My inner perfectionist and list-maker can’t really feel 100% confident and stress-free without a list or two (or three!) in my day-to-day life, I won’t even begin to tell you how many she needs when planning a trip! I’ve spent hours making lists of things to see and restaurants, cafes, shops and gardens and places to visit that would be good to fill up x2 the days we spent in Rome two weeks ago! Of course we didn’t really managed to make justice to the many hours I spent on Pinterest looking for pictureque places to visit, but I like to think we would have had an option for where to eat or where to go next for literally any places we visited! And yes, my customized Chroma travel journal came in handy indeed!

Rome has some extremely lovely spots, and although if you’re staying only a few days I bet you’ll have no time at all to visit anything else than the classic touristic destinations (which I highly suggest to visit in a first place!), if you’re staying for a little bit longer, you might want to include some of this lovely places and shops in your travel plan! Also, I have some great food picks for you as well!

S T A Y

We usually like a good modern-looking hotel, but for our staying in Rome, after reading many and many more reviews online, we opted for the lovely Hotel Viminale. The decor is very old school, we wasn’t really a bad thing at all in the end as it contributes to the classical Rome atmosphere.

But what led us to this hotel in the first place was the chance of having breakfast in their beautiful garden if the weather would have been good to us, and we were lucky to be able to eat outside for most of our days there! It has probably been my favourite thing of it all: the buffet breakfast was extremely lovely, the choice endless, with fresh croissants of any kind, fresh fruits, yogurts, coffee, juices and much more, and the garden is the nicest with olive trees and bougainvillea right next to the tables.

The rooms are also super nice and clean and the team is extremely friendly, plus the hotel is one of the few we found very close to the underground, with the closer station only 5-7 minutes away – and walking through those lovely old small streets and picturesque steps was the best thing about it all! Not to talk about the fact it only took us around 10 minutes of walking one evening to find ourselves in front of a quiet but still so-beautiful Colosseum – and it was romantic, I’ll tell you!

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E A T

I’ve eyed up this place since the very beginning of my relationship with Pinterest together with a couple more places – am I the only one that gets excited about pretty restaurants and cafes especially when travelling? So yes, we had to pop into Ginger at least once!

Ginger is a mixture between a huge selection of healthy foods, extremely good-looking salads, juices, organic sandwiches and some great classics of the Roman cousine; it’s basically the perfect place for literally anyone! I’d highly suggest to get their Cacio e Pepe with courgette flowers – it’s pretty amazing plus you really can’t visit Rome without eating a Cacio e Pepe or Carbonara (if you’re not vegetarian) at least once!

We (read: I) planned to eat gelato much more than only once, but apparently the weather didn’t really love ice cream time as each time that an ice cream was appropriate it started raining! But we do managed to visit the lovely Gelateria Del Teatro everyone suggests and their ice cream was quite good! And we do have picky tastes when it comes to ice cream!

That said, ice cream is not usually that pricey in Italy like it is in Rome! But this gelateria is not extremely expensive as many others!

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S E E

Villa Borghese is kind of a classic but one worth a visit indeed! It reminded me of London parks and gardens but with classical Roman architecture which made it so very characteristic! Not to talk about the amazing view on Piazza Del Popolo!

I highly suggest checking out the small lake in the middle and to hire a boat if the weather is nicer to you than it was to us, because that place is just perfect!

We were on our way to Parco Savello when we ended up finding the most beautiful rose garden of all. Whether you’re planning to stop for 30 minutes or more in a nice place, or simply visit it because it’s totally worth, the beautiful Roseto di Roma Capitale is located right in front of the Circus Maximus and it’s jam-packed with the hugest amount of roses I have ever seen in my life!

Perfect location for pictures-taking, I’d say! 😉

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S H O P

Customized Travel Journal ℅ Chroma Stationery

Being Italian we know most of the shops in Rome and we weren’t actually very much into buying things if not souvenirs, but I have heard a lot about Namastey, and if you know about my love for tea you’ll understand why I *had* to made it a necessary stop in our trip and visit it!

It’s the loveliest tea store, with the hugest variety of teas and tastes and flavour combinations – you name it they have it! They also sell online and ship to all Europe so I’d highly suggest to check them out even if you’re not going to be in the boutique (which is the best experience anyway!) if you like your tea a little bit different.

P.S. Their Apple Pie green and white tea blend with tosted crunchy apple cubes is the best thing in this world!

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And that’s it: my mini guide to Rome! Hope it’ll come handy to some of you!
Are you planning to visit the city anytime soon? x

I seem to always complain about if it’s too cold or too hot! These pictures are dated back to last month, when the sun was warmer for the first time this year and we went for a one day trip to Milan with only one thin layer on (a thin flowy dress for me actually!) and nothing else! I’ve been wanting to share these pictures as well as a pair of places where we love to eat when up and about in Milan since a month now, but other contents seemed to always come first and these pictures got lost in the archive of forgotten post drafts; today though, it’s a very sad rainy grey day, and I’m typing from a couch with way too many layers and blankets on than it’s supposed to at the end of April, and I can’t deny I’m one that get so conditioned from the weather – this is how I found myself thinking back of that time when we were in Milan and it was that hot that I’d wished I didn’t decide to wear tights that morning…

We’re finding ourselves wandering around Milan a bit more often than usual lately, for a reason or another, but that day we went only to explore and discover new places, but especially new food! I’ve written down a long list of pretty coffee places, bakeries, restaurants that we need to visit and test before the end of the year, and placed it in my handbag, so that everytime we find ourselves around one, we know where to go and eat!

First stop that day was The Bagel Factory, a place we haven’t stop visiting ever since and that I can’t not highly recommend! They have a tiny shop located in Piazza XXIV Maggio, not far from a nice walk towards the Duomo, and offer the biggest selection of fresh ingredients to compose your own perfect bagel beside from a few suggested ingredients combinations that all sounds amazingly tasty. That day we went for smoked Norwegian salmon, avocado and mayo in a delicious sesame bagel, and that’s still probably my favourite pick, even though their poached eggs and classic or eggplant hummus are something delicious to add and pair with a vast amount of ingredients!

May I suggest also to try their freshly squeezed orange juice, it’s something divine! Next on my list are their brownies and huge cookies, as well as that layered granola and berries yogurt glass they have, sounds delicious!

PIAZZA XXIV MAGGIO 1/8

We spent our afternoon enjoying the sun, walking towards the Duomo with all the calm that a chilled spring day deserves, and spotting other places that immediately made on top of our food-to-try list (we tried I Love Vegetarian‘s smoothies only a pair of weeks later and we are in love! You can’t beat their banana, strawberries and papaya smoothie, it’s super delicious and refreshing!). We walked that much without even realizing if not for our feet that started aching (especially mine!) and for the fact that at a certain point I felt my foot touching the ground only to discover later that my shoes broke and I needed to buy a new pair – I can’t even count the times I’ve bought random pair of shoes just because mine broke in the middle of a busy city! Anyone else?

We walked to China Town (and believe it or not, it was my first time there) and after spotting a few too many cute things, we got back with a huge bag full of the craziest food (like grape and peach oreo, seaweed pretzels and green tea snacks) with the only purpose to try something different!

Lastly we stopped by That’s Bakery for a cupcake or two just before heading home. Again this is a place we visited a few times again as their cupcakes are just perfection! The place itself is a little American bakery, with shabby chic homeware and cute little tables even outside and a lot of options in their menu, like american cakes, cookies, brownies, and obviously their delicious cupcakes which were our first choice after hearing so much about them. Even though it was only the end of March, the day was so lovely that we couldn’t say no to eating outside and went for a red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, chocolate and nutella cupcake (my fave!) and decided to try their cappuccino (which is delicious, for the record). We got lost in chats while sipping and eating and by the time we realized, the sun was setting and the air getting chillier.

VIA VIGEVANO 41

Here’s to more sunny days spent up and about exploring new places out there, especially if they involve food! Plus I can’t wait to share a few more places I’ve already discovered that offer pretty amazing food! x

I’M WEARING ::
Dress – Forever21 ; Bag – ASOS ; Shoes – H&M

If there’s a season I love, it must be Spring. With its colours, pink blossoms everywhere, the warmer but still fresh air, longer days and brighter sunlight (and the list could go on and on – read here for more!), there’s no need to wonder how it’s able to boost positivity and sweep ‘meh days’ away. Recently I’ve been introduced to the art of having a different active weekend, instead of staying at home and enjoying solitude (otherwise known as what-I-do-in-wintertime-all-the-time) which only lead to checking the tech way too much and maybe going back to work earlier forgetting that the weekend should be relax and disconnecting, instead of working and working.

Simply stepping outside, especially if the sun is up and the weather is lovely, to see the world, or just your backyard, and spend the day with someone you love, disconnecting from your to-do lists, totally makes the difference! I can see how starting the week in a relaxed mood can improve my same work and productivity. And sometimes you don’t even need to plan something fancy ahead, positivity can be found in the simplest of things too.

One of our favourite weekend activity in springtime is surely visiting nurseries (you might have read last week’s post about it!). There is something special about plants and buds all together blooming to beautiful colourful flowers and fruits at the same time, and what better place to see the magic happening if not somewhere where plants and flowers are all gathered up in a few square meters?

After visiting a lot of gardens and nurseries, I’d say I’m a fan of both big ones, ones than are extended to homeware stores and especially ones where to also shop candles and organic food, but also smaller ones, almost vintage-y, where time seems to have been stopped in the nineties and everything still looks very classical and old school. And as much as I love going back and visiting my favourite nurseries all over again, I’m surely a big fan of exploring new ones!

This is in fact how our latest weekend was spent. We visited a new place highly suggested by my mum, that immediately made on top of my list of favourite places where to spend a slow Sunday afternoon! We spent an endless amount of time there, wandering between the shabby chic homeware pieces (most of which I’d gladly have brought home with me!), admiring the Easter themed decorations, little chocolate eggs and colourful ceramic animals, before immersing ourselves into the most beautiful and huge amount of greenery outside.

I mainly go there to learn new plants and flowers names and dream of a time when we’ll have our own garden and I’ll be allowed to plant and see my kitchen garden growing up and coming together nicely!

I’m wearing…
Top – Zara ; Jeans – Topshop ; Coat ℅ Sheinside ; Shoes – H&M ; Bag – ASOS (Similar) .

Then I spotted the candles section and went crazy in there with smelling and testing all the spring and flowers flavoured Yankee Candles I was able to, until my nose struggled to identify the scents for the too large amount of smells I exposed it to – coming out with a new favourite as well, Lovely Kiku, whose mix of sweetness, warmness of vanilla and floral hints of cherry blossom and chrysanthemum is practically what I imagine Spring to smell like in a candle!

The tour was concluded with a little stop to the organic foods boutique at the end, where unusual, oriental and healthy foods were all gathered up, with a big selection of sweets and teas too. Talking of teas, I’ve gladly found my new trusty stockist of Clipper Teas (which are not that common around here) – and yes, I’ve stocked up on my favourite Green Tea with Echinacea!

What’s your favourite activity on spring weekends? x