The first day we decided to drive around to some small downs nearby. The proprietor of our hotel was very enthusiastic about this idea and gave us lots of recommendations. There are two small lakes in the area and some of the views are supposed to be great.
We got off to a late start and stopped at a restaurant in Castel Gandolfo that he recommended.
Great view, but as I've found in other restaurants with great views, the food left something to be desired.
We didn't find much in Nemi so we continued to Rocca di Pappa. At one point the road did a spiral to gain altitude, which was interesting, but we didn't get a picture.
We kept going up hill until we were forced to go down a very narrow road. It was so narrow I was worried we'd scrape the side view mirrors. The picture it is already widening in the picture below.
We found a spot to park on the street. We saw it was pay parking and you had to buy a ticket at the pay station, so we went to pay. For some reason Yanmei took a photo of that. I thought it said €0.80/hr, so I put in two Euro to be safe, but I must have misunderstood something because it gave me a ticket good until 9:30am the next day.
As I was doing this a young girl ran up to us and said something in Italian. Yanmei asked if she wanted to help us and if she spoke English. She said “no” and ran off. I went back to the car to put the ticket there and a local polizia was already standing at my car writing. I showed him my paid ticket and he let me off, lol. Maybe that was what the girl was telling us. Anyway that polizia was diligent, later I saw him standing beside a spot as a guy was trying to parallel park into it, ready to start writing as soon as he finished.
Finally we headed back to our room where we could watch the sun set over Rome.
-David
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