Backpacking through Europe with Eurail – Rome (Take 1)
I have to admit I was incredibly excited to embark on the Italian capital – I mean, all that good food and marvelous wine – who wouldn’t??? We had only booked 2 nights in Rome due to most of the affordable hostels being full booked, so we figured if there was more to see we can stop on our way back through from the South of Italy.
We arrived into the airport at about 7pm and since the airport is a 40minute train ride from the centre (that is after it took a good hour to clear airport security), we were buggered by the time we finally got to our Rome accommodation.
Our B&B was opposite a huge Basilica which we found out had violent protests only days before our arrival. What was left, were peaceful protesters apparently, camping out in tents. Even the walk to the B&B got our travel bugs excited, seeing all the old ruins along the way – we had already decided we would stop on the way back through after we had been t Napoli and Amalfi. Such an easy decision.
Our B&B (Mr. Piece B&B) was cute and cozy, the eccentric Italian guy running the place made us feel at home straight away so we asked him straight up about booking in a week later for 3 nights. To end the night we decided to watch the first half of ‘Angels and Demons’ based on Dan Brown’s novel of the same name and set in Rome itself.
The next day we figured we just had to go and see the Colosseum, it is a must and incase we for some reason didn’t make it back to Rome, we would be kicking ourselves quite literally. We decided to opt for the 3 in 1 ticket for 14 Euro per person, which includes entrance to the Colosseum, Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum.
We did Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum first and it was awesome! So much history amongst all those ruins, we were truly amazed. The first time we have truly thought WOW since the Pyramids in Cairo. I mean these ruins were older than New Zealand. A truly crazy thought. The Colosseum also was overwhelming and beautiful all in one. We were hoping since it was an overcast/slightly rainy day that it may deter half the tourists from these sights – but we weren’t so lucky! Seriously if you could take all the tourists and tour groups out of the equation it would definitely heighten the experience ten-fold.
It was in Rome our pizza experience started (for full details of our epic Italian pizza adventure, click here) and what were our impressions?? Soooo EXPENSIVE!! I mean it was only just yesterday we could buy a ¼ of a pizza for .50cents in Eastern Europe. We couldn’t even afford to get a carafe of wine to go with our dinner. Well I guess we could of, however we were just so shell-shocked at the prices in high-roller Europe. The quality of the pizza we did have wasn’t even impressive!!
By the time we had mucked around amongst the Roman ruins all day it was time to finish off our movie from the night before and get ourselves organized for our next adventure. We figured despite the guidebooks deterring tourists from visiting gang-run Napoli, we must go to pizzas birthplace to really satisfy our palates.
Read my Rome part 2 post here.
