This trip is when I learned the tip of regularly refreshing the Delta app and checking upgrade costs for your (booked) flight, as occasionally they dramatically lower the price and you can get a Delta One fare for a steal.

That’s what happened here, and I jumped on it! I’d never really flown business class before, definitely not on an international flight, so I was excited for the treat—especially for the overnight flight when it would be so helpful to have a lie-flat bed/seat

I got to JFK and laughed when I saw that the brand new Delta One lounge was set to open… a couple of months from now.

Nevertheless, I made my way to the Delta Sky Club to spend some time before my flight. I’m not usually a club person, but figured I might as well take it all in while enjoying this rare business class experience.

I settled in for a while with my little charcuterie plate and last night’s Top Chef, before making my way to the gate.

I can’t really say this was a relaxing way to spend time before a flight – the lounge was pretty chaotic – but nice to have the free snack and a place to sit with a table.

Arriving in Rome, I got my luggage and was met by a driver sent by Flash Pack, and it was about a 45-minute drive to our hotel.

On the drive it was the first time I heard the song “Un ragazzo una ragazza” by The Kolors on the radio, which is/was clearly the song of the moment in Italy. It is such an earworm that I got it stuck in my head pretty immediately, only strengthened by hearing it all over the place in shops, cafes, the tuktuk tour we did in Polignano a Mare, and (I laughed) the taxi that took me back to the airport in Bari on the last day. I was also proud that I sort of immediately knew what the chorus meant since I happened to learn those two words in my like one week of Italian Duolingo haha. (Un ragazzo = a boy; una ragazza = a girl.) Listen at your own earworm risk, but also the video does not disappoint.

It was too early to check into my room so I refreshed and changed clothes in the hotel bathroom, had them store my luggage, and set out to explore the city around 1:00.

For lunch I headed to a little place near the fountain called Pane e Salami to enjoy the first of many rounds of bruschetta I’d have in Italy. it’s always been one of my favorite snacks, so I was excited to have the Real Deal.

I ordered the tomato + mozzarella + basil option as well as a zucchini + eggplant + pesto option, and it was a perfect first Italian meal, sitting outside and enjoying the nice weather and fresh air. (Well, mostly fresh air haha – it was also an introduction to the fact that Italians smoke a lot.)

While there was A+ art everywhere you turned, it’s clear that most people were there for the same reason as me: to see Caravaggio’s Matthew series, three iconic paintings hanging in the same inset chapel (the Contarelli Chapel) towards the front of the church to the left of the altar.

The Calling of St. Matthew is one of Caravaggio’s most famous paintings, and the one that instantly made me a fan of his. I remember seeing this for the first time when it popped up on a slide in an art history class, and it honestly took my breath away.

I’m always blown away by this level of realism. and the raw talent it takes to paint light in this way. It’s as good as it gets in this painting, and is what started an interest that has since made Caravaggio arguably my favorite painter.

Seeing it in person did NOT disappoint, and it was so satisfying to finally get to experience this painting that’s held such a core memory for me for so many years.

I don’t want to sleep on his other two Matthew paintings either! Hanging on the right, opposite The Calling is The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew (painted around the same time) and in the center is The Inspiration of Saint Matthew painted two years later.

Very satisfied after that personal art history bucket list moment, I strolled over to the nearby Piazza Navonna, one of Rome’s most famous, and home to Bernini’s Four Rivers monument.

As much as Caravaggio is arguably my favorite painter, Bernini is arguably my favorite sculptor/architect, and Rome is just overflowing with Bernini masterpieces. This one, that he created in 1651 for Pope Innocent X, was the first of many, and a hell of an introduction. Collectively, the four figures surrounding that giant obelisk are river gods that represent four major rivers in the four continents where papal authority had spread: the Nile representing Africa, the Danube representing Europe, the Ganges representing Asia, and the Río de la Plata representing the Americas.

Leaving the Piazza, it was the perfect warm day for some gelato so I swung by the nearby Giolitti, one of Rome’s most famous gelato spots. There was a decent line, but it moved really quickly.

I ended up with a combo of black cherry and almond, and it was really delicious – though also learned my lesson about getting a cup as it was hard to eat with one hand while also needing to look at my phone to navigate in the other. Next time, cone!

I wanted to go back to the hotel to check in, shower and refresh, and rest my legs for a minute before heading back out to my reservation at the Borghese Gallery.

Turns out that Rome is very hilly, and our hotel was at the top. It was not really that long of a walk distance-wise in the scheme of my usual Manhattan walking, but I was not expecting the absolute workout that this was on a hot day, walking pretty much straight uphill without reprieve.

When I finally got to my room and checked in, I was beet red and totally out of breath!

The hotel was fine — not my favorite hotel I’ve ever stayed in, a bit falling apart under the chandeliers, but I’ve since found out that it was bought by another hotel group and is undergoing a major renovation before reopening. Glad to hear they’re fixing it up!

After a quick break at the hotel, I walked down Via Veneto, once the heart of Rome’s La Dolce Vita era when the street was home to film stars, fashion, and the first paparazzi. Passing through the Porta Pinciana, a famous 2000+ year old gate in the city walls, I stepped into the calm of the Villa Borghese Gardens and immediately into a different world.

These Gardens were once the private estate of Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew of Pope Paul V and major art collector, who turned the land into his own very manicured playground. It’s been a public park since the early 1900s, but you can still feel the old grandeur in the layout.

Putting the eyebrow-raising title (to our 21st century ears) aside, it’s a little hard to wrap your head around the technical mastery here, from the combination of textures, Pluto’s realistic grip on her thigh, the tear on her cheek, the fact that it all feels like it’s moving… incredible that this just started as one big chunk of marble.

We stopped for a while as our guide talked about this marble Antonio Canova sculpture Venus Victorius that’s a highlight of one of the galleries.

Napoleon’s sister Pauline Borghese (she had just married into the Borgheses) posing as the goddess of love Venus proved so controversial that it was locked away in a wooden crate for decades. Especially when she proudly and publicly implied that she posed nude for Canova.

Her marriage broke up before the sculpture was finished.

At the end of the gallery tour we reached the main reason for my museum visit: Bernini’s sculpture Apollo and Daphne.

I fell in love with this piece the first time I saw a picture. How could you not? It definitely has a lot of similarities to his Rape of Proserpina in the first gallery (uh, guy might’ve had some issues), but in this one Daphne the nymph is in the process of defensively transforming herself into a tree when caught by Apollo.

The fact that Bernini shows this freeze frame of the transformation, her hands and hair magically turning into branches and paper-thin leaves, a trunk starting to envelop her body… it’s really a showstopper. Really, carving this out from one single block of marble. Incredible. And he was only 23 when he started the four year work.

Cardinal Borghese had these words inscribed in the gallery, in case you missed the message of the sculpture: “if you chase fleeting pleasures, all you’ll catch is a handful of leaves.”

For dinner I headed to Ristorante Il Fellini, a little place with good reviews about halfway between the Borghese Gallery and my hotel.

The decor is a sleek homage to Roman-born filmmaker Federico Fellini, with giant prints of him and effortlessly cool leading ladies like Sophia Loren and Maria Callas. An apt theme for this neighborhood that was so big in his peak La Dolce Vita era.

I never really love dining alone, but the staff made me feel at home, and I ended up striking up a conversation with the two women next to me (one pictured in my stealth photo on the left) who were visiting from LA.