Tag: visitors

All Travellers’ Roads Really Do Lead To Rome

After a relatively quiet first year in Rome, in terms of guests and visitors, this past year has been almost the exact inverse. It seems that as covid travel restrictions and more general travel-related anxieties have subsided, people have turned their sights to Italy in an unbelievable way.

Whereas we hosted a few family visitors in 2021, in 2022, there seemed to be multiple friends, pals, acquaintances in Rome at any given time. Throughout the summer, it was not unusual to see 2-3 people I knew post Rome pics on Facebook – at some points becoming almost impossible to keep up with. From July until the end of the year, we had a grand total of THREE weekends without visitors!

Hard to believe and not always easy to manage, but also a real blessing to see so many people, to share some of our favourite places, restaurants, activities, towns and meals, and always enjoy experiencing this beautiful place through the eyes of our guests.

Here’s just a few quick hi-lights to the year of Italy, friendship and the rediscovery of the joy of travel!

The year starts with grandma in town after a family Christmas visit
Grandpa Joseph makes his first stop in the Eternal City!
In a preview of what’s to come, Dalia’s old friends Kadi and JP pass through for a couple days
A completely serendipitous meeting with old pal Eric in the hour before we boarded our ferry to Ischia
Cousin Jacek finally pulls the trigger and comes to Italy
Our first family friend guests – Joe, Christina and Aleksander’s newest best buddy Andreas
New pals!
Dalia’s mom arrives to save the month of August!
Uncle Zaya drops by for gelato, soccer practice and some listening sessions
Farzane, Nomce, pasta and babies!
Discussing dad tips, inflation and ancient Roman architecture with awesome human Nomce
Uncle Robert and family back for birthday visit #2
Anita makes a return visit to her beloved Italy and drops in on a few of the country’s finest public pianos
Old co-worker Loic, hubby and pal passing through on a long route to Vietnam!
Dalia gets to reconnect with old friend Asma
Aunty Lydia pulls off a quick weekend stop
Cool Chris White shows us around our own town
Mom pops back in and brings everyone’s favourite aunt Terenia
Michael D passes by and drops off a Radiohead record (forever welcome!)
Big A swings through for work and sneaks in a weekend trip to Tivoli
The year ends where it started, with uncle Pauly and babcia back in town! And Aleksander saying their names

One of the reasons I was always interested in living overseas is to be able to share part of the experience with friends and family. In Rome, we’re lucky enough to have a guest room available and couldn’t be happier to share it as a landing spot for our loved ones near and far.

We may have to develop a slightly more judicious guest hosting strategy in 2023 but for all the joint memories made this year, we’re forever grateful!