Rome Day 1

It was a good flight from Doha to Rome.  We organised an airport shuttle that would take us to our hotel. The trip took us right through the heart of Rome, as there were two other couples to be dropped off before us. We were driving through narrow little alleyways full of pedestrians, it was a sightseeing tour in its own right.

We checked into our hotel ( which turned out to be very ordinary for a Holiday Inn, more on that later). While Claire was settling in, I decided to venture out for two reasons, firstly to organise a 48 hour public transport card and secondly to buy some wine for the cruise. We are able to take one bottle of wine each onto the cruise and on a cost saving basis it makes sense.

I told Claire that I would be back in 15 minutes as it was only a short walk. I arrived back 45 minutes later, with steam coming out of my ears. It was Sunday so trying to buy the tickets for 48 hour public transport card was impossible in the area. It took me several conversations, including one with an arsehole and a number of language problem experiences to determine this.

The station had a number of nefarious characters hanging around with seemingly no other purpose other than just hanging around. The machine for purchasing a rail ticket had an English translation button. When activated this gave an English warning to watch out for pick pockets and then gave me a screen with a number of Italian options to purchase a variety of tickets using a credit card. I had no idea what each of the options meant. After a number of minutes someone with enough English explained that this machine could only produce a rail ticket, not the general public transport ticket.

In the super market after buying the wine someone eventually explained where I could go, with only vague directions to a bar where I could maybe buy the tickets. Three bars late I found that I could only buy a one way ticket on the metro to Termini station not a return ticket, just one way.  Impressed I was not.

It was  midafternoon by the time we ventured into Rome and it was absolutely packed with people.  It might have had something to do with the fact that there was a public holiday on the Tuesday for the May Day celebrations.

Anyway we managed to find a little bar and after a wine for Claire and a beer for me I managed to calm down. So we wandered around the Forum and Colosseum  and began to explore elsewhere and came across a South American multicultural parade with music and traditionally dressed dancers.  I may have taken a few photos of some of the prettier ones.

We wandered the streets of Rome and around every corner there seemed to be another surprising piazza with all sorts of interesting buildings, parks and fountains. We even came across a building that housed the Italian Bureau of Statistics. Alas it was Sunday so I could not go in to offer them some advice. We ventured back to St Peter’s Square, but it was quite late so we didn’t go into the Basilica.

We ended up going back to the same bar where we had the drinks. The service, food and wine were excellent with one exception. I’ll let Claire tell that story.

This will be our last post for a while as the internet on the cruise is very expensive.