During this strange time in life, I had waited to share how truly special our trip was due to the pandemic that has utterly destroyed our ability to take a trip back to Italy. Since life has yet to return to any form of normalcy, I continue to hope for better days, and dream of returning to the place that stole my heart. ❤
Italia… it’s magical!
The moment you arrive you are filled with excitement, and your eyes are overwhelmed by the amount of history and beauty that surrounds you. 😍🏛
Especially in Rome, it is a city unlike any other.
Italians make you feel so welcome that you may never want to leave..
At least that’s how I felt.
Italy, my dream. 💋
Walking off of the plane and into the Italian culture with our 4 kids was a dream come true!
I had been talking about Italy for so long that my girls would say they hated it… 😆… I was basically irritating them with my constant stories and comparisons between there and home.
My love for the Italian culture coupled with the scenery and wonderful weather is so strong that I know everyone I speak with has heard enough, but I just can’t help myself!!
Italy. Is. Fabulous.
I happen to love children and pets, and being able to take them everywhere with me. Hence, why I love Italy even more… The amount of dogs and kids that were welcomed everywhere made me appreciate the ability to be there.
In America, we seem to remove children and pets from being allowed in many places. We act as if they are a nuisance.
Being a parent changes your life in many ways.. most of them being where you are welcome with your littles.
In Italy, pets and kids seem to be welcomed everywhere!
This was our test, Italy with 4 kids….
.
.
So, here we go…. we had finally arrived in Rome!
It was about 7pm local time. Walking out of the airport, we were instantly surrounded by cab drivers eager to take us wherever we needed to go.
With 6 people, we decided that a shuttle bus was a great idea… especially because the driver assured us that we would be the first stop. Perfect!
We paid at their counter before walking across the road to load our luggage into the large van.
There were two ladies that would be joining us, and wouldn’t you know it.. they were arriving from the Pacific Northwest too! 😄
It was their first time in Italy and they had planned out all sorts of stops. We discussed our plans and how exciting it was bound to be. We would be in the same region at the same time and joked about possibly running into eachother! They were such sweet ladies and talking to them while being whisked down Roman roads made the drive pass quickly.
When we arrived at our stop, one of them asked to take a picture of our family for her Facebook travel page, we gladly posed, and said our farewells… ❤
Once the shuttle had pulled away, we were left standing in front of a building and hoping to locate the person with keys to our apartment. Our phones weren’t working at that point so we walked up and down the road looking for the correct address.
We were near Piazza Trilussa and some police officers were standing on the next corner. One of them spoke English and walked us down to the correct door. We thanked him and there we waited.
My husband, Nikko, stresses easily.. so waiting for someone to arrive with no way to contact wasn’t ideal.
Luckily, we waited a mere 2 minutes before our host came waving out of a car window. He parked right IN THE LANE of the road he was driving on, double parked… like it was no big deal! Right then, we were reminded of the differences between our countries. 😂
He left his car parked in the lane (on a three-lane road) with no worries, and led us inside.
We went through iron gates into our building and down to the lower level.
Once inside, we dropped our bags and enjoyed listening to our host show us lots of great places to visit while labeling a map for us to keep.
There was even a little dish full of a variety of Italian candies. 🤤 Just what we needed.. 😉
The girls checked out their neat little loft bedroom and we all refreshed ourselves for an evening walk.
By this time, it was about 8:30pm and behind our building, Piazza Trilussa was full of people eating, drinking, and socializing.
Our goal was to find gelato, and we didn’t have to venture very far.. not even half a block away, we found it. The moment we had all been waiting for!! I eagerly watched and videoed as they all tried it for the first time.. 😄
Not only did they like it, but they proclaimed it was BETTER than ice cream!!
..I had won them over!
That was it, and I had known it for as long as I had been telling them about the greatness of Italian things.
Gelato. Boom! 🎉❤
Our vacation had truly begun!😄🙌
It was the last night before my baby Theo turned 1 year old.
I’ll never forget how happy that simple evening made me.
After gelato, we meandered through the roads and took pictures with the art around every corner.
We were drawn to a statue of Jesus asleep on a bench. It made us stop and take a moment to appreciate the life that we are living because of his sacrifice. We are always grateful.
Especially while on vacation in Italy.. we were very aware of how blessed we truly are.
Our little stroll around the neighborhood led us to return to the very first restaurant we had walked past. The man out front had asked us to eat there and we said we would walk and return.. so we did. 😊
We had a room to ourselves, equipped with a large television playing the futbol match, also with a view of the little alley way full of people out for the evening.
It was all so exciting and yet extremely simple.
They even had our girls pick out any dessert they wanted.. no extra charge! That “kid friendly” feeling had been found, already.
We thoroughly enjoyed our first night in Italy as a family, and Theo’s last night before turning a whole year old.
We thanked everyone and took the short walk back to our Roman apartment, with full bellies.
Bedtime was welcomed by us all.
Because in the morning, we needed to be refreshed to explore with our 1 year old!
Buonanotte🌛
❤- Mama Katie
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