice evening.

Colosseum @ Night

Villa Borghese

Fresco From 1775 on Ceiling @  Galleria Borghese, Rome, Italy

Galleria Borghese, Rome, Italy

We had 1pm reservations at the Museum at Villa Borghese (Galleria Borghese), so we hit the road around 11am to start walking over. We wandered the streets in the general direction towards Villa Borghese and eventually got there a little before 1pm. We grabbed a salami and cheese sandwich and an espresso at a small stand in the park and hung out for a little bit before heading into the museum. We entered the museum at 1pm, and had two hours to explore everything we could. We got an audio tour which was super helpful except for the fact that we got turned around in the beginning and started listening to the wrong audio in the first two rooms before we realized we had reversed the rooms that we were supposed to walk through. For awhile there we thought we were terrible at looking at paintings and sculptures, but it was pretty obvious when the audio said 'now look at the center of the room and you will see a sculpture' and there was no sculpture in the middle of the room. We got back on track and the museum was amazing! Our favorite sculpture was the one of Apollo and Daphne.

Apollo e Daphne @ Galleria Borghese

After the museum we tried to find a place to eat, but many things were closed since it was Sunday. We wanted to try Pinsere, but found it was closed so we settled for a place across the street due to hunger setting in. We both had our first pasta of the trip and shared a prosciutto and melon as a starter. From there we walked home for some rest since we had done a lot of walking already on our first day and were still a little messed up from our flight. After some rest we went out for some dinner at a place called Tram Tram. We found this place listed on Eater and it seemed like it would take us to a different part of town. We walked there around 7pm, and enjoyed a great meal. We had three dishes: Fava Bean Puree w/ Dandelion, Spaghetti w/ Anchovies, and Pasta w/ Eggplant. We took a different path home since our route there got a little sketchy and it didn't seem like a great way home once the sun set.

A Midnight Stroll in Rome

Trevi Fountain, Rome, Italy

On Friday night we took off from LAX en route to Rome, Italy with a short stop in Heathrow to connect. Random comment, but while hanging out in the airport lounge we ran into Aaron Paul. Even Dan noticed him which is rare but maybe no surprise given all the Breaking Bad we've watched. Between LA and London we flew on the A380 for a second time. Pretty awesome plane, and this time around we sat upstairs. We didn't really have any time in Heathrow to explore since we bounced back and forth between gates and overall it was a rather short layover. Everything pretty much was on time and we landed in Rome (FCO) late on Saturday night.

We took the train into Rome Termini Station from the airport and from there it was a short 10 minute walk to our Airbnb. We dropped off our bags and then headed out for some pizza. We were pretty hungry despite two meals on the flight from LA to London. It was a little after midnight but we still had no trouble finding food open and lots of people out and about. We later found out that our neighborhood (Monti) was a cool, trendy place so no surprise there were a lot of people hanging out at night and things we open. We got two pizzas at a place called Trieste and still felt we had enough energy to go explore a bit. We stopped around the corner for some gelato and then took off to the Trevi Fountain. We knew that it got packed during the days with tourists so checking it out at 1am seemed like a pretty good idea. It was about a 20 minute walk. We were not the only ones there, but it was certainly less busy than mid-day. We got home around 2am.

Getting dropped off at LAX!

Pizza from Trieste