We arrived at Rome Ciampino airport after a three hour flight with Ryanair and made our way to our coach which took us to the Termini and I spent the whole time looking out the window so the 40 minute journey went super quick (this was when we first realized the Italians are crazy drivers!).
The Termini is a large bustling building (think St Pancras) with the railway on ground level and the metro underneath, among lots of shops and full of business men, holiday makers and of course, tourists. After arriving we had to figure out where to get our 3 day metro pass tickets from, this was tricky as
a) very little was written in English
and b) the customer service queue was so long!
We managed to ask someone (in fluent Italian ha) and he directed us to a newsagent stall near the platform (unusual place to buy tickets from if you ask me) but we managed to get them for 16.50 euro each which in the end we thought was really worth it. We also bought a street map off this lovely (ahem) Italian man and sat down to figure out how to get to our hotel. Ian was good at this - I knew I should have taken geography GCSE) and managed to direct us to the street our hotel was on (a five minute walk away). Straight away we were aware of how different the roads and traffic were to back in the UK and i'm still unsure as to whether Italian cars have indicators (or brakes for that matter). After nearly getting our toes ran over several times by mopeds and smart cars we made it to our hotel.
The lady who runs the hotel was really friendly and gave us our room key and a map, as well as tokens for breakfast at the cafe down the road (which we didn't use).
After we'd settled and unpacked (well Ian did, I tend to open my suitcase and chuck half of it on the floor) we wanted to go and explore so took our map and walked down the road to the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, a beautiful Roman Catholic church. It's history is great and spans hundreds of years but we aren't religious, we were more impressed with its impressive architecture.
We didn't go in this time and instead decided to have a walk to the Coliseum, as one of Italy's biggest attractions we both couldn't wait to see it. The walk through the cobbeldy streets was beautiful and the Coliseum really was much more impressive in real life. It was red hot (+30c) and the building looked amazing, despite being crowded by tourists!
1 & 3) Views from our hotel windows 2)A typical Italian backstreet
A short walk later we arrived at the beautiful, very impressive Coliseum. It was amazing to see cars going right by and the Italian people getting on with their every day lives while this beautiful piece of history stood by them. As we walked down towards the entrance (Ian will kill me for including this) we saw a man dressed up as a Roman soldier (stupid looking) and laughed as he stood with tourists taking photos. As we approached him to walk past (obviously looking way too touristy and vulnerable) he suggested for us to pose with him and have a photo each. Only after we'd taken photos did he ask us (in muffled Italian/hand gestures) to cough up five euros - for a photo on our own phones! Ian told him we would delete the photos but he started getting a bit annoyed and feeling a bit unsure of what to do we just paid him and walked away half in dismay/half wondering how we got ripped off so easily! Lesson learnt - we didn't trust anyone from them on ha ha. After wandering through all the tourists (and many, many people trying to sell tours) we got to the ticket queue and bought tickets.
The Coliseum was amazing inside, despite being'old ruins', its unlikely there's much else like it in the world (except Athens maybe which we added on the travel list). As we walked around I couldn't believe how big it was and that it had been there for thousands of years, although it was difficult to imagine how it would have been back then. There was loads of information boards and artifacts (see - no need for 10 euros more for a tour!) and it was really interesting to find out all of the history.
After walking around the Coliseum (about 3 times!) we had a walk around the area before catching the metro back to Central station near our hotel. It took us aaaages to find somewhere to eat and our only complaint about Rome was the lack of food places. Everywhere seemed to be a 'proper' posh restaurant and we was expecting many more cafes - particularly near the touristy areas. Eventually we found a place that did real Italian slices of pizza and shared one between us. It was yummy but it didn't amaze me like I thought it would. Luckily for Rome, its cobbeldy streets, old churches and impressive architecture made up for it and after all, the Chinese takeaway was only around the corner...
Some things we learnt from Day 1...
a) very little was written in English
and b) the customer service queue was so long!
We managed to ask someone (in fluent Italian ha) and he directed us to a newsagent stall near the platform (unusual place to buy tickets from if you ask me) but we managed to get them for 16.50 euro each which in the end we thought was really worth it. We also bought a street map off this lovely (ahem) Italian man and sat down to figure out how to get to our hotel. Ian was good at this - I knew I should have taken geography GCSE) and managed to direct us to the street our hotel was on (a five minute walk away). Straight away we were aware of how different the roads and traffic were to back in the UK and i'm still unsure as to whether Italian cars have indicators (or brakes for that matter). After nearly getting our toes ran over several times by mopeds and smart cars we made it to our hotel.
The lady who runs the hotel was really friendly and gave us our room key and a map, as well as tokens for breakfast at the cafe down the road (which we didn't use).
After we'd settled and unpacked (well Ian did, I tend to open my suitcase and chuck half of it on the floor) we wanted to go and explore so took our map and walked down the road to the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, a beautiful Roman Catholic church. It's history is great and spans hundreds of years but we aren't religious, we were more impressed with its impressive architecture.
We didn't go in this time and instead decided to have a walk to the Coliseum, as one of Italy's biggest attractions we both couldn't wait to see it. The walk through the cobbeldy streets was beautiful and the Coliseum really was much more impressive in real life. It was red hot (+30c) and the building looked amazing, despite being crowded by tourists!
A short walk later we arrived at the beautiful, very impressive Coliseum. It was amazing to see cars going right by and the Italian people getting on with their every day lives while this beautiful piece of history stood by them. As we walked down towards the entrance (Ian will kill me for including this) we saw a man dressed up as a Roman soldier (stupid looking) and laughed as he stood with tourists taking photos. As we approached him to walk past (obviously looking way too touristy and vulnerable) he suggested for us to pose with him and have a photo each. Only after we'd taken photos did he ask us (in muffled Italian/hand gestures) to cough up five euros - for a photo on our own phones! Ian told him we would delete the photos but he started getting a bit annoyed and feeling a bit unsure of what to do we just paid him and walked away half in dismay/half wondering how we got ripped off so easily! Lesson learnt - we didn't trust anyone from them on ha ha. After wandering through all the tourists (and many, many people trying to sell tours) we got to the ticket queue and bought tickets.
The Coliseum was amazing inside, despite being'old ruins', its unlikely there's much else like it in the world (except Athens maybe which we added on the travel list). As we walked around I couldn't believe how big it was and that it had been there for thousands of years, although it was difficult to imagine how it would have been back then. There was loads of information boards and artifacts (see - no need for 10 euros more for a tour!) and it was really interesting to find out all of the history.
After walking around the Coliseum (about 3 times!) we had a walk around the area before catching the metro back to Central station near our hotel. It took us aaaages to find somewhere to eat and our only complaint about Rome was the lack of food places. Everywhere seemed to be a 'proper' posh restaurant and we was expecting many more cafes - particularly near the touristy areas. Eventually we found a place that did real Italian slices of pizza and shared one between us. It was yummy but it didn't amaze me like I thought it would. Luckily for Rome, its cobbeldy streets, old churches and impressive architecture made up for it and after all, the Chinese takeaway was only around the corner...
Some things we learnt from Day 1...
- Take comfy shoes! In the heat, flip flops and sandals seem like a great idea but your feet will be killing by the end of your time here.
- Take a backpack that you can take in turns to carry. This is so much more useful than carrying a small handbag/using pockets. I wish i'd had one to carry the Rome guide, a bottle of water and some spare shoes around.
- Book your hotel-airport transfer before you go. We were lucky and managed to buy transfer tickets on the plane but i'm not sure how many airlines do this. If we went to somewhere in Europe again we'd check this out before we left.
- Buy/take a map with you - so useful for finding your hotel. Street names tend to be high up and not very easy to see but its quite easy to work your way around.
- Don't be fooled into photos! It's a tourist trap that so many (including us) fell for and its safer to cough up 5 euros than get into an argument with an Italian dressed like an idiot.
- Have a book with useful phrases - we were surprised as to how many people didn't speak much English despite being in a capital city - even in touristy areas. It would have been useful to have known the basic phrases and even though we learnt thank you and goodbye we still left not knowing what hello was ha ha.
- Get reduced fare at the attractions if you are from the EU or under 25 years old. Take your passport/driving license to prove it.
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