Rome

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday


Rome was one of the places I'd been most worried about for being rough and for getting pestered. We were staying close to Termini station which was handy for us but not the nicest area. In fact, the Thai family who we were sharing the apartment with (it was 3 rooms and shared kitchen) suggested we don't go near the station when we told them we were going for a walk the first evening there. But hey, we didn't get robbed! The place we stayed in was small for the amount of people it slept - three rooms for 12 people! Luckily our room was just for us two with a private bathroom. Unfortunately the gobby women in the next room didn't shut up until about 1am and then got up again at 6am so I wasn't well rested... They left thankfully after this night. The couple who ran the place were really sweet though, turning up with a bottle of wine and a pack of biscuits for us... Then having a half an hour chat with me moaning about her rich landlord - epic people :).

  

On Tuesday, we went to the Colosseum - I expected a load of horrific faffy queuing but I was wrong! The ticket for the Colosseum covers Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum, and you can buy the tickets in any of these three places. We queued at Palatine Hill and only had to wait about 15 mins to get in. After spending about 2 hours around both the hill an the Roman Forum, we simply walked past the huuuuge Colosseum queue (stretched right round the damn thing like an extra wall) to the ticket holders' entrance - epic! Naturally Colosseum was awesome, not as crowded as I thought but still mighty hot (I have the sunburn to prove it). It's pretty expensive, but we got in for 8 euros as we're under 26 EU residents. In the evening we took the metro up to Pincian Hill and looked over Rome for the sunset which was pretty awesome.

On Wednesday we went for a walk and went to the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, the Rome Cat Sanctuary and the Spanish Steps. I'm curious as to how many people got pickpocketted at the fountain - it was mental. We stayed about 5 minutes then dodged the multitude of beggars, handbag sellers and the few thousand tourists to go find the Pantheon. That was nice to look at inside, but again we didn't stay long as it was crammed and the guards were constantly going "SILENCE THIS IS A CHURCH!!!" naah. There were a few more pesterers here, my favourite being the man dressed as a gladiator who asked me "Princess, would you like to take a picture?" Naturally I did not respond.

We went to the Rome Cat Sanctuary which may be my favourite thing in Rome (I know...). Apparently Cleopatra introduced cats to Rome and now there's hundreds, and the Sanctuary tries to neuter them all and vaccinate them. You can just go in and stroke all the cats and talk to the nice people who run it. I made a friend.

On Thursday we weren't feeling too well and went to the Vatican. I nearly got tickets for the Vatican Museum online (to avoid the 4 hour queue) but it was about 16 euros each - it's not as if the Catholic Church is skint so we gave it a miss... Plus people were telling us how crowded and hot it is. We were gunna go round St Peter's Basilica but the queue was intense as well and took up most of the square, so we just mooched around and took some pics and left. On the way out we found Castel Sant'Angelo and had a look up there for some views over St Peters.

I quite liked Rome and I think I'd return. It isn't as rough as I thought it would be, but you really have to be careful. There's a lot of dodgy people around, my favourite being the bloke hanging around the ticket machines at the metro. He came up to me and Dan, no doubt planning on pretending to help and really nicking our change. We really loudly repeated to him to go away and he got the jist that we weren't having it. Also theres a lot of street sellers who get on your nerves. I saw a hat bloke try and force a hat on a lady at the Colosseum, asking "HOW MUCH?" and a scarf bloke following a woman while she repeated "no thank you!" You have to abandon manners and pretend they don't exist. My method was walk on and don't even look. A rose man tried to put a rose into my hand and I had to proper shove his hand away - I hate being a cow but you don't really have a choice.