Rome baby!
Ok so kajmere told me to post it up so here it is, a rather i think detailed account to my trip to rome with the bf for our 4th anniversary. hope you enjoy :)
Day one:
Up kinda earlyish, but luckily not too early, one of the small joys of a afternoon flight, no 4ams :) but im up to shower and make sure every things packed to head of the airport. This is the point i relise ive left my big hair brush and deoderant back home home (stayed as sams parents house over night to make easier travel in the morning). panic over though as i quickly get it sorted.
Joe drove us to the airport, it was absolutely chucking it down, im of course worrying as we did leave until 10.40ish to get to gatwick for 12. But as joe was driving i should've known better :)
We checked in online the night before, picking our seats (isle of course for sam and high long legs). We got to the airport in plenty of time, made ti there before 12!! but like i said joe was driving lol.
me and sam hunted out section D bag drop easily, no ques whats so ever :) score!!
Had a very friendly and lovely bag check in lady (to be prob the last for a while). The biggest shock of the day was that my bag was lighter than sams (6.7kg Vs 7.5kg)
W go through security with minimal queing and minimal fuss (thank god i had my nice matching socks on, stupid take your shoes off rule), and we were through security and in teh departures/duty free lounge by 12. Good times :)
Theres nothing too much todo so we grab lunch at the lloyds pub and grab a mag from wh smiths
Time for the plane
it was only about a 2hour flight so not too bad at all. there was next to no turbulance, well no more than you'd get driving through the pot hole filled roads of kent. The worst part of the flight.... the food. They served a sandwich which was half cheese, ham and pickle and half tuna and sweetcorn. Surfice to say i didnt eat either hald and plugged my nose shut. Other than that it was a good BA flight.
WERE IN ROME BABY!
It's pretty quick in the rome airport. off plane and through the customs- shortest customs ever, i barely showed my passport and was waved through!
Had to jump on a shuttle train to get to the main airport building then the short wait for luggage - Uk airports please take note, 5 minutes wait = good, 20 minutes wait = not good (although on arriving home it wasnt too bad mind you we had to wait aaaages to find what carroseel to go to which prob took up most of the wait time lol)
we grabbed a shuttle buss to termini station which was only 8 euros each, the woman in the tourist info room was sooo nto helpful and rather rude when directing us to where the bus picks up from. this was matched by the woman at the bus stop too (so far niether me or sam are won over by the itallians).
45 minutes later were at the termini station, on the journey in we pass a cafe based on the punto car!! extreamly odd i can tell you. it is also followed by the whole week sam playing spot his car (which is a little punto, hes easily amused bless him).
we manage to find our way to the hotel, its so close to the station maybe only a 3 minute walk if that. the hotel staff arent majorly warm and friendly and this stays the same through out the whole trop. we get to the room, slightly confused by their key card needing to be in a special slot to power the rest of the rooms lights set up they have going on (as werent told about it) but eventually work it out and were in and getting settled.
the room is smaller than we thought it might be but for what we needed that didnt matter too much. the room looks really nice and the bed is really comfy (that foam mattress stuff). the bathroom looks rather plush too, only prob was the shower leaking , but two small towels later and its fine lol.
Its probably gone 8 now, as we got the flight at 2 and touched down just after 5. we decide to just grab a Mcds from the termini station and eat in the hotel. there was a scary drunk homeless guy in the Mcds , very creepy but not as bad as the VERY scary itallian police that came to remove him. So far neither me or sam are impressed. hopeing for looads better with our first proper day in rome starting in the morning.
DAY TWO:
Woke up highly sleepy still but very comfy in bed, i forced my self to shower and dress to go down to breakfast.
hmm yes breakfast, well it was edible, but not the best, we fill up on bread the best we can and learn very quickly to avoid the scrambled eggs which were discusting.
Off into Rome we go:
Our first day of being all touristy- my camera is ready and raring to go.
I really wanted to the see the colosseum so me and sam decide to walk there, its a really nice day so far and get there in no time.
Your confronted by two things, on the right, the ancient roman forum ruins, on the left, the incredible collosseum (my fave place in rome i think) theres some random protest going on on the wall of the collosseum but as its all in itallian we have no idea what it says, and none of the tour guides are willing to decipher it for us either. but the protestors seem happy enough.
we walk down and some how manage to cross the duel carriage way of the road without dieing..oh have i not mentioned that they cant drive out there!! its sooo scary its not even funny lol.
me and sam sign up to a guided tour, which includes the colloseum, the palatine hill and the roman forum ruins. first part is the colloseum with a nice itallian lady giving the tour. its soo beautiful and interesting seeing all of the ruins, learning loads about eh orriginal sturcture and how only 20% of the structure remains because of the vatican nicking all the stone and marble to build the churches and everythign in the rest of rome, the meanies.
inside the colloseum its jsut amazing and thinking of how much more awesome it would be with all the walls up, its just truely truely amazing. (it was exteamly hard picking just a few photos to show of it)
oh and the cutest thing EVER that was randomly in the colloseum area
Me and sam some how got a little lost in the collosseum (its round so how we managed that i dont know) but we make it out just in time for part two of the tour.
we have a new tour guide, hes english and turns out is orginally from kent surry area..small world hey, anyhoo, hes uber smart on all the history stuff and very friendly and nice. I dont think me and sam will want to walk for a while after all the walking from this tour, but it was all sooo incredibly interesting and pretty, the suns out too so i end up walking around for most of the day in just a t-shirt (the roman people still in their scarfs and coats the lamies). in the roman forums were shown a statue thing of the goddess of champions or something her name is Nike, yep thats right the yankee sports brand nicked it from the ancient romans, bloody typical hey lol. and apparently the brands tick is based on the shape of her wings. yep a holiday and a education all in one people hehe.
the tour took about 2 1/2 hours, after wards we decide to walk up to see the trevi fountain and patheon.
soon disaster strikes
The roman streets and buildings are all soooo pretty and after only minimal getting lostness we reach the pathron. Now ive been click happy all day, my camera was dealing happily with it, until 2 pics in of the patheon my camera dies. battery is flat.
----- a moment to mourn------
Me and sam grab lunch, pizza :) rather yummy, we grab a look at the trevi fountain as its only 2 minutes away, so pretty but im still sulking over my camera lol.
It's only 3pm roughly but were shattered, the sun has been so strong (my nose is now rather pink) we decide to walk back to the hotel, recharge my camera, rest up and then head back out about 5ish.
we may have gotten a little lost getting back but made . camera on charge (yaaaaaay). How ever the plan of only afew hours went ou t the window when me and sam then woke up about 7pm. we instead decided to grab panninis from the station eat in the hotel room and shower then then go to bed. tomorrow we planned the vatican.
on a side note, i got my finger slammed between the door and wall at the hotel entrance, middle dinfer now slightly purple but luckily not broken, stupid door..surfice to say sam opened the door every day after for me lol ( 3 weeks later its no longer purple but still sore, i musta bruised the bone, stupid door)
DAY THREE:
Down for breaky by 7.30am and out by 8am, day 3 was vatican day. Me and sam bought a couple of metro cards and jumped on the A line to the vatican. OMG their metro trains get sooooo packed its not even funny, luckily they arrive every other minute, we skipped one train and got on the next. around 10 minutes later were right near the vatican.
we got a little confused as to where to go as NOTHING in rome seems to be sign posted well at all. but we followed the wall and ended up at the vatican museum entrance. a short 15 minute que to get in and through security (maybe not even that) and up a slope , no ques to pay for tickets (good times) and then we looked round all the statues and incredible painted ceilings of the vatican museums, including the egyptian section it had, it was truely amazing. poor sam wasnt so impressed when i told him how mummies became mummified, he moved quickly away bless him. we moved through out into the garden areas and back inside.
. room after room of beautiful painted walls and ceilings, although with all the stairs in parts if your disabled, especially in a wheelchair, your screwed getting around, which is especially true for the rest of romes narrow and cobbled streets too.
Eventually we reached the sistine chapel and micheal angelos famous painting of rapael, the room is packed with people all just looking up. It's truely beautiful and inspiring, but as with the majority of the other rooms you narf get a neck ache looking up for so long lol.
Finally we were finished, we had a nice little down outside by the gardens, we spent about an house and half gettinf around it all, so quick compared to most.
we exited and followed the vatican wall back round to the front of the vatican, the weather was beautiful still. the que to get into the main vatican building was a couple of hours, me and sam werent fussed about seeing that bit as we saw the good stuff in teh museum anyway. we took some photos and sat down in the lovely sun shine adding to an already pink nose on my part. sam def endied up catching the sun on his face and arms too.
Then it was ice cream time :) i can honestly say itallian ice cream is defintaly some of the best ive had. i had simple strawberry and vanilla but was soooooooooooo good. After sam finally cleaned himself up (chocolate icecream and a male no matter his age, alwasy equate to a messy face) we walked past the castel angelo fort/church/museum thingy and across the bridge with some cool angel statues on it.
We then progressed to walk to the piazza nova, filled with resturants and cafes and scetch artists. I thought it was stuning there, sam not so impressed though bless him. from the piazza nova we headed back to the patheon and trevi fountain with my now fully charged camera (yaaaaaaay) this time we went into the patheon and its not too bad in there, considering no one truely knows why it was built. We then headed over to the trevi fountain adn i was happy as a very happy bee clicking away :) . now can i jsut say, day 3 i was queen of the map, didnt get us lost once, i think i need a tshirt thats says queen of the map :) we headed back to the hotel to rest up and head back out about 5ish ( yep no falling asleep this time) and walked a much easier route i decided using the map. in the process we walked past the qurrinale which im guessing is their big military HQ /training quaters, its bloody huge!! but its prett at night , especially teh fountain in front of it. we eventually make it back to teh trevi fountain, which as night is even more beautiful, its all lit up and lovely, a few pics later we decide to go for a little walk and then grab some dinner. we found a nice little resturant called the rosa something. The waiter was really friend and the food was sooo good. we were much happy.
After dinner we grabbed some more ice cream and walked back tot he hotel. Absolutely shattered from all the walking , well we did walk across the whole of romes city today, and didnt get to bed till about 10 we would surely feel it the next day.
Day Four:
Today would be a much nicer day, well much more relaxing at least, especially as we didnt have to be up so early.
Day fours focus was seeing the spanish steps and romes oldest church dedicated to st maria.
Now today our legs and feet were still very achy from the previous days treking. so we bought a couple of metro cards and hoped on the 3 or so stops to spagna (yes sam made a footballer related joke and i obviously didnt get it). the steps are, well, steps, but the view from the top is pretty amazing, i wanted to go shopping in the pretty shoe shop, but apparently i wasnt allowed a pair that cost 550 euros, spoil sport, they were soooo cute, and yes i did sulk for a bit and sam merely laughed me.
We grabbed the metro back to termini station and went on the look out for the church. It wasnt far at all, maybe 5 minutes or less from the termini station. from the out side it looks like almost any other ruin in rome, but once you got inside it was truely amazing, truely truely beautiful, i actually preferred it to the sistine chapel. and whats even more amazing is there a little area at the back devoted to galleli and its quest of scientific descovery of gravity and astrology and stuff. Im actually impressed to see a church properly acknowledge science the this one did.
it also had the most beautiful angel statues, and now i want one lol.
when we were finished there we had another walk to the trevi fountain, on teh way back up the quarinale was being set up for what turned out to be the changing of the guar, we decided to hang around and watch it. it was pretty cool, espeically when they were all singin the itallian national anthem. was a nice little suprise and definately somethign neither me or sam expected to see.
we headed back to the hotel for a little break and planned to head out later to see the colloseum lit up at night. unfortunately once more we fell asleep from being sooo wiped out from the sun from watching the parade earlier on in the day. instead we decided to head across to the road to a little resturant. then off to bed we went after a mini pack up of our bags ready to leave the next day.
DAY FIVE:
Our last day in rome.
woke up later and didnt go for breakfasy until gone 9. we decided to leave the hotel as close to check out time of 12 as possible then go wander the streets. We honestly didnt know what to do as we had done everything we had wanted to do already. The plan was to leave around 11.30 . however about 10.30 the power to our room was stopped. we gave up and left highly pissed off. left our bags with them and walked down to the roman forums and colloseum for something to do. we got the metro bck and bought our train tickets for the train to the airport, 11 euros each = total bargin, especially as the tickets were open and lasted until 5 may!! would love to see a deal like that with british trains .
we went back and collected our bags, the staff were so unhelpful and unfriendly we didnt leave any tips at all, grrr them.
the train journey was non stop and only took 30 minutes because of that. we were at the airport really early but didnt mind, we checked our bags in, got through security all fine, and with no ques, well fine minus my belt setting off the metal detector lol. I was actually winked through passport control, and then had a looksee through duty free.
at 5.50pm we boarded our flight back home.
my final verdict on rome:
The city: Beautiful
food: good
cost: expensive
people: very rude, in 5 days we met about 5 nice itallians,
transport: metro and trains very cheap, quick and on time.
Hotel:
staff: rude and unhelpful
room: smaller than expected but bed very comfy and it looked nice
breakfast: bland, avoid the eggs
Other:
Roads: leathful, close eys and walk, and hope you dont die, how we didnt see any accidents we dont know. that adn the itallians seriously can park for shit.
Its very beautiful city full of such incredible history, but now ive seen all the bits i wanted to see i dont think im gonan rush to go again. i def say to people go if they want to, just be very careful of the roads lol. and dont go to the hotel we did but stay in the same area lol. that and dont bother taking high heel shoes because you will break your ankles doing so lol