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Published: August 10th 2006
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Unfortunately, this trip didn’t start very well…
Our flight was scheduled for 7 am so we had to leave our place quite early in order to get to Stansted 2 hrs before the departure. Journey in our car was alright, we both were actually very excited! Sleepy, but excited . After successful vehicle parking we headed towards the terminal. Happy and a little bit more woken up we patiently stood third in the line to the check-in desk. It was about 5.15 am when a strange request got announced… All passengers were asked to put all hand baggage belongings in clear plastic bags or main suitcases. So we followed the order . We went through our stuff and took out things we considered most needed and valuable, such as digital camera, cell phones, wallets, keys, some drinks and sandwiches, placed the rest in suitcases. Both bags got checked in and we wandered off to security check. While waiting for the security check, something odd sought my attention. All of a sudden there were these police officers holding enormous guns! Oh well… When the security check finally got opened, some nice guard told us we couldn’t bring our stuff on the
board!!! Annoyed, we asked million questions and obviously didn’t receive any answers. We were told to place the stuff with main luggage and check it in. Well, everything would have been ok, except WE HAD ALREADY CHECKED OUR BAGS IN. Nervously, we looked for a bag to buy, something that would have been secure. Couldn’t find anything… We took a risk - found some random guy, gave him our things and hoped for the best. We sat on the plane at about 8 am (scheduled for 7 am!). But… the plane took off at 12!!! There was such a mess at the airport! Bags got lost, people panicked, all the procedures ran late. (We found out later that there was a bomb suspicion at Heathrow and most British airports had to take certain actions)
All this didn’t put us off though. Landed in Rome 2ish yay !!!!
And the fairy-tale began! Our hotel was brilliantly near the metro station, we had a shop just round the corner and of course a lovely Italian restaurant next to the hotel. During the first day (a few hrs actually) we had a quick look around and ate spaghetti and pizza ! Throughout
the entire stay we travelled by the underground which is a cheap and fast way. The other advantage is that most of the stations are famous spots, e.g. Colosseo - seriously, you get off the train and few meters further this massive building appears! Colosseum was the first thing we saw that day. It made such a good impression on us!!! We couldn’t believe how high it was, 50 m!!!! It looked marvellous (being amazed by it, we had our spaghetti and pizza right next to it) !!
Throughout the following days we probably saw a great majority of Rome (including Vatican which is described in a different entry)!
Colosseum - as mentioned before, unbelievably fantastic! Amazing building! We joined some group with a tour guide. It was more expensive than a normal ticket, but if we didn’t choose the former option we probably wouldn’t get to see Colosseum at all, as the line was very looooooooong. We checked every single corner, took loads of photos and… kept imagining how it was in the past . Piotrek even played a gladiator (no comments on this one).
Forum Romanum - beautiful and quite mysterious area right next to Colosseum, basically
Colosseum
the most impressive building we've ever seen in our entire lives bits and pieces of old buildings, columns and monuments. Gorgeous! Being there felt like going back in time and experiencing the past! It was like a city of ruins…Unbelievable, yet totally real .
Whenever we go travelling we tend to choose places worth sightseeing, places where never-ending walking is the only way of experiencing the magic of a particular area. And this is what Rome meant to us. We walked and walked. Every five steps there was a piece of history mixed with the present. It was brilliant to see all those old Roman buildings together with the new.
As mentioned before we went to Vatican, but we decided to describe it in a different entry as it was another brilliant visit + at the end of the day, Vatican is not Rome.
Furthermore, we saw Circo Massimo, Piazza della Repubblica, Isola, loads of monuments, visited a wonderful castle Castel Sant' Angelo and a lot more. Most of all (apart from Colossuem) we liked Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II - an enormous building with like a million of steps and two masssive monuments placed on the top of it! gorgeous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is the place that Russell Crowe came
first day in Rome
first pizza near Colosseum :) yay! down from in ‘Gladiator’!
We should add that we've had about 8 pizzas each (over a week)!!! (which is way too much... But 'when in Rome...'😉. Unfortunately, we didn't really learn any expressions, although we both totally loved Italian language! It's so musical Also Italians were so friendly! Loud, but friendly There was this bloke who had a shop near our hotel and we did shopping there every single day. He was always so nice to us and one day he gave us some lovely cakes and we 'tried' to have a bit of conversation with him and said: 'POLONIA'! He smiled and showed us Pope John Paul's picture and the Bible. It was really nice
That's about it, we did a lot and will definitely remember Italy very well. It is one of the places that’s worth coming back to, we probably will someday
Ciao !
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