When In Rome - Day 1
Thanksgiving day arrived not-so-bright and rather early and marked the first day of Lyn and my glorious Roman Adventure. Day One was all about travel.
It really doesn't matter what airport you fly out of, they all take a million years to get to. Technically, Heathrow is closest, but it's easily over an hour by bus. By cab it's a half hour (as long is the traffic isn't chocka), but who can afford a cab? Seriously, people, so far as I can tell money doesn't grow on trees. Ok, maybe it technically grows on trees, but the government sort of frowns on people making their own money.
But I digress. We flew out of Gatwick which involved three tubes, a train and a lot of standing in line doing nothing followed by more standing in line doing nothing. We finally borded the plane a good 15 minutes or so late. Huzzah! Finally on our way!
The flight was uneventful. Unless you count me nearly ripping out the seat in front of me when the plane hit an air pocket. Or three.
We bought tickets on the Leonardo Express which was also uneventful. Well, other than some seriously rude French people who nearly mowed me down. God save anyone standing in the way of them getting the seats they wanted. We switched to the Metro once we hit Termini station and had a crowded, but even more uneventful ride to our station.
We got settled into our room around about 6:30ish local time.
It was a nice hotel with a snazzy marble bathroom and uber comfy beds. The manager was friendly and informative and handed us a nice little map on which he proceeded to circle absolutely every site that was even vaguely interesting. Feeling a mite peckish and eager to try some REAL Italian cuisine, we headed out to find a restaurant.
Only we went the wrong way and ended up wandering about for about an hour finding nothing. We managed to loop around and head back toward the hotel and found this incredibly quaint little restaurant that looked like a wine cellar. It was all bricks and stones and terra cotta tiles. The owner was loud and boisterous and greeted everyone exuberantly and said "Prego" a lot. He then left us to the tender ministrations of our waiter.
We ordered funghi pizza (mushroom). I swear they were the biggest pizzas I'd ever seen that were meant for one person. At least up to that point. And they were amazingly tasty. For dessert we moaned over tiramisu coated in a good 1/4 inch of cocoa powder and profiteroles smothered in custard. Divine.
We rolled our way back to the hotel to very comfy beds. Unfortunately the room was quite stuffy (they turn off the aircon for winter despite it being 17C/64F degrees out) so we had to sleep with the window open. It wouldn't have been a problem except for the traffic being so bloody noisy. So we had a rather restless night.
And that, my friends, was our first day in Rome. The adventure, however, had only begun...
It really doesn't matter what airport you fly out of, they all take a million years to get to. Technically, Heathrow is closest, but it's easily over an hour by bus. By cab it's a half hour (as long is the traffic isn't chocka), but who can afford a cab? Seriously, people, so far as I can tell money doesn't grow on trees. Ok, maybe it technically grows on trees, but the government sort of frowns on people making their own money.
But I digress. We flew out of Gatwick which involved three tubes, a train and a lot of standing in line doing nothing followed by more standing in line doing nothing. We finally borded the plane a good 15 minutes or so late. Huzzah! Finally on our way!
The flight was uneventful. Unless you count me nearly ripping out the seat in front of me when the plane hit an air pocket. Or three.
We bought tickets on the Leonardo Express which was also uneventful. Well, other than some seriously rude French people who nearly mowed me down. God save anyone standing in the way of them getting the seats they wanted. We switched to the Metro once we hit Termini station and had a crowded, but even more uneventful ride to our station.
We got settled into our room around about 6:30ish local time.
It was a nice hotel with a snazzy marble bathroom and uber comfy beds. The manager was friendly and informative and handed us a nice little map on which he proceeded to circle absolutely every site that was even vaguely interesting. Feeling a mite peckish and eager to try some REAL Italian cuisine, we headed out to find a restaurant. Only we went the wrong way and ended up wandering about for about an hour finding nothing. We managed to loop around and head back toward the hotel and found this incredibly quaint little restaurant that looked like a wine cellar. It was all bricks and stones and terra cotta tiles. The owner was loud and boisterous and greeted everyone exuberantly and said "Prego" a lot. He then left us to the tender ministrations of our waiter.
We ordered funghi pizza (mushroom). I swear they were the biggest pizzas I'd ever seen that were meant for one person. At least up to that point. And they were amazingly tasty. For dessert we moaned over tiramisu coated in a good 1/4 inch of cocoa powder and profiteroles smothered in custard. Divine.
We rolled our way back to the hotel to very comfy beds. Unfortunately the room was quite stuffy (they turn off the aircon for winter despite it being 17C/64F degrees out) so we had to sleep with the window open. It wouldn't have been a problem except for the traffic being so bloody noisy. So we had a rather restless night.
And that, my friends, was our first day in Rome. The adventure, however, had only begun...
posted by SheaLuna | 4:22 PM
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