This morning with sleep in our eyes and still aching feet we departed to Arkage/Art Attack, an advertising and marketing agency in Trastevere. The office space was adorable and modern, exactly what you’d expect from a creative agency. We spoke with Claudio Ciatti, founder and managing partner, Federico Giuntella, CEO, and Mauro Felizian, art director.

All three were very passionate about their work. Mauro showed us many of the video campaigns he’s worked on and you could just tell how passionate he was about his work. It’s been a while since I’ve seen anyone so joyful about their career.

After a beautiful, sunny stroll through Trastevere and a lunch of lemon and cherry gelato, we departed for Italy’s main newspaper, la Repubblica. We saw their news and video desks and TV studio. They spoke about their data journalism and social media efforts and showed us the fantastic work they are doing with things like landing pages and packaged stories. There are so many ways to share stories and la Repubblica is exploring all of them. I encourage you to check out their online presence, they are not letting the new age of journalism slow them down.

After returning to our hostel, Carrie, Emily, Em, and I adventured into Rome after getting lost on the way to buy tram tickets (luckily we ran into our guides Matteo and Andrea and they helped us out.)

We had dinner at Er Faciolaro near the Trevi Fountain and learned that not all gnocchi is created equal, limoncello tastes better after the initial burn, and even in the rain overzealous waiters will call to you on the street.

After seeing the Trevi Fountain at night and tossing a couple more coins in (right hand over left shoulder) we made our way back to the hostel and settled in for the night.

Tomorrow is our last night in Rome and although I wish we had more time to explore I am very excited to see what the rest of this trip has in store.

You can find all my pictures here.