I crossed off another goal and my “bucket list” this week. I took a trip to the beautiful city of Rome.
My boyfriend came to Italy for the week, our anniversary week, and we decided that it would be a great opportunity for me to actually see more of this country. So he flew into Rome, which was actually more convenient than flying to Naples anyway and I met him at the airport there.
The journey to Rome wasn’t too bad. The train was packed mainly full of North American and British tourists all fleeing the chaos of Naples for the capital. I took a pre-booked shuttle coach to the airport, which I almost missed because of the lack of directions from the website. The shuttle was very uncomfortable. It was 28C outside and the aircon wasn’t very effective. The seats were lovely and moist, which felt great on my naked legs (insert shudder here). We got back into the city of Rome late, thanks to his delayed plane, so we had McDo for dinner (as you do in Rome), we found our B&B which was incredibly nice, took a wee trip to the supermarket for snacks and drinks and off to bed we went.
-Pistachios, Chino (strange Italian drink that I wanted the bf to try, he hates it just as much as me, and Bacetti (fortune chocolate) -
The main plan for Sunday was to see the Colosseum although we ended up getting distracted and our path altered numerous times. We saw the palace where the President lives and the Vittoriano, which we climbed up. From there we attempted to find the Colosseum but we got lost and ended up finding the Ferrari Club. We’d seen them earlier driving around with a police escort but now we were lucky enough to find them all parked. We walked around, had a good look at them and took a few photos. My boyfriend got angry at a Chinese girl who kept touching the Ferraris.
- If you look closely there is a BMW stuck in the middle -
It turns out that we had accidently found the piazza for the Bocca della Verita’ so we went and got our photo taken with it. The Colosseum looked just as epic as I imagined although the queue (or lack of organised queue) was very long and busy. It was a good job that my boyfriend had been to Rome before because otherwise I would have definitely got ripped off by the men in Roman costumes charging 20 euros for a photo with them. A torrential down pour started and I’d left my umbrella at home so we went and got some lunch and then made our way back to the B&B to collect the umbrella/rain coat and freshen up for the evening walking tour. Now I love free walking tours. There is so much that you would normally miss or not understand without having taken a few hours out of your trip to walk around with someone who is passionate about the city. Unfortunately because of the rain our guide called the tour off after just 30 minutes. So we went for a bit of a wonder around by ourselves. We had a look in a few shops, saw the Trevi fountain, had an expensive and small dinner, and then sat at the fountain at the bottom of the Spanish Steps. It’s there where I stupidly must have put down my reading glasses and walked off without them. As if that wasn’t bad enough the next day I realised that I’d left my umbrella in the restaurant – That’s the 3rd umbrella to have been lost or broken since my Year Abroad began!
Monday was the day of our anniversary…our four year anniversary to be exact! We went for a proper Italian breakfast in a bar (I refused to eat the B&B’s poor excuse for a continental breakfast) and then walked to the Trevi Fountain where we made four wishes. We both had two individual wishes and then two joint wishes. Obviously I can’t reveal the wishes otherwise they won’t come true :P
We then went to Pantheon, crossed the Bridge of Angels and visited the Vatican. Unfortunately the Pope was a bit too busy to see me but nevertheless it is a beautiful “city”. We didn’t bother with the museums as our time in Rome was limited enough. We bought some postcards and sent them using the Vatican’s own stamps and postal service, had another over priced lunch and went in search of “Rome’s best ice cream”. Well what an adventure that was. My boyfriend proved that map reading is not his strong point and about two hours later, which burning feet, blisters, sweat, we reached the gelateria. I had coconut and pastiera napolitana flavour. Was it worth it? Probably not, but at least we can say we’ve ate it.
- And the reward for tinniest ice cream in the world goes too… -
From there we visited Berlusconi’s house and the parliament building (I say visit, but it was more like saw from the outside) and then walked to the destination of our anniversary dinner…The Hard Rock Cafe! Now I know what you’re thinking, you’re in Rome and it’s your anniversary and you want to go there??? On the 6th of June I had been in Italy for 109 days. That equals 218 meals ( minus 3 non Italian meals) = 215 Italian meals in 109 days. I was sick of Italian food. The anniversary dinner is supposed to be special and Italian food, no matter how delicious, isn’t “special” to me right now. What I wanted most of all where some American style fajitas! And that’s what I got :D When paying for the bill we realised, thankfully before the waiter took the money, that my boyfriend had acquired a 50 cent piece from Vatican City with the Pope’s face on it!
There isn’t much to say about Tuesday. We checked out of the hotel, I bought a new umbrella, wondered around for a bit, bought a few postcards, watched some amateur fashion photo shoot and then got on the Eurostar to Naples. Some Italian girl was sat in my seat and was quite rude telling me there was space at the other side of the table for me (which was originally her seat but she’s obviously didn’t want to face backwards). She said it in poor English and then her and her boyfriend got a shock when I pulled out my book about Naples (in Italian) and started taking notes. I think they were planning on having a b*tch about me but my Italian capabilities made that impossible. I on the other hand had a nice time talking about them to my boyfriend in my very basic Japanese. Aw the joys of being “multilingual”.
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