Holiday write up part the first
Rome was very nice. As previously mentioned, we had a bit of a time of it getting there, a couple of hours delay caused by problems with a vacuum pump on the plane. Couldn't be fixed (to be fair, I didn't even actually try) so we had to switch trains. Didn't put much of a dampener on the start of the trip, but it did reinforce just how much I hate flying. I used to quite like the airport, having a look round the shops, that would be almost the only positive thing about flying, but I don't even like that any more. The only positive thing now is the speed of covering a huge distance, but with all the time spent on getting to the airport, checking in and so on, getting from the airport at the other end, I think I have to be going somewhere further than just Italy to feel like flying is a good idea. Sorry to start this off on such a negative note, I'll get going in a minute. Man alive, I hate flying. Next holiday we're driving.
Got to Rome airport (which is sometimes called Leonardo da Vinci1 and sometimes called Fiumicino2, so look out) and trained it into the centre of things. Saw some great double decker trains at the station, but unfortunately we weren't on one of these... Train is eleven Euros into the centre and probably takes about half an hour. We really wanted to walk from the station to our hotel, but because of the delay it was dark by the time we got there, so we gave up on that pretty quickly and jumped in a cab. Everyone says LOOK OUT, make sure you are on a meter in the cab, but we failed to listen and got stung twenty euros for a pretty short journey. It was worth it not to have to drive in traffic like that, but heading from the station to anywhere in town should be a nice easy walk.
Our hotel3 was good and central, central for the important stuff like the sites and the food areas. The in-laws went to Rome fairly recently, we passed their hotel on the way from the station to our hotel. Hotels near the station on Via Nazionale look grander, but I think we got the best of it. It was in a little side street off Via Delle Botteghe Oscure called Via dei Polacchi. Clare didn't tell me until we got there it was run by NUNS! Well I say run by nuns, possibly it's owned by the pope or something, I didn't see any nuns inside, though there was a crucifix up on the wall. They're quite big on that sort of thing in Rome. We dropped our bags and headed out for NIGHTLIFE ACTION!
The buildings of Rome are amazing, I should have known what to expect but it constantly amazed me, fountains here and sculpture there, too much, so that it's difficult to take in and appreciate.
I will go back to trying to sort out my photos (going to try something called iTag), and continue my tales of Rome, trying to include some actual fact an opinion in the next installment...
Paul Clarke's blog - I live in Hythe near Folkestone. Wed + dad to 2, I am a full-stack web engineer, and I do js / Node, some ruby, other languages ect ect. I like pubbing, parkrun, eating, home automation + other diy jiggery-pokery, history, tree stuff, TV, squirrels, pirates, lego, and TIME TRAVEL.