Rome: The Final Wind Down

We're spending the last four night of our journey in Rome. I expected Rome to be like Paris and London. And I was right, even down to the crappy hotel.

I guess Rome proper is supposed to be like other big, touristy, metropolitan areas and we are firmly of the opinion that we'll skip all big metro areas on future journeys.

We did get to see the Colosseum.

And inadvertently witnessed the 2018 Giro d'Italia bicycle race. Chris Froome won (whoever that might be ☺️).

But we were not able to get a sense of the people until we skipped the hotel (we stayed one night out of a 4 night booking) and headed out to an AirBnB five miles outside of Rome proper. That's where we got to really see Rome.

Like the tiny, thriving mom and pop shop with the slabs of meat hanging from the wall. 

The itty-bitty basement restaurant with the incredible Peruvian food, whose owner and cook was a quintessential grandma in looks and manner. 

The pizzeria whose owner gave us this little dumpling thing for us to try out while we waited for our second pizza, just because. And what I assume was his wife, who gave Dee some candy, again just because. We speak no Italian, they spoke no English. And yet they made the visit memorable by their friendly, welcoming attitude.

And let's not forget to mention the cars with the "if it fits, it sits" mode.