We continued shopping after McDonald’s. Our meandering brought us back to the Fontana di Trevi and the Pantheon. Jenny made sure to toss a coin in the fountain after recently learning that doing so is thought to return one back to Rome someday. We stopped by a street vendor selling Prada and Gucci purses – clearly fakes. Jenny and I played good cop/bad cop and got the purse down to half of what he was asking. We all know that it is clearly a knock off, but Jenny thought the purse was cute despite this fact.

We then picked up a bus to the Vatican and were quickly swarmed by nuns, priests, and other officials in bright red and purple vestments. The entire area was busy with visitors and the line to enter the Vatican was wrapping around the enormous Pope building.

After leaving Vatican City we went back to the area near the Pantheon to find dinner. My mission was to find something predictable, yet still distinctly Italian. I wasn’t in the mood for any more octopus tentacles, complete with gritty purple suckers. We found Ristorante Il Miraggio and I asked for steak. After some communication issues, I got what I wanted: a deliciously tender sirloin steak laid on a layer of cut toast and dripped in a three-pepper wine sauce. Combined with grilled potatoes, it was by far the best meal (not the mention the service) since coming to Italy. We finished the meal with a glass of Lemincello – a distinctly Italian 70 proof lemon-based alcohol. We each got a single sip from the tall glass. Since the glass easily held about 3 or 4 shots worth of alcohol, we were nowhere near from completing the drink.

Ciao for now.

Categories: Travel
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