Visit the photo set 2015: Rome and Venice on Flickr.
Robin and I often take our longer vacations by ourselves but every few years we join up with my sister Judy and her husband Frank and go traveling together. In 2012, we did a rail trip of Switzerland together (Bern, Lugano, Zermatt) and this year we joined them for a week as Judy and Frank kicked off a two-week visit to Italy. The plan was to join them in Rome at the beginning of their tour and spend 3 days there and then move on to Venice for another 3 days before Robin and I headed back to Amsterdam.
We ended picking a fabulous week weather wise; it was hot (28-34 degrees C for daily highs) but the skies were clear and we did not have any significant rain. This meant we took every meal other than breakfast al fresco
The days were mostly spent walking around the city, doing the occasional museum, church or archaeological visit, eating gelato, drinking a glass of wine or beer or eating a meal. Having Frank as a translator proved very helpful at times, and his commentary on the discussions of the locals had us laughing more than once. It really was a perfectly restful week and a nice way to close summer 2015.
Travel Details
In Rome, we stayed at the Caesar House on the Via Cavour near the Forum and Colosseum. Robin and I had stayed here on our last trip to Rome and it served us well once again. We had dinner at the Ristorante Cleto and the food was so good, we went back the next evening. We also had a great meal at Ba’Ghetto Milky in the Jewish district. Ba’Ghetto is a Roman Jewish kosher kitchen based on milk: specialty seafood and milk, cheese, pizza, but no meat.
In Venice, we stayed at the Hotel Noemi. It is well located being only about 50m from the Piazza San Marco and the rooms were comfortable and charming. We had a couple of good meals including dinner at Ristorante Marciana, but the meal of the week was lunch at Vinaria; the four pizzas we had here were spectacular, maybe the best I’ve ever had.
