Rome city break travel blog - October 2013

In an attempt to break up the long slog at work between the summer and Christmas, we booked a week's trip to Rome for early October. We're prone to try to do far too much on holiday, and so hoped that by going for a week we'd have enough time to both see the sights and get a feel for the place, and get a chance to put our feet up and relax.

After the airport rush when we went to Prague (which you can read about here), we left plenty of time to get to the airport. It still wasn't entirely without drama as the woman on the check in desk was adamant that we had to remove all rechargeable batteries from our suitcases and put them in our hand luggage. This resulted in us having to unpack our laptop and GPS to remove the batteries, I drew the line at the rechargeable toothbrush. When we got upstairs to the security scanners, the security guy had never heard of this before and was quite bemused when we put a little pile of batteries in the trays for scanning. Suffice it to say, we didn't do the same thing on our return journey!

The flight was okay, but long and dull as flights tend to be, we arrived just before 4pm. From the gate, there is a train to catch a train to the main terminal where we picked up our bags and then walked to the train station where we bought tickets for the Leonardo Express. For the cost of €14, this takes you directly to the centre of Rome. For us, we were staying within walking distance of the Termini railway station so it worked out perfectly. We even remembered to stamp our tickets on the platform so we didn't risk a fine. So far, so good. We'd heard stories about pickpockets and so kept a careful eye on our belongings, but I have to be honest and say I didn't see or experience any issues in Rome, but this may because we were self aware. Very different to our experience in Barcelona!

The Termini station is quite large and we found it hard to orientate ourselves when we arrived. As such, we did a bit of a long route and got lost once, dragging our suitcases over kerbs, but once on the right track, managed to find our hotel fairly easily. It had a bit of a quirky, old fashioned lift where we had to negotiate the outward opening door, whilst steering suitcases in. When we'd both squeezed in, we then had to shut the outer door and inner gate before it would move. Very quirky and it added to the character of the hotel. We ate at the Target restaurant next door that night, as we didn't want to venture far. The food was good, but a little rich for me. Afterwards we went out to do some geocaches to walk off our meal, unfortunately one was missing and the other too soggy, so we headed back to the hotel without managing to sign any log books.

We got up early the next morning and had breakfast before setting off for the Colosseum which was about a ten minute walk away. It was impressive, but, as with every building we seem to see on holiday, it was marred by scaffolding as part of the renovation works. We walked most of the way around to the entrance, looked at queue and decided not to join it. Instead we decided to explore the area. We walked down past the Roman Forum and Palatine, along the Circus Maximus, past Santa Maria in Cosmedin, the Theatre of Marcellus, then up to Piazza Venezia, past Trajan's Forum, the back of the Roman Forum and then wound our way back to the hotel. It was incredible, there is history at every turn and so much of it, that it's completely underplayed. 

The Colosseum

Santa Maria in Cosmedin

The Theatre of Marcellus

Il Vittoriano at Piazza Venezia

Trajan's column at Piazza Foro Traiano

Trajan's Forum

Statue of Julius Caesar

Roman Forum

Back at the hotel we put our feet up and snoozed and read books for a couple of hours before having a really good pizza at a nearby 'Irish pub'. We managed to get the message over to the guys selling roses and collapsible condiment stands that we really weren't interested, and so were left alone, thankfully! After dinner we went back to the hotel and ordered tickets for the Colosseum on line to avoid the queue in the morning.

The next morning we got up and had breakfast and got to the Colosseum at about 10am. We were so glad we'd pre-booked the tour as the queues were immense. Even when you get into the Colosseum they wind their way around for probably a kilometre or two. I thought I'd chance my arm and ask if there were any spaces on the English third tier and underground tour and struck lucky, getting us onto the 1pm tour. As we had plenty of time until 1pm, we took our time and had a really good wander around the Colosseum. It started raining whilst we were on the second tier, we sheltered as best we could but ventured out a couple of times. As the time got nearer to 1pm we headed to find the tour area near the lift. Our tour guide, Gabriele, was really good and seemed to take his time, judging by the fact that the other tours were catching us up. It was a great opportunity to see the underground area and get access to the views from the third tier. The tour was timed perfectly, as it only started raining again as we were walking back to the hotel. The Colosseum's incredibly impressive as you can see the scale of it and what a feat it must have been to build, but as it's been under continuous renovation, it's impossible to see what (if anything) exists of the building as it was originally built.

Panoramic view from first tier

Panoramic view from second tier

Panoramic view from second tier about entrance used by gladiators

View from the second tier

View from the third tier

View across the Roman Forum from the Colosseum

Our Colosseum ticket also gave us access to the Roman Forum and Palatine for 48 hours from entry to the first attraction. So, when we got up the next day, we already knew that we'd be doing. We had a leisurely breakfast as it was raining and thundering outside. By the time we'd got to the Roman Forum it had stopped raining and was warm enough for us to discard our waterproofs. The Forum was okay as we had a guidebook with us, and so could work out what we were looking at, but Palatine was poorly signposted and we could have done with a free map to make sure we didn't miss anything. It was difficult to raise much excitement about most of the site, particularly with the amount of Harris fencing getting into our eye line and photographs. We headed back with the intention of calling in at the Roman Market, but blanched at the price and instead headed back to the hotel to put our feet up. 

The Temple of Castor and Pollux

The Column of Phocas against the backdrop of the Arch of Septimius Severus

The Arch of Septimius Severus

Grotto at Palatine Hill

Wall frescoes in the Cryptoporticus at Palatine Hill

Panoramic view of the Stadium at Palatine Hill

House of Augustus at Palatine Hill

After two days of history, we fancied a change when we got up the next day so we planned a day of geocaching, via the Spanish Steps. The street sellers had always been a bit of a nightmare, trying to force ponchos or umbrellas on you when it rained, flowers on you if you were a couple and scarves if you looked like a tourist, plus those weird plastic cubes with an image of a landmark printed inside. I lost my rag with one of them this day, when he actually tried to force a flower into my hand. I think my shout of 'No!' transcended the language barrier! Approaching the steps from the top rather than the bottom affected our initial impression of the Steps, but they were clearly very popular, even in the rain.

The Spanish Steps

After the Spanish Steps, we headed into the nearby Borghese Park where we spent a couple of hours wandering and geocaching, until we hit a series which we couldn't find. We took that as a sign and headed back to the hotel to relax and bought tickets to visit the Vatican the next day. We returned to the restaurant next door for dinner, Andrew had the most amazing looking calzone, and the tiramisu was to die for!

View from Borghese Park

Borghese Park

We got up the next morning and took the metro to the Vatican, the first time we'd used it during the week. We headed to the Vatican Museums first, as with the Colosseum there were loads of pushy tour guides in the area trying to sell you tours, or promise that they could help you cut the queue. At the Vatican, we got through security which was pretty cursory, and picked up our tickets. We collected them an hour before our allotted time, but we didn't have any problems heading through early. In the event the queues at the Vatican were short anyway, but it was good to have bought tickets in advance rather than risk having to stand in line for an hour or two.

The Vatican Museums were fine, but so extensive and full of so many exhibits that we felt desensitised to them fairly quickly. By the time we reached the Sistine Chapel, it seemed no more impressive than many of the other sights we'd already seen. The only distinguishing features were that photographs were barred, you were moved along if you loitered on the stairs and you were meant to be silent. You knew you couldn't take photographs and should be silent by the alternating 'sshh!' and 'no photographs!' instructions ironically broadcast over the tannoy.

Tapestry of the Last Supper at the Vatican Museums

Painting of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden at the Vatican Museums

Egyptian Mummy at the Vatican Museums

Corridor filled with statues and busts at the Vatican Museum

Spiral staircase at the Vatican Museums

After leaving the Vatican, we headed north and walked the long way round the walls to St Mark's Square to pick up a geocache on the way. When we reached St Mark's Square we joined the queue for St Peter's Basilica. The queue was long but moving, we probably queued for about quarter of an hour. The security screening was clearly just a nod at policy. Most people set the metal detectors off but were waved through regardless. St Peter's was huge and impressive but spoilt by the number of people literally pushing you out of their way. We were glad to escape back into the open air and walked back to the metro. We did one further geocache on the way back to the hotel before crashing out.

St Mark's Square

Sky line at the front of St Peter's Basilica

St Peter's Basilica

On our last full day we got up and headed out to do a couple of last landmarks which we wanted to see. We started at the Trevi Fountain, which we weren't expecting to loom up on us as we walked into a relatively small square. It was very impressive and we even managed to wiggle our way through the crowd for a good look. Our next stop was the Pantheon. We spent some time inside before heading for Piazza Navona, our last stop of the holiday. It was lovely and warm there and really pleasant to walk around. We even finally had a taste of Italian ice cream. We headed back to the hotel afterwards to pack and returned to the restaurant next to the hotel for our evening meal. I had an awesome calzone and tiramisu to round off our holiday.

Trevi Fountain

Pantheon

The interior of the Pantheon

Statue of a Madonna in the Pantheon

Fountain of Four Rivers at Piazza Navona

Piazza Navona

The next morning we got up, packed and headed for the airport. We had a slight delay when we managed to get stuck in the lift, but luckily there was a man working near the lift shaft who heard our rattling! We made the trip to the airport as we'd arrived, taking the Leonardo Express. We arrived in plenty of time and so had time to try a final geocache and get something to eat before catching our flight.

My Fitbit told me that I'd walked 47 miles on holiday, so I think I earned that last calzone. Rome was a really interesting city to visit; I loved the fact that there was history everywhere. I think our choice of going for a week worked well, we got to see everything we wanted to, but without going back to work feeling like we needed a holiday. Perfect.