Grottaferrata – David and Yanmei

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.

Close up of the town, Rocca di Papa, across the lake

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.

Ancient Romans used to build no more than seven stories, a tradition that is often kept today, because who wants to climb more than seven flights of stairs to get home?

We found a church with a cemetery on the side of the hill. Almost every tomb had fresh flowers.

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.

Alternate view of church we were approaching down the steep hill

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.

Yanmei with a couple of kids in the park

Finally we headed back to our room where we could watch the sun set over Rome.

-David

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Our flexible planning strategy didn't work out for Barcelona. We both wanted to stay there longer. Our next stop is Rome, and Barcelona to Rome by train is 20+ hours, and it is under 2 by plane. The problem is you can't just show up at the airport and buy a ticket like you can with the train, so we made a reservation and stuck to it. Barcelona is a city we will come back to I think.

Before we left we did manage to visit the Veeva European HQ.

Yanmei in front of the 1000 employees poster

Yanmei and me on the roof of the office building

Anyway we left for Rome. Yanmei wanted to spend some time in the French countryside, visiting small towns etc. Originally we planned to go back through France by train to Italy, but after we found out how long it would take, we decided to take the plane directly instead of sacrificing future cities in Europe. It seems like we have a lot of time, but Yanmei's visa only allows for 41 days in Europe and they are going by fast. To make up for missing the French countryside, I booked a hotel in a small village outside of Rome, so we can experience the Italian countryside. I also reserved a rental car so we could drive around.

After another bad experience with Hertz (our “reserved” car for 12:30pm wasn't ready until 2:30pm), we finally got on the road to our hotel. Driving in Italy isn't bad, so far, but maybe that is because we haven't gone into Rome. The car we ended up getting was a Fiat Panda diesel with manual transmission, not what we reserved but whatever, it seems pretty nice. We're staying in a town called Grottaferrata.

View from our balcony with Rome in the distance

In the evening we went into town for dinner. I think this was a pretty authentic Italian place.

-David

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Tag: Grottaferrata

Castel Gandolfo, Nemi, Rocca di Papa

Barcelona to Rome