Day 22: My kind of bar crawl

Yet another casual breakfast preceded our cross town adventure to the southern area of Rome, a less touristy avenue that is home to the graves of a few hopeless romantics—Keats and Shelley (get it?). After circumnavigating the outer walls of the graveyard, JJ and I entered at the front gate which was a mere fifteen yards from where our pursuit of admission began. The tidy cemetery was strangely cheerful, and we found our way to the two graves JJ had been hoping to visit.

Moving along, we crossed the river and meandered uphill towards one of Rome's parks. Following a nice calf work out on the stairs, we decided to take a moment to enjoy the views from one of the fountains in the park, which overlooked the entire city. Lunch, a pair of triple stacked salami sandwiches and apples (Rome is our food binge city, if you hadn't noticed), seemed to be most enjoyable sitting on the fountain's edge, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. However, we had a bit of a dilemma at this point, seeing as it was only two in the afternoon and we couldn't be bothered to walk out to the Villa di Medici as planned—from where we sat, we could see the boxy, utterly plain mansion that neither of us were terribly impressed with. But on the other hand, we still had a good hour's worth or more of walking to get back to our room. What to do, what to do??? When in Rome...

Do as the Romans do! (seems to be a phrase that has caught on with JJ, not sure why...) With only one day left in this great city, I felt the need to complete our Rome adventure with a thorough appreciation for Italy's epicurean offerings, the foremost of which being gelato. Between the two of us, we have been managing six new flavours a day, but JJ didn't take much convincing to join in on a one of a kind gelato-palooza—hello, Gelataria Bar Crawl!!!

It took a bit to find the first one, since we had to get back into the touristy area across the river, but after we started, the gelaterias kept appearing! Our first gelateria was only 3 businesses away from the second, and still clearly visible from our seats. Unfortunately, we did not stop at every gelateria we passed, only those with three flavors (or more) that we hadn't tried before. This story is best explained with photos, so here goes:

#1

Flavors: Bacio (chocolate with nuts), Canolo Siciliano (an Italian dessert), and Frigidarium (we don't really know what it was...)

#2

Flavors: Bailey's, Pesca (not fish... peach), and Mora (blackberry)

The view of #1 from inside #2

#3

Flavors: Amaretto (there may have actually been alcohol in it), Torroncino Nougat (sort of like Heath or Daim Bar), and Oreo!!!

JJ said no to the Viagra option at #4

Flavors: Pinola (pine nut), Zuppa Inglese (something English, presumably?), and Kiwi...and the Gelato Boy harassing an old woman.

#5

Flavors: Crem Caramel, Apple, and Melon

While a glorious way to celebrate the Italian dessert, a gelateria bar crawl has similar results to a legitimate barcrawl—you finish with no idea what you've had, where you've been, how much you've spent, and you need to pee. Needless to say, that much gelato plus two litres of water each within ninety minutes led to a very miserable walk back (it was mostly the water that got to us, although JJ wasn't such a fan of the gelato splurge after the third gelateria—no worries, we pressed on valiantly). Fifteen new flavours down, we felt confident that the post-dinner gelato could be skipped today, even though our seven hours of walking should have counteracted any negative impacts of the gelato on our figures. Our repeat tortellini salad finished off the day and we attempted to recover by doing, well, nothing all evening.

What better way to celebrate World Health Day that to down excessive amounts of frozen sugar and milkfat? I can't think of any.

Memorial Pyramid

fountain!

why don't we have grocery stores at home like the ones in Italy???

Here's your shout-out, Sophia. You can thank JJ for this one.