Rome, Arches and Gardens

We arrived in Rome and walked the short distance from the train to our hotel to check in. We ended up going with a lower end hotel based on proximity to the train station and being in the heart of all the things we wanted to see here. Even though it doesn't have AC, the room stays a surprisingly nice  temperature, it also isn't the biggest space, but we really don't need all that much considering how little time we will be staying in it each day.

Once we got checked in and dropped our stuff off it was time to go exploring a bit. We decided to go get two of the Roma Passes, which include the cost of all public transportation for 3 days, two museum entries for free with reduced rates for any after that, and special entrances that skip the gigantic lines. All of that was completely worth the 34 euros each that we paid for them. While looking at the map and walking around, we noticed a lot of monument arches around the city center; seems to be their favorite method for commemorating events.

We then wandered around the Villa Borghese one of a few large city parks. It has a lot of monuments, and different areas that all seem to have different themes and methods of maintenance. It's like many different parks all put together and given an overall loose name. We saw, as we learned it's name later the hooded crows that are common around here, as well as a few cool fountains and some very large statues.

We also found a few diferrent flowering things that had some good smells and some interesting looks to them, including an artichoke that was in bloom.

We then went out to an African restaurant called Ristorante Africa, that had some great food and some really interesting chairs and decoration choices. Definitely worth a visit as there are many reasons that it has a 4/5 on trip advisor.

And some very interestingly carved chairs.

Then it was back to the hotel to get some more couch requests out and to get some rest for the next morning.