Advertisement
Published: January 20th 2006
Edit Blog Post
Help, Im stuck
I just didnt want to leave. Buono Sera! We are currently lounging around our excellent hostel called Alice in Wonderland drinking italian beer, Dolmen, because it has been raining ALL day and we just needed to be dry for awhile. We were quite the troopers hanging in the rain from 9am to 6pm so that we could get in the last few sites before we leave tomorrow morning. Since we havent written in a day we will recap the last 36 hours. On Tuesday, we snoozed the alarm as it was raining out and forgo seeing the Ponte Vecchio, the only bridge left after Hitler destroyed all the other bridges. I really wanted to see this bridge but actually sleeping was a nice commodity. When we woke in Florence it was raining for the first time and as I exited the door of our hostel my backpack strap got caught in the door and the door locked. I was hollering at Jennifer that I was stuck and she needed to buzz Federico to open the door to set me free. She decided that taking a picture and laughing in the middle of the street was more important and after she composed herself and took the picture 5
minutes later, we were on our way to the train station. Our hostel didnt offer breakfast and we had some time to waste so we decided to indulge in one of our favorite american pasttimes, McDonalds. Croissant or Mickey Ds and Egg McMuffins won on this dreary rainy day. The train ride to Rome was awesome once we found our assigned seats in FIRST CLASS. With the Eurorail pass you get First Class tickets and assigned seats with the reservations. The whole assigned seats thing threw us off and we were trying to just sit anywhere in Second Class where we boarded the train. After a couple of Italians trying to help us, we finally figured out that we were in the wrong car and need to go up 10 cars. This is not always fun with huge packs on your back but we didnt want to get off the train and walk for fear that the train was about to leave. We were pleasantly surprised to find our car in First Class with all the business men. I am not sure that they were too happy to have us but we could of cared less. The scenery was that
Did a bird just poo on my head
Yes it did and my revenge was to make you wait and get a picture. Italian countryside that you can all imagine and the train was one of those fast trains and we got to Rome in 1 1/2 hours. After our experience with the Paris Metro, we easily hoped on the Rome Metro and ended up in the best hostel we have been to thus far. Our room is huge and warm, our host immediately welcomed us with excellent english (she said she was from Utah, but she has an accent) and a detailed description of things to do in Rome in two days with restaurant suggestions, all illustrated on the map she provided us. We immediately dropped our bags and were on our way by foot to the Piazza San Giovanni, Colosseum (Jennifer was presented with a gift from the birds above in the hair - see picture), Foro Romano, Circo Massimo, Bocca della Verita, Isola Tiberinia, Campidoglio, Piazza Venezia, Foro Di Traiano and Piazza Della Republica (if you dont know what these things are, dont worry because we didnt either but we walked to them all). The weather was so nice in Rome, sunny and maybe 50 degrees, we ate outside at Luzzi's near the Collosseum. Our foot journey lasted from 1pm
to 7pm and as we were sitting at the fountain at the Piazza Della Republica, we saw a movie theater advertising movies in their original languages. We were so enticed and tired from the long day, we went to see Match Point (Wood Allen flick) in our Assigned Seats. We didnt even care too much about the Assigned Seats because we were sitting down. We thought that popcorn would be our dinner but got hungry on our way home on the Metro. We decided to look for a salad somewhere and walked our street for about 15 minutes until we decided to resort to the only place open, the liquor store and McDonalds again. We were of course shamed but its kind of hard to pass up those fries and a Big Mac at 10:30 when you are hungry. We sincerely hope that this will be our last McDonalds trip until we get back to the states. Our Italian beer was quite fabulous and made the night's rest quite peaceful. Jennifer even slept thru the rain echoing off the building which sounded like hail.
Day 2. We were up early to get to the Vatican this morning because it
One of our new friends
but she didnt speak english. was only open for about 4 hours. The breakfast at Alice in Wonderland was the best we had so far. Enough food to fuel us for some more walking. The Vatican is across town from our hostel, so we took the Metro and walked the Musei Vatican, mostly to see the Sistine Chapel, for about 3 hours. The whole thing is pretty spectacular. The details in the paintings, sculptures and tapestries are so real. We even saw a mumified body in the Egyptian wing which was pretty cool. We left the Musei Vatican, bought an umbrella from one of the thousands of umbrella merchants because it had been raining since we left the hostel and we toured the area around the Vatican for some food. We had a quick pizza and calzone and went off to the Piazza Del Popolo via the Metro and then walked the shops along Via Del Corso to get to the Pantheon. Just as I saw the Pantheon, Jennifer spotted her boots. HER BOOTS, I repeat, she found HER BOOTS, finally. The Pantheon was awesome as well and I really got a kick out of the fountain. Again my goofy picture mood came back and
museo Vatican
They wouldnt allow pictures in the Sistine Chapel, so this is the next room I started making Jenn do funny poses in front of the fountain and then she retaliated and forced me to repeat those poses. As I was getting drenched in the rain and causing a scene, a nice Italian came over and offered his umbrella as I posed. See pictures for better explanation. At this point, our feet were soaked but surprisingly not cold. I have to say we were very good sports about the rain all day and we headed to our last site, Fontana Di Trevi, on the way to the Metro. This was the best found yet, but there were too many people and too much rain to get goofy poses again. Now that we have dried off, we are off to dinner and then to bed because we have to get up early to catch the train to Venice. I will miss this city. I am really glad that we decided to come here. Just wish we could stay longer.
Ciao Rome!
Heather
Advertisement
Tot: 0.158s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 7; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0442s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb