Rome is full of cliches and surprises. I’d like to go again but not because I immediately fell in love with it.  I didn’t get to know it well enough or explore all that I know it has to offer.

With a city as famous as Rome you arrive with expectations and preconceptions but there are always a few surprises.

The Expected

• Being blown away by the Colosseum
• Being crowded around the Trevi Fountain
• Eating my body weight in pizza that was so good I am ruined for all other pizza
• Being suitably impressed but simultaneously underwhelmed by the Vatican (sorry Nana)
• Finding St Peter’s big, brash and bold but not particularly beautiful
• Eating gelato that has ruined me for all other gelato

The Unexpected

• Tiny pizza shops so popular that we ate on tiny wicker mats on the street outside. I didn’t care that I was sitting in the gutter because my tastebuds were seeing stars
• Buying a huge slab of truly delicious pizza for just $1.50
• Almost getting hit by a car because Roman drivers wrote the book on erratic driving
• The elaborate and chilling Catacombs of the Cappucian Monks – Catacombs in Paris had nothing on this!
• Playing “I’m in two countries at once!” on the border of the Vatican and Rome
• The beauty of the Spanish steps

What have you been surprised by on your travels?