Incredible Pizza, Espresso, Fall-Apart Tender Oxtail, and Vatican City Attractions - ROME, ITALY!

Let me share with you why I love oxtail so much. It is this. The meat just falls, it just pulls off, look at that. Good morning everyone, it's Mark Wiens with Migrationology.com in Rome, Italy. We are walking actually right now through the Piazza di Spagna and on our way to the Pantheon this morning and we're gonna walk around that area for the morning and just explore. And then later on, early this afternoon, I already booked tickets online for 1 p.m. And we are gonna visit the Vatican City. If you don't follow your map, like on your cell phone or follow it, you will definitely get lost within these alleys and streets. They're so confusing back here, but it's amazing. And just the view of the Pantheon in front of me now. But I'm gonna go have a coffee before I talk more about the Pantheon. There's a coffee spot that is just a couple meters from the Pantheon and it's a pretty fast affair. You can't really hang out and drink coffee, but what you do is you stand in there, you order a coffee, and just at the bar you drink your coffee. So it's gonna be pretty fast and furious. I'm gonna give Ying the camera because Ying doesn't drink coffee. She's gonna follow me in there and then I'm gonna have a cup of coffee real fast. Yeah, so what you do is you pay at the cashier and then you get a receipt and then you come over to the coffee bar and then they take your order, they make your order. First cup. Oh, that's an awesome cup of coffee. Oh yeah, that is fantastic. Okay, and now I decide to order one more. That's just absolutely stunning. Oh, it is like, it's strong, it's a little bit foamy, and just extremely flavorful. I'm loving this. And yeah, so you gotta drink it kind of fast. You're just standing here, you drink it, and then you leave. It's a fast affair. That was some incredibly high quality espresso. Absolutely delicious and that was a very necessary stop. It's just incredible to think that it was built over 2,000 years ago and it's such a grand structure with the Corinthian columns in the front and then the whole circular pantheon and also what I was reading is that it is a concrete dome on the top and it's unreinforced and even today, 2,000 years after it was built, it remains the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world. And just the entire circular structure and then the dome which is covering it plus the opening right at the very top, the oculus. This is absolutely an engineering and construction marvel. And when you see people come in for the first time, you just see everyone with their cameras out and just like doing full 360s circling around and you can't help but do that because it's such an awe-inspiring structure. Since we happen to be in this area, there's a very famous gelato shop that has 150 different flavors. Ying, are you ready for some gelato? Can I have one of this, the wild beer? And the other one, pistachio. You want anything on top? Thank you, have a good day. Ying got half. I think this is mixed berry and then pistachio and this is a pretty good size, this is the medium size. Wow. Okay, that is pretty awesome. Oh, the flavor is so well pronounced and then again, it's so creamy. I think I probably have some on my chin. Okay, next up for that berry. Yeah, that is amazing and there's so much real, you can taste so much real berries in there. The little raspberry seeds and the creaminess and the sweetness and yeah, that is some highly good gelato. Ying especially loved that gelato. Was it the best gelato, Ying? Yes. There's another famous coffee shop on the opposite side of the Pantheon. That's where we are heading right now. I could use another shot of espresso. Same drill, I'm gonna go in there, pay, take my receipt, stand there at the bar, slurp down my cup of coffee and that's the process. Thank you. Wow, there is no milk in here but it's almost like foamy, like ice cream foamy. Wow, that is impressively awesome. I managed to slurp most of that foam but you gotta use your spoon to grab the rest of it. You don't want any of it to be left behind. Alright, that was awesome. That was one of those beverages that I wish I had on IV. I just want a constant stream of that espresso in my system. That is an awesome one-seater car. We wound our way through some of the alleys and we finally found it. Gonna have some pizza. That side? Yeah. Yes, please. Yeah, sure. And do you have another one with more toppings or not ready yet? Just two minutes. Okay. So you can begin with this one and in two minutes I have more pizza. Okay. This place makes pizza but it's also a full bakery and so you walk in here and the aroma of baking bread just fills your nostrils. And we're here a little bit early so not all of the different topping pizzas are ready yet. But he said that we should just start with this pizza first and wait to see a few minutes for some of the flavors that might come out of the oven. That tomato sauce, that cheese. Wow. The bread is absolutely perfect. It's crusty and then kind of gummy. And then the tomato sauce is a little bit tart but the vibrancy of those tomatoes. The cheese is not too salty and it's in like slices so that the entire chunk of cheese just came out on that bite. That is just a pure harmony of flavors. Like this? Yes. Okay. And maybe a small slice of spinach. Yes, sir. Okay. Can I have a two gold? Yes, sir. A little less. Yes. And so you just point out what you want. He'll chop a piece off and you can either eat it right inside like we had that first warm up pizza for inside. But then for our next pizza I decided to get it for takeaway because we might walk while we eat. And also I wanted to stand outside and enjoy this ambience. So it's the shape of the pizza. It comes like this and this one includes, look at all those toppings. This one includes lots of cheese, mushrooms, and I'm not sure what that is. Some kind of meat. But this one looks awesome. And actually I think what you do is you kind of eat it sandwich style because all of those toppings are squished in the middle. And so yeah, I don't want to risk losing any of those toppings so I'm just going to actually keep it sort of folded up. But you just have to get a close up look at all of those goodies inside of there. Just look how special that is. Look at that. Wow. That is spectacular. The cheese is packed with mushrooms. That's some type of a sausage type of meat with a little bit of a sourness to it. Yeah, the bread. It's so like crisp but then it's gummy where the cheese meets bread. Okay, next one. And this next one I believe is the spinach one. Oh yeah, this is the spinach. That's just like a little sandwich with spinach and cheese. Oh, that's beautiful too. Oh yeah, if you love spinach, you're going to love this. This is pure, just loaded with like handfuls of spinach and cheese. The thing that stood out to me the most was the bread. The bread, the crust was incredible. I don't think you can go wrong with anything at Rossioli. We have just walked into Campo de' Fiori and this is another square, another many, many of the plazas in Rome and this one is famous because it is home to a fresh market. There are lots of fruits and vegetables, spices. You can buy lots and lots of things here and we are just actually kind of just passing through though. We made it to the Tiber River. We are crossing the bridge now. We're getting very close to the Vatican City. And the Vatican City is a city-state, a Walden city-state within Rome and it is of course ruled by the head bishop of Rome who is the Pope and so we are walking with the front main entrance view but I think the main entrance is on the other side where all of the people are walking so that's where we're going to go. Okay, that was a little bit of a walk from the entrance to the Vatican Museum entrance. You have to go around the wall but we are approaching now. We got through security and then we transferred our e-ticket into the little tickets. It kind of felt like immigration. This museum is huge. It's one of the largest art gallery museums in the entire world and so I don't know if we'll be able to see everything but I'm going to kind of pick and choose some of the important things or things that I really want to see. We are passing through a room called Sala Rotonda and this room, it looks actually very similar to the Pantheon but it's much smaller. There is a hole in the middle of the dome and then with this gigantic sculpture that looks like a giant bowl in the middle. There's also a collection of Egyptian art and mummies. You just move through the Vatican Museums through series of hallways and corridors and not only are there just amazing sculptures on both sides as well as different exhibits and galleries but if you look up, you will notice paintings and decorations and it's just a museum within a museum of a museum. We have entered into the maps gallery and this is a long hall that includes maps which are painted on both sides. They are topographical maps which date back to around 1580. I'm now walking through the Raphael rooms which are a series of four rooms which contain just incredibly beautiful and detailed frescoes which were painted by Raphael. One of the most famous paintings, frescoes in the Raphael rooms is the school of Athens which is right behind me and it was painted in 1509 and it's within the room of the signature. We are about to enter the place that nobody misses when they visit the museums at the Vatican. I think that's the only place in the whole museum where you're not allowed to video or photo but it is a, it's not a huge chapel but the ceiling is extremely high and it can fit about 2000 people from what I read but you look up at the walls and on the ceiling and it is just all of those paintings by Michelangelo, the frescoes that you have seen in photos, it's incredible to gaze into those paintings and those frescoes. What struck me is how high the ceiling is and then just looking up and you can just almost fall into a dream looking at the Sistine Chapel ceiling. We are on our way out of the museum and going down the famous spiral staircase now. It took us a little over two hours and I think we went pretty fast so you could definitely spend a lot more time in there if you took more time to look at all of the artwork and the galleries and the paintings. We are now walking over to St. Peter's Basilica and one of the things I wanted to do is to climb the dome, Michelangelo's famous dome on the top of St. Peter's Basilica and so we got in the line for the dome and I think it is a separate line from entering into the actual main basilica. So that security point ended up getting us into the basilica as well, I thought it was just going to get us into the dome. So we are going to enter the basilica first and then go to the dome afterwards. It is massive in here and I can see the dome up ahead and I can see the rays of sunshine shining down through the dome. St. Peter's Basilica was designed by Bramante and also Michelangelo and it is one of the most impressive sites in the Vatican City, especially notable for its dome. I'm going to go climb the dome now and hopefully get some great views of Rome from here. And the amount of marble and the carvings and sculptures that it took to create this basilica is mind blowing. I just got my ticket, I am going to climb the stairs to the top of the dome. It is a total of 551 steps to the top. So here we go, here we start. As busy and packed as the basilica is, I'm in the staircase now and it's completely quiet. There's nobody else here. And I should also mention that you can take the elevator at least part of the way up and then just climb a little bit. That just took a few minutes and I've come to some outdoor courtyard level. I didn't even know we were going to have a view from the top of the dome but on the inside of the dome. Wow, this is awesome, you can see below. Made it to that first level and those are some amazing views of the church from above. But now climbing the circular staircase to the cupola. It's a pretty tight staircase. I just made it to the top of the dome, that took exactly 13 minutes and there were some amazing spiral staircases. From the top here you have a full 360 view of Rome. So you can walk around the dome, you can see the edges of the dome going downwards, sloping downwards and of course you have a whole view, an entire view of St. Peter's Square from above. The 360 views of Rome were amazing and also just the hike up the stairs to get to the top was also a lot of fun. I would highly recommend dishing out the extra money when you come to St. Peter's. We are walking to the bus stop and gonna try to take the bus to the Jewish ghetto for dinner tonight. Oh and how convenient, the bus that we need to take pulled up right as we got here. And it should be just a short walk from here to the Jewish area. I don't know too much about the influence and the history of Jews in Rome, but I do know that there has been a Jewish influence for many, many years and this Jewish area of Rome was officially established back in 1555. There are a number of different Jewish Italian restaurants in this area. I chose to come to one called Nonna Betta. Thank you. One of the most famous Roman Jewish dishes or it's kind of like an appetizer starter is a fried artichoke. They are deep fried so they are crispy. Oh and you can see that little bit of salt on top. This looks fantastic. Oh, oh. And you can actually see how the inside is gonna be nice and probably soft while the outside is gonna be crispy and crunchy. Oh let me try to grab all those layers together. Oh yeah. The inside is creamy like cooked eggplant and then those outer leaves are crispy and a little bit chewy and then it's just nicely salted. Actually those outer leaves of the artichoke, they were a little too chewy to chew so I probably ate it wrong because it's an artichoke so it has those really chewy outer leaf like things of the artichoke so the inside is really really soft and then you sort of eat all that meat from those leaves. I think I approached the artichoke a little wrong in the first place because I was thinking that because it's fried that those would all be soft but they're still a little bit chewy but what you do so you can just grab those crispy bits and then just like any artichoke still bite off all of that gooey soft bit from the bottom. And you can eat the crispy piece of the artichoke as well but definitely don't make the mistake like I did and take like half that artichoke in one bite or you won't be able to chew it that's for sure. And also to begin with we got a type of pasta. And this is, I think it's the nonna betta special pasta. Let me try to work on my pasta twirling skills. But I think it's a type of minced meat sauce. Yeah that's really nice too. That is mostly tomato based but it has a little bit of creaminess to it so I'm not sure what else is in there. Really good with those noodles and then just with little bits of minced meat. Let me take one more bite of this. This is excellent. I think I'm getting better at my pasta twirl. But I'm definitely, I definitely need a lot of work. Main course has arrived. This is codfish prepared nonna betta style and it comes with pistachios and pine nuts. And I'm not sure what all the sauce is but this looks delicious. And it came bubbling over. Oh is that, that's a, looks like a very rich sauce. This should still be very hot. As moments ago it was bubbling. Yeah that tastes very buttery and it has a nutty flavor from the pine nuts and the pistachio. And I love those edges of the fish. They're slightly caramelized within this pan as well. I saw oxtail on the menu and I have a soft spot in my heart for oxtail. So I had to. This is a nice chunk of oxtail submerged in a tomato sauce. Oh, oh yes. Let me, let me share with you why I love oxtail so much. It is this. The meat just falls. It just pulls off. Look at that. Oh, okay. Okay I'm gonna add that to, mix that with the tomato sauce. It's such a wonderful piece. The meat is so flavorful. And so soft and tender. And that's a very mild tomato sauce. It's not really tart. Not really sweet. Just, it's very pleasant. It just goes well with that tender beef. That's really good. That was a wonderful meal. The artichoke was delicious. But, oh the pasta was also really good. But I really loved that oxtail. That was the highlight of the meal for me. Nice to sit outside and just relax after a, it was a good day but a very tiring day. With lots and lots of crowds. And, yeah it turned out to be a great day. I'm gonna end the video for today right now. Thank you all very much for watching. Please remember to give this video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it. Make sure you leave a comment below. And also make sure you subscribe for lots more food and travel videos. And I will see you on the next video. Thank you again for watching.