Weekly Review

I hope everyone had a good weekend!  Things went a little bit better for working out this week and I was even able to go for a short run with no foot pain the next day!  I'm going to stick to short runs this week and fingers crossed that it will go well.  I've also been continuing with the stretching and foot massager and they seem to be helping as well so I'm going to try to keep that as part of the routine.

Monday -  Rest day and 15 minute afternoon walk at work

Tuesday -  Runner's World Yoga

Wednesday - 30 minute run

Thursday - Rest day and our 10th anniversary

Friday - 20 minute Peleton beginner class.  They had a bunch of employee appreciation events at work and I took full advantage.  I tried out the peleton bike (my first time) and I really enjoyed it.  I also got a 10 minute chair massage, free lunch, some wine, and time to cuddle puppies!

Saturday -  Rest Day.  I volunteered to help at the registration table at the company 5k so I was there bright and early.

It was only 400-500 people but it was really well organized.  And they had a bunch of fun activities for kids including a petting zoo with an Alpaca.  They also had Kaiser there giving flu shots so I went ahead and go that done.  I had thought about going to the gym afterward but I began to feel some foot pain as I walked back to the car so I decided to go home and ice my foot instead.  I think it may have just been caused by being on my feet for a couple hours.

We also went out to meet up with some friends for a cabaret style show in the evening.

Sunday - Barre Video on You Tube. I started feeling a bit off Saturday evening and didn't feel well Sunday morning so I skipped the yoga class at the gym.  But I think maybe it was just due to the flu shot and I felt better by Sunday evening so I did a barre video at home.

Here's the plan for this week:

Monday - recovery yoga
Tuesday - 30 minute run
Wednesday - Body Pump
Thursday - 30 minute run
Friday - Strength train
Saturday - 30 minute run
Sunday - Yoga class at gym

I'm linking up with Deborah and Kim for the Weekly Rundown!

 

Rome Part 2

Instead of talking about my vacation in chronological order, I thought it made more sense to finish up my recap of everything we did in Rome before moving on to talking about the cruise.  Part 1 of my Rome trip is up here.

So after our 7 day Greece cruise, we were back in Italy.  We got off at Civitavacchia and getting off the ship was super easy and very quick.  So quick that we were off and waiting for our car about an hour before the agreed upon time.  So we just hung out and our car was there right when he said he would be.  We had a shared shuttle to save money, but that meant that it took a bit of extra time.  Everyone else in our shuttle was going to the airport so we stopped there first.  But we were at our hotel by 10am.

We were staying at a different hotel, the Le Meridien in the Prati neighborhood.  This was on the other side of the river from a lot of the main tourist attractions (though it was not far from the Vatican).  It seemed a little bit more residential and it was cool to see this side of Rome as well.

Neighborhood we were staying in

Our room was ready so we got settled in and then headed right back out to explore.  We walked to the cab stand by our hotel to get a taxi to the Monti neighborhood.  "Rione Monti, Rome’s first ward (rione). The neighborhood for the cool and young, the old and vintage. For those who want a serving of cobblestone, antiques and artisans, with a side order of beauty, great food and the best bars in Rome. Centrally located between Piazza Venezia and the Colosseum, this is The place to while away the afternoon peeking into vintage stores, paging through old books, grabbing coffee in Rome’s chicest cafes, chatting over aperitivo, and people watching at the fountain in Piazza della Madonna dei Monti. A tiny quartiere, it’s a haven between the tourist traps of Via Nazionale and Via Cavour, and much more Roman than the more popular districts like Campo de’ Fiori and Piazza Navona. This is working-class Rome, where older couples maintain tradition, even as young entrepreneurs open trendy galleries."

It was a fun neighborhood to explore.  And we checked out a cool market with local artisans.  They had a lot of interesting stuff, clothes, jewelry, beautiful wood working, but it was all a tad bit too expensive for us.  We were hungry so looked around for places to grab lunch and ended up at a random place that had Pizza Al Taglio.  This is pizza baked in large rectangular trays and displayed in a glass case.  You just let them know which one you want and approximately how big a piece and they cut it off for you with scissors.  It's priced by weight. It made for a quick and tasty lunch and then we continued on our way.

We wanted to go to the Torre Argentina Cat Santuary next so we took our time walking there and saw some cool things along the way.

We reached the cat sanctuary right around the time they were opening and were the 3rd or 4th people in the door.  This was such a cool experience.  They are located in some ancient Roman ruins that were excavated in the 20s.     There are cats hanging out in the ruins as well as in the office/kennel area.  I don't think people can actually walk in the ruins section.  Once we walked into the office, one of the volunteers told us all about the sanctuary and their work.  She also introduced us to the many cats we encountered.  One of them, Isabeau, was just so sweet and came up to us asking for pets.  She also started purring right away.  The sanctuary has a program where you can "adopt" cats from afar for 15 euros per month.  So we adopted Isabeau for 3 months. She is a breast cancer survivor and FIV+ but still such a sweet cat.  And now they send us an email and photo of her every month :)

 

This kitten was very friendly

 

Me and Isabeau

You can see the cat napping below the sign

After the sanctuary, we continued on our walk and headed back to the hotel.  The walk across the river was beautiful and we did find a place for good gelato place right by the hotel to stop at as well.

We took a bit of an afternoon nap and headed out again in the evening.  There was a local shopping neighborhood so we went in that direction to just explore and browse.  It was fun to check out local department stores and little boutiques.  There were also a lot of stands on the sidewalk selling clothes for VERY cheap.  We then found a fun little bar where we stopped for drinks and a snack.  They had interesting little knick knacks everywhere making for cool decor and they were playing great music.

Once we had finished with our drinks, we wandered around a bit more and found a random place to stop for dinner.  Most of the places I had looked up and had been interested in trying ended up closed because it was Sunday.  So I don't remember the name of the place we finally ate at but it was only ok.  Mike had carbonara and I had caico e pepe again but this was probably our least favorite versions of those dishes.  However, they had a zucchini carpaccio appetizer that was amazing!

The next morning was our last day in Rome.  But our flight didn't leave until the evening so we still had the morning available to sight see.  We went to Castel Sant'Angelo and were there right when it opened at 9am.  This was only a 10 minute walk from our hotel and it wasn't crowded at all that time in the morning.  It was really cool to see because it covered so much history.  The Emperor Hadrian had it constructed to be his tomb but then it continued to be used as a fortress and as a residence for popes.  There was a tunnel constructed connecting it to the Vatican so that the pope could escape if needed. It was quite a climb to the top but you're rewarded with amazing views once you get up there.

Weirdly, the castle also had an exhibit going on to celebrate Bulgari jewelry and fashion.  That was interesting to see as well.

Once we were done at the castle, we went back to the hotel and had lunch there.  The lunch was ok but again, our appetizer was amazing.  We just split a caprese salad but it was the best mozzarella we'd ever had. We checked out and our car was right on time to pick us up and take us to the airport.

As you can tell, we had an amazing time in Rome!  The two hotels we stayed at were amazing and pretty good location.  They were close enough to walk to tourist attractions but not right in the middle of things so they weren't too loud. We were able to get all our hotel nights on points so I'm not sure how much the rooms actually cost though. The first part of our trip was at the Marriott Grand Flora and the second part was at the Le Meridien Visconti.  Fair disclosure, I work for Marriott. The other company I wanted to recommend is Civitavecchia Shuttle Express.  We used them to get from the airport to our hotel, then from the hotel to the cruise port, back from the cruise port to Rome, and then to the airport on our last day.  All four drivers were professional, the cars were all immaculate, and they were always on time.

So that's it for our time in Rome!  I'd love to hear if you've experienced Rome or if you're planning a trip and have any questions :)

Weekly Review

I hope everyone had a good week!  I don't have much to report on the work out front.  Lots of yoga and stretching and foam rolling to try to ease up whatever is going on with my calves and my feet.  I also got a massage where she really concentrated on my lower legs, achilles and feet.  I think it helped.  I haven't tested out running yet but I'm hoping to do that this week.

 

My foot and calf massager got a lot of use too

The massage therapist also saw my shoes that day and mentioned that I probably shouldn't wear shoes without backs as that can be hard on the feet and calves.  Oops.  I wore my oofos a lot of the time while we were walking around Rome.  They're great shoes but they are meant to be "recovery sandals" and not "walk around for 5 miles" shoes I guess.

You may have noticed that the title no longer says Richmond Half Marathon.  I was getting really nervous about having to do the half with this break of training.  Vacation combined with the rest for my feet has been 4 weeks.  That's a long break from training.  I went through my emails and credit card charges and I couldn't find anything about the race.  I checked on their website and they don't have my info.  Apparently I forgot to actually register for the race.  This is one of those situations where being unorganized has paid off.  So I've decided I'm not going to this race and just concentrate on trying to get my feet healthy.  And I've ordered sandals with backs.  I'm also hoping to spend more time concentrating on strength training for the rest of the year.

Let's see, what else happened this week?  Allergies really hit me hard on Friday.  I was pretty miserable Friday evening and Saturday morning.  I doubled up on allergy meds and started feeling better Saturday afternoon.  This was just in time for catching Cirque Du Soleil's Volta.  We had tried to see it last month but the show was cancelled for lightning.  This time we got to see the whole show and really enjoyed it.

We also had a friend visiting from out of town so we met up with a bunch of people for sushi and karaoke Saturday night and brunch on Sunday.  I put up the first part of my Rome trip review last week and hope to get the next installment up later this week.

So that's it for me.  We'll see what this week brings.  I've also ordered a new planner so I'm hoping that will help with the lack of organization that's currently going on in my life.  We did get some cooking and food prep done on the weekend too.

 

Farinata topped with tomatoes and mushrooms

I'm linking up with Deborah and Kim for the Weekly Rundown!

 

Rome Part 1

We had a phenomenal trip to Rome and Greece last month.  But given how long the trip was, I'm going to break up the trip review into three parts.  It will be Rome, then our Royal Caribbean cruise to Greece, and then the last couple days in Rome plus reviews for the hotels, airline, cruise company, etc.  So let's get going!

The trip didn't start out super smooth.  We saved a lot of money by using Norwegian Airlines and flying out of Newark instead of a DC airport.  It was also a direct flight to Rome.  The drive to Newark was easy and smooth.  No problems parking.  But our flight ended up delayed for 3 hours!  We didn't leave Newark until 2:30am.  The plus side of that was that we were exhausted and could sleep a bit on the plane.

Pre-flight drinks helped as well

Day 1

We got to Rome 3 hours later than planned.  I was worried that meant the car service we had booked would have a hard time finding us.  But no problems at all.  He was right where he had said he would be, holding up a sign with our name on it.  And it was a cinch getting through immigration and customs in Rome.  It helped that they had kiosks that people with machine readable passports could use, and the line moved very quickly for the kiosks.  Once we got in the car, it was about a 45 minute drive to our hotel.

Due to the delay, the sun was setting by the time we left the hotel

We stayed at a hotel right outside the Villa Borghese, which is a big park in Rome.  It was about a 10 minute walk from the Spanish Steps.  So it was in a kind of touristy area but it wasn't as overwhelmingly crowded as staying right in the popular tourist neighborhoods.  Once we checked in and put our bags down, we headed right back out.  We walked to see the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps.  We had downloaded some Rick Steves audio tours so we listened to the relevant portions when we got to those areas.  I really loved the audio guides and they worked pretty well.  He has a bit of a hokey sense of humor but was pretty informative.

 

Trevi Fountain crowds

 

Spanish Steps

We had an 8:30 dinner booked at a place that was supposed to be a popular vegetarian restaurant in Rome.  It was called Il Margutta and it was wonderful.  It had delicious food, good service, cool art on the walls, and it was on Via Margutta which some call the prettiest street in Rome.  It also happened to be the street that the main character lived on in Roman Holiday.  I would highly recommend this place to anyone looking for vegetarian/vegan food in Rome.  It also seemed like almost everyone else there was Italian but we had no problems communicating in English.

Day 2

The next day we had tickets to see the Borghese Gallery.  This is a museum that showcases the Borghese family collection of art and it's right in the park that was by our hotel.  So it was an easy 10 minute walk. You'll see a lot about this family all over Rome, there were a couple of them that ended up being pope, and they commissioned a lot art work during the Renaissance.  The museum was beautiful and we had a great stroll around the park afterward as well.  Tip - buy tickets for this one in advance.  We were told that they often don't have same day tickets for sale.  They had guided tours and self-guided audio tours but we just went around on our own.  The signage was pretty good and we didn't feel like we needed a tour.

Afterward, we were hungry and it was time for lunch.  I had a place I wanted to go to but it turned out that they were closed for the last 2 weeks of August.  Oops.  It turns out that a lot of people in Rome head out of town during this time due to the heat so there were several places that we were interested in which were closed.  We just wandered around the street until we found an open place that seemed ok and had lunch there.  We lucked out.  We were clearly in an area where a lot of the restaurants were catering toward tourists but the place we were at turned out to be the place where local construction workers went to eat.  We took that as a good sign.  Mike got the carbonara and I got the cacio e pepe, and both were delicious!  Sadly I don't remember the name of the place.

We went back to the room to rest during the heat of the afternoon and then we headed out around 4 to go to the Vatican.  We hopped on the metro which was easy to navigate.  Once we got out at the station by the Vatican, it was easy enough to follow the direction of the crowd to know the right way to go.  We did stop on the way to pick up some gelato and Old Bridge Gelateria. It was amazing and I would highly recommend this place if you're looking for gelato near the Vatican.

We went to St. Peter's first and again used a Rick Steves audio guide.  There was a line to go through security that looked pretty long but it moved quickly.  I think it only took around 10 minutes to get through the line.

We then had tickets to the Vatican Museums.  This is another ticket I would recommend buying in advance.  It's crowded in there and the desirable times can sell out.  We actually decided on after hours tickets that included a happy hour in the Vatican courtyard. The line was long when we got to the entrance at 6:45 but it was because they weren't letting people in until 7.  Once they opened the doors the line moved quickly.  We decided to do happy hour first.  Happy hour included a little buffet of substantial appetizers and sweets and a drink ticket for a glass of wine or juice.  There was also live music.

After we had finished our drinks and snacks, we got our Rick Steves audio guide up and used that for the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel.  I would highly recommend the after hours ticket.  It wasn't empty by any means.  There were still a lot of people.  But I never felt overwhelmed by the crowds, we were never shoulder to shoulder, we never felt incapable of moving, and I have heard it can be like that during the day.  I think they only do the after hours tickets on Fridays in the Summer.

 

Tapestry Room

 

You can see the crowds aren't bad at all

Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel

Once we were done, it was past 10pm.  But we still needed dinner.  Thankfully the Romans eat late so places were still open and we ended up at La Zanzara.  The cocktails were really good here but we had a mixed experience on the food.  Mike had carbonara again and said it was amazing.  I had a couple small veggie sandwiches where the fillings were really good but the bread seemed a bit stale.  But the menu had a lot of variety and veggie and gluten free options were clearly marked.

Day 3

We had tickets to the Colosseum as soon as they opened in the morning.  These are another set of tickets I would recommend getting in advance.  The line to buy tickets there was super long.  And early morning seemed much less crowded than later in the day.  We got there about 15 minutes before our entrance time and got in line.  It was long but it moved quickly once they opened the doors.  We used a Rick Steves audio tour again and it worked really well.

 

Inside the Colosseum

In front of Hadrian's Arch

The same ticket lets you go to the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill so we did that next.  There was another Rick Steves guide for the Forum.  However, we didn't have anything for the Palatine Hill and the signage was a little vague up there.  We could see a lot of old ruins but it was kind of hard to tell what some of them were.

 

The Forum

View from Palatine Hill

We then had lunch nearby at Taverna Dei Quaranta.  It was really close to the Colosseum and opened early.  We were hungry by 11 so that worked out well.  We both got pastas again and they were delicious.  This place was simple but had good food and a great location.  After lunch, it was back to the hotel for a much needed rest.

In the evening, we got ourselves together and went out to see the Pantheon.  We stopped on the way and got some gelato at Il Gelato Di San Crispino.  They had a honey flavor that was amazing and I think this was the best gelato of our trip.  There was a really long line, which I was surprised at because it was an hour before closing.  But I guess everyone had the same though to come later in the day.  I think it took us around 20 minutes in line and then we were inside and listening to another Rick Steves audio guide.  No tickets needed as it's free to enter.  I made sure that my knees and shoulders were covered since it was a place of worship but they didn't really seem to be enforcing that here.

Afterward, our plan had been to go see a summer street fair they were having by the Tiber River.  It was the last day of the street fair however, and it seemed like a lot of stuff had already closed up.  So instead, we decided to wander around the neighborhood of Trastevere which is supposed to have good bars and restaurants.  I had seen something about a good pizza place there called Pizzeria Ai Marmi.   I had read that there can be long lines but when we got there, no lines and plenty of tables.  Well, we had good timing because within 20 minutes, the place was full and there was a line out the door.  It also seemed like it was mostly Italians here.  We ended up having amazing pizzas, maybe the best pizza we've ever had.  The food was phenomenal here.  The service was a little slow but you could tell the server was a bit overwhelmed with all the people.  I would definitely recommend this place.

We stumbled upon a lot of cool street art during the course of the evening

We then went to a local bar called Freni i Frizoni.  We were definitely not cool enough to be there!  It was a full bar that had a really nice patio and fun drinks and seemed full of Italian college students.  We may have been the oldest people there :)  It had a bit of NYC Punk sort of feeling. It was fun but we felt a bit out of place.

Day 4

Ok, this was the day we left for the cruise.  I did wake up early to go for a run.  I went by the Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps again because I wanted the opportunity to see them at a less crowded time.  7:30am they were definitely less crowded but still not empty.  The Trevi Fountain especially had more people than I expected at that time of day.  I finished up my run in the part at Villa Borghese.  I would highly recommend the park as a place to run.  There were a lot of paths to explore and enough other people running that I never felt alone but at the same time, it wasn't crowded.

After that, we packed up our stuff and headed to the port.  So that part of the adventure will be in the next post, as this has already gotten super long!