Day 9 Warsaw-Rome

We had a leisurely morning, repacked our bags, tidied the apartment and took a cab to the airport for our flight to Rome. The new Warsaw airport is much nicer than the old one -- everything was quick and smooth. The flight to Rome was uneventful. Our private car pickup at Rome could not be found. After waiting 30 minutes we took a shuttle which turned out better. We got a little tour of the city with the driver pointing out things. We got to the hotel at about 5 pm. Our hotel room is much smaller from our Polish ones - the castle room was about 1200 sq feet; Wroclaw was about 400 sq ft; Rome is 120 sq ft. We started out on our 5 hour walk. Since we had no concept of the city and the distances, we took out the map and started walking. The hotel is close to Stazione Termini so we walked toward the station first, then to Piazza Republica and from there we decided to go the Spanish Steps. We followed the map and ended up at the top of the steps with lots of tourists. We wanted to stop for a beer & wine, but the restaurants by the steps were grossly overpriced, we took a few side streets and found a nice street café to have our drinks for less than half the price. Then we walked along Corse to Piazza del Popolo and from there to di Trevi fountain, which was totally mobbed. It was about 8 pm and we were getting hungry so we started to look for a place to eat. There were plenty of restaurants near di Trevi, but again we were aiming for something a bit less touristy so we took a few turns and asked an prosperous-looking Italian man on the street for his recommendation. He sent us to a place called Restaurante de Quirino, which turned out to be very nice with good (but not great) food . Bo had pasccheri with swordfish, capers and olives and Al had chicken and we shared a bottle of wine. After dinner we walked back to Corso and took a bus to Termini to get back to our hotel. Not bad for the first day.