Bon Giorno! After a good night's sleep I am ready for my first tour of the Eternal City.
First, I'm on my way downstairs for some breakfast before getting on the hop on hop off tour bus.
One of the main reasons I love a vacation is that my parents aren't so strict when it comes to eating. Today, I decided to start my carbo loading for energy with a donut,sausages and cream filled pastry.
hmmm, I wonder if kids here like eating donuts and sweets as much as I do.
Okay, stomach is full and I'm ready to start the day.
Oh, and my parents wanted me to share some photos of the sitting areas in the hotel lobby.
The hotel
Parco Dei Principi is located at the gate to the beautiful Borghese Gardens behind the Borghese Palazzo, directly across from the park's zoo.
It has 179 rooms. The decor is traditional with lots deep toned woods, marble and rich colored textiles.
The hotel rooms have great views of the park, zoo and a great outdoor and indoor pools. Beside the pools for me, they picked this hotel because it offers a fully equipped state of the art fitness center and water spa. They also love the fact it's only a 15 minute walk through the park to the old city center yet far enough away to escape from the noise and crowd to the quiet of the park.
We're on the
Rome Open tour bus having a great time enjoying the sites.
We're coming up to the
Vittoria Emmanuel monument which is a favorite of my Daddy(Julio). He still remembers how it captivated him on his initial visit to Rome in 1996. I think it was brand new then.
It was built as a monument to Italy's first King. I thought it was funny that they called it the Wedding Cake.
This was actually a site I looked forward to seeing up close. One of my very favorite shows "
Little Einsteins" visited Roman
Coliseum and so I had to come see where Leo,Annie,June and Quincy flew their Rocket ship inside to save the helpless musical notes that were locked in the basement by the evil Big Jet.
Papa Dan is helping me search the crowd for my Little Einsteins friends....so far no luck. I can't believe it was built thousands of years ago when my parents were my age.
After just 45 minutes on the upper deck in the hot sun, I was ready to finish the tour in the shade on the deck below. My Daddy says this picture of me makes him want to sing songs from the Tapestry album by Carole King. An album is an old fashion Itunes player.
After the bus tour, we finally hopped off at the Spanish steps stop which was only a few blocks away. On our way, I spotted a nice clothing boutique and had to have the hot pink polo shirt on the store mannequin.
I can't believe I'm running the famous Spanish steps...whoo hoo! My parents say there are 138 steps to the top. I couldn't tell but you would have thought there were twice that amount the way they were so out of breath.
This is me doing my victory dance once I reached the middle. I still have two more flights to go up what is referred to as the widest steps in Europe. Papa told me they were built more than two hundred years ago for the Spanish Bourbon Kings to access their church at the top of the hill.
After a great morning and early afternoon tour of the old city, it was time for some much needed fun poolside.
Ah! the water and weather is perfecto!
After our late afternoon swim, we showered and changed to find a place to eat within walking distance from the hotel. We stumbled upon this beautiful building on the opposite end of the park from our hotel. It just so happened to be a restaurant. It was built in the 1800s near the Villa Borghese by architect
Giuseppe Valadiera.
Look at my dinner...delicious. Tubes of pasta stuffed with cheese.
The view was outstanding, but my Dads sat here for too long...so I fired up the baby sitter(Ipad).
I had such a fun and busy day that I passed out on the floor 3 minutes after we got back to the room. Thanks for visiting. See you tomorrow.
