Roma
- Tara Larkai
- Jul 2, 2014
- 4 min read
We had only two nights in Florence so after what seemed like an eventful day yesterday, it was time to embark on another adventure to Rome. Our way to Rome was to catch a train from the part of Florence we stayed at to Firenze central train station then take another train to Rome. We were now very familiar with the area so after packing our things and saying our final goodbyes to our host, we got on with our 3 block walk to the train station. The walk was untiring however our luggages made it annoying. Getting the bags on the train was a hustle because of the height of the train step from the platform but with our muscles combined, we were able to get them all on there before the train could leave us. Lol Did I mention that nobody offered to help us? Damn Italians! So we enjoyed yet another FREE train ride to the central station!
Chloe had already purchased our train tickets from Florence to Rome so our plan was to arrive a little early just to look for our train. Well, things did not go as planned. Immediately after we arrived at the station, Chloe started browsing through her emails on her phone for the receipt of the tickets to Rome however she had this look on her face. It was a very familiar look, almost the same look she had on her face in London when she realized she had left her passport at home on our way to the airport. I was very afraid to ask her what was wrong. It turned out that she had purchased the wrong tickets, instead of Rome, she purchased tickets to Venice. SMH!! Although, seeing Venice would be equally as beautiful & fun, that was not the plan. We had plans to fly out of Rome to Dubai so that was not an option. We had only 30 minutes left until the next train to Rome departed. I quickly asked her to go purchase tickets to Rome while I guard our lugages. Tickets were more expensive due to the short notice. Oh Well…we had no other choice! Chloe was pissed off to say the least. She did not budget for this especially after buying another flight in London.
The ride to Rome was super comfortable with air conditioned units, spacious seats, baggage spaces and scenic views. The train attendants actually came around and checked everyone’s tickets. (Thank God we had tickets this time) We arrived in Rome about 2 hours later. Our hotel was literally 3 blocks from the station but the thought of walking there with our bags seemed impossible. We debated back and forth about taking a taxi but after carefully converting the euro rate back to dollars, walking did not seem so bad after all. Lol It took us exactly 1 hour to walk to the hotel. We were hungry and irritated. It had been a long day already and we had not even done anything remotely fun yet. Check-in at the hotel was quick and simple.
We stayed at the IQ hotel located in the center of Rome close to all the main attractions and the opera house. There were plenty of restaurants nearby so after settling into the room, we decided to go grab a bite. We opted for pizza at a nearby restaurant. Being that they charge a cover just to eat in the restaurant, we decided to get our pizza to go and eat in our hotel room. Best decision yet, saved us 20 Euros. We took power naps after our lunch (Only we sleep on vacation)
We woke up around 6pm to explore the city of Rome. After taking showers and getting ready, it was almost 8pm. The first thing on our list to see was the trevi fountain so we looked up walking directions. It was a 20 minute from the hotel. The fountain was crowded even for that time of the day and it even appeared that more people were arriving. The feeling of physically seeing the fountain was surreal! I never imagined that I would ever see it. It was beautiful. We took plenty of pictures and watched people do the same. We even witnessed a couple of proposals (Very romantic). And then we saw a lot of refugees and immigrants walking around harassing people for them to take pictures of them for a small fee. It was quite entertaining when people would just ignored them or push them out of the way. We chatted with one of them who swore they were in love with Chloe. I can’t seem to remember his name but he said he was from India and had some fancy degree back home but when he moved to Italy he could not find a job being that he did not have his papers so he opted for what seemed like the norm for immigrants. After several hours of admiring the fountain and eating real Italian gelato & nutella crepes, we decided to stroll around the city and see more without a map. Being that we did not have a map and no GPS, we decided to follow people leaving the fountain. We thought they would lead us to nearby attractions. We stumbled upon the Pantheon, it was closed at that time but Chloe really wanted to see it in the daytime so we would come back the next day. We then stumbled upon the gigantic colosseum while trying to find our way back to the hotel. We had no idea how we got there and how we would be getting back to the hotel but we wanted to enjoy it. The only we saw there were street vendors, they looked like they were taking a break from harassing people to buy their cheap goods. They attempted to pester us but we quickly shut it down! After several photo ops and appreciating the huge art piece of a building, we decided to head back to the hotel. Now this was the biggest challenge of the day, with the help of a couple of locals and Chloe’s almost dead phone gps, we safely arrived to our hotel in one piece. We were pooped!
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