Colosseum by Day... |
Colosseum by Night... |
It was in Bari that we ran into our first issues with all the financial crises going on in Europe. Roads were blocked off by police, and journalists with camera crews were everywhere. Our cab had to take the long way around to get us to the train station. We managed to get on the train just in time before it left. Our train was just a small cabin with seats that reclined a little bit, so it was a bit of an uncomfortable night. Plus, there was one of the most smelliest men ever in our cabin. Cath and I both had to cover our faces with sweaters to muffle the smell. Ugh!!
We arrived in Rome at 6am, then went straight to the hostel we had booked to get a bit of sleep. There was a little drama involved in this that was frustrating, but it would take a while to tell the story, which is more annoying than interesting anyways :). We slept for a few hours, took showers, then went out to explore a bit.
With only 2 full days in Rome, we saw the main sites like the Colosseum, the Forum, and the Vatican City, the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, and our usual wandering the streets. We also made sure to get our fill of Italian eats and delicious Gelato!! Yumm!!
Pizza! |
The Vatican City was another good story. I'll keep it short since this is getting long. A lot of vendors try to sell tours of the Vatican and St. Peter's Basilica. They all claim to give the best rates and have the best guides with the best English and that you can skip the 2-hour long lines. We're not much of tour people since we like to go at a faster pace than large groups and we don't like being stuffed with historical information about everything. If we want to know something, we'll look it up for ourselves. Anyways, I used it as an opportunity to barter a little bit. The first tour said they would charge 40 Euro. After talking to several others to see if they could beat each other's prices, I talked someone down to 20 Euro. When I tried to get it even lower, one girl got angry at me and stormed off. So, word of advice, if you want a tour of the Vatican, don't settle for anything more than 20 Euro. They're ripping you off for more commission. But, to save even more, don't take a tour. The line-ups were not 2 hours long. I think the longest we waited was 30 minutes, at the peak time in season.
Next we head off to one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, and one of my new favourite places in Europe...Cinque Terre, Italy!