Italy - Rome, Florence, Bologna, San Marino and Venice

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Then, we went to Circo Massimo, the place where the Roman chariot racing in the old day. Almost like a garden now, which some structures left. You can still see the tower and the spectator stand.

Then we walked down to the river side of Tibre and saw the Isola, There is a gelato shop of over 100 year history.  

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The main theme of this day was Appia Antica. There is an old saying that "Every road leads to Rome". Appia Antica is a straight road in Roman time that leads the people from the east of Italy to Rome. Roman Empire built this for military purposes, part of this road remained today.

The starting point now has a tourist information center where you can rent a bike for visiting. This area is a national park as well.

Some of the road surface were re-paved but the further part of this road still has the road surface at Roman time. Along the road you can see some old structures, some of them are statue in memory of the ancestors, some are catatombs for Christians.

A good walk and a good place for hanging out. Too bad that we did not have enough time to go further. We should rent a bike actually.

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In the late afternoon, we went back to Campo de Fiori, a market for both local and tourists. Maybe we arrived there late, some stalls were closed or closing. We had our dinner at a Trattoria.

In this trip, we mainly went to Trattoria for dinner. In contrast with Ristorante (i.e. restaurant), Trattoria is another type of eating place. Traditionally trattoria is mainly run by family; dad is the waiter, son making pizza, mom the chef and the daughter cashier. They offer limited menu but fresh food, more reasonable price. Less spacious seats and higher turnover. Very homey.

Except our first lunch in a ristorante in Rome, we went to different trattorias everyday. I will show you some other later in this post.

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That finished our trip in Rome. Next day we went to Firenze by train. The journey time was about 2.5 hours. We booked a B&B room close to the train station. This room was the best room we had in our whole trip and I highly recommended it. The place is called Florence Station Room. Here are the pictures of the place we stayed.

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After we dropped our bags, we went for lunch at Mercato Centrale (Central Market). We had the famous Ox Belly Bread at Da Nerbone.

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The first place we went after lunch was Cappelle Medicee. Medici family was the famous family in Florence in the old days. They were so powerful that even a few Pope were come from Medici family. It is also said that the Renaissance was actually paid by Medici family. There are a lot of building related to them and Cappelle Medicee is one of them. 

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The next one is Cathedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore. The landmark church of Florence. From the last picture you will see a long queue lining up to the roof of this church.

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The church inside has nothing special. Only there is a painting in the dorm area but we cannot get close to take picture.

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Next one is the Piazza di Santa Maria Novella and its Basilica. The landmark church there as the full name of the train station of Florence is Firenze Santa Maria Novella.

Piazza della Signoria, I had been there in 2006. Not much change, still crowded with tourists. There is a replica of David at the city hall entrance.  Medusa is still there too, just opposite of the David.

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Fontana del Porcellino. Someone says that if you put a coin inside its mouth and if your coin does not slip down, you will make a good fortune. Hmmm, I saw a lot of tourists do this but failed. This is because there is a stream of water flowing out from its mouth. It seems the city is making a good fortune instead.