Gelato! and other Rome, Italy General Tips

Favorite Thing: Unless you are allergic to ice-cream, you cannot go to Rome (or Italy) and not have some ice-cream (gelato). Italy has the best gelato I have ever eaten. The strawberry (fragola) gelato actually tastes like strawberry, instead of just looking pink, like it does here (in Australia). Sometimes you have to go to a few different ice cream parlours before you find a parlour that gives you a lot of gelato for a reasonable price (sometimes they expect you to pay 6 Euro for 2 small scoops - not good enough!).

You can get it in cones or in cups and there are always heaps of flavours to choose from. My favourite was to ask "Vorrei una gelato con cioccolata, fragola e ananas, per favore." Which in my very poor Italian is "I would like one ice cream with chocolate, strawberry and pineapple, please". This was especially enjoyable on the warm summer nights I was there, and my friends and I would just sit in a piazza or stroll along the streets happy with our delicious treats.

You can find ice cream parlours along nearly every main street in Rome, and a whole lot of side streets as well, as it is the traditional dessert in Italy. Buon appetite!


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Favorite Thing: Piazza Republica is at the end of Via Nazionale (the end closest to Roma Termini). There is a beautiful fountain in the centre of the Piazza. The fountain is called ‘Najadi’ (Fontana delle Naiada) and was created by Mario Rutelli. ‘Naiad’ is a word for water-nymphs, and there are four of them in this fountain taking on other sea creatures. There is also a man in the centre, holding (or struggling?) with a large fish.

Around the piazza there is also a McDonalds, a cinema, an expensive looking hotel and Santa Maria degli Angeli, a basilica which was originally designed by Michelangelo.

Metro: Repubblica


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Favorite Thing: There are internet café’s all over Rome, so you shouldn’t have too hard a time finding one. There are many around Roma Termini - I found quite a few on streets running off the exit on Via Marsala. There is even one in the McDonalds near Piazza di Spagna.

A good price to pay for using a computer at a café is 0, 50€ for 15mins.


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Favorite Thing: The stand out feature of Piazza Navona is the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fountain of the Four Rivers - Danube, Ganges, Nile and Plate), which was created by Bernini. There are also two smaller fountains in the piazza as well, the Fontana del Moro and Fontana di Nettuno.

The main style of this piazza seems to be Baroque, and I read somewhere that some of the buildings in the area date back to the 17th Century. When I was there in the summer there were many artists selling their pictures, drawing portraits of people, there were also street entertainers, it was a very nice place to hang out.

Also in the nearby area there are quite a few shops, cafes and restaurants.


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