3/11/2010
We were sad to say goodbye to Florence and to Elena, she was a very special host and helped us so much. She ordered our taxi for us & then gave us a bottle of wine as a thank you. We will definitely come back to Florence one day & hope Elena is still running the B&B.
We had an unadventurous (by my standards) train ride to Rome, then followed our new host, Ruggero’s directions to get to our new B&B (AGV2001). I had checked tripadvisor before leaving Florence & this one was ranked 23 out of 1250, so was looking forward to something special.
We found the Metro (underground) in the Termini & found our way to the correct line, along with a million other people & crowded ourselves & our luggage onto the public train. Off at Cipro, then walked a few hundred metres till we found it.
Well it wasn’t quite what we expected, 3 rooms on the ground floor, but it was however on the first floor, with a small kitchen where breakfast was help yourself. It was the same size as an average motel room, with ensuite, but the other rooms that were occupied were very close. We met Barbara, Ruggero’s wife who gave us some tips, and then we did the usual, dropped bags & went looking for supplies.
On our trek we stopped for a drink at a café & ended up having a light snack for lunch/afternoon tea – a plate of grilled vegetables & bruschetta. We then got back to our room to work out the TV & get a bit of rest. Marty fell asleep and then I heard the neighbours come home and my god what a racket, then suddenly there was a bash on our door, and we were greeted by Ruggero, very loud, very in your face & very very. He came into our room & talked non-stop loudly for the next 40 minutes about where to go & what to do & how to work the TV. He actually went into a lot of detail about how to work the TV & its hundreds of channels but when we asked how many were in English he smiled & said one, BBC news.
Because Marty had been woken so suddenly & loudly he was ready to kill him initially but after about 20 mins he settled & tried to look interested in Ruggero’s constant chatter.
Anyway after we he had left us with recommendations for restaurants etc we were ready to eat again, by now it was about 8.30pm. We found one of the restaurants recommended but found it too expensive so found our own & enjoyed some more pasta. We cant work out how these people eat the way they do & not get fat, there are hardly any over weight people here like in Australia, yet they live on pizza, pasta & olive oil & bread, heaps of bread.
4/11/2010
I woke at 6am (how unusual for me) & tried out the coffee machine, and it made a warm cup of mud, so gave up on that & tried the other treats which were just as inedible, so settled for yoghurt & juice. Showered & dressed & off by 8.30a.m.
We had tickets already booked for the Vatican, which was about 200 metres away & walked straight in, no waiting. We hired audio commentary for it, but words & pictures cannot describe it. We also took in the Sistine Chapel, then after 2 ½ hrs we left feeling quite awestruck.
Where to next, I decided we needed to make our way to Trastevere, so we jumped on a number 23 bus, and guessed where to get off, fortunately at exactly the right place. We walked around the area for a while then found a ristorantte with a set menu. A lovely meal later & couple of glasses of vino & we were off again. Over the river, then decided if we went a little further we would find Trevi Fountain, but first we ran into the Pantheon, which amazingly is intact or has been restored.
A couple for Roman Soldiers hijacked us & took photos, and gave us a wonderful laugh talking about Australia & for some reason Tasmania & Perth. We then headed off again to find the Trevi Fountain but first ran into another massive huge building, the Vittorio Emanuele at Piazza Venezia with the Italian version of the Unknown Soldier.
We eventually found the Trevi Fountain, which was a little disappointing, as it is set among a number of huge buildings with thousands of people, and just doesn’t have the appeal that the photos give it because of that.
We then had to make our way home, so found a bus stop for bus 492 and once again guessed where to get off. Made it home by about 5.30pm, so it really had been a long day for us, walking most places & using public transport to get around. It was a bit daunting when we first got to Europe but we didn’t take long to work out that the public transport system in all cities is far superior to anything we have in Aus & therefore there is no need to worry if you get lost or get on the wrong bus/tram/train, because everywhere you go has a return route & we have a couple of times just got off & got on the right one.
Once back at our room, we met the other family here, a lovely family from Switzerland and we had a very disjointed conversation with them, they were really lovely people. That wasn’t the end of our day though, we decided to see the Trevi Fountain at night to see if it was more attractive at night, so back on jumped on the Metro to Barberini Fontana di Trevi & walked down Via del Tritone. Marty was busting at this stage and thought that if he got to the fountain before a toilet he wouldn’t make it so we stopped and had another pasta dish for dinner. Then onto the Trevi fountain, which still didn’t have the attraction I expected. But hey, you have to see it.
On our way back we stopped for an ice cream, the second of the day, the ice cream here is delectable, then stopped at a shop & Marty got a little bottle of Lemincello, we once again had to try it. Then back on the train and home. By this stage (10pm) I was exhausted after a 14 hour day and fell straight into bed, Marty however decided to go for a smoke & ran into Rugello again. We had tried to avoid him cause he was so loud, and that hadn’t changed even at 10pm at night. We really felt sorry for the other family who were already asleep, but he did give Marty some good advice for the next day.
5/11/2010
We were up, dressed, breakfasted (we bought our own the night before) and out the door by 7.30am as we had 8.30am tickets for the Coliseum, and fought the early morning train ride to the station. Try & imaging hundreds of people all trying to get on a train that only accommodates less than 50 per carriage, well that was us, pushed, cramped, jostled onto the train, after walking several hundred metres to get to the right line. Then off that line (the A line) and onto the B line that took us to the Coliseum.
No queue once again & we spent some time wandering around the massive structure and enjoying it with very few other people. It seems the majority of people don’t get up here till much later in the day than we are used to in Aus. We could see the Forum from the coliseum so felt no need to see another bunch of old stones (we had really done a lifetime of that in Ankar Wat), so bought ourselves a coffee, and headed back to our room. We were in that situation again where we really needed to do some washing.
We walked around the block & found the Laundromat, and noticed that across the road was what appeared to be a market, of course we had to have a look. Well, wanna buy anything, you can get it here. So we did. A couple of Italian bread rolls, a slice of roast pork you couldn’t jump over, a tomatoe & onion – a cheap lunch. But the best was the shop with vats of vino, so we tried some and opted for the litre of bianco for 1.50 euro. Lunch made for a king.
We then returned to our rooms to collect our washing and dropped it at the Laundromat for them to wash for us at a significantly cheaper price of 7 euro than the 50 sfr we paid in Switzerland.
Just a little on the people here, there are millions of them, but they are polite, helpful, and surprisingly considerate. We notice that on the train the young men give up their seats for women, today we saw a middle age man go off at a young man that pushed his way onto the train before letting others off; it really is nothing like we expected, but as crowded if not more so than Asia.
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