Arriving in
Rome was a thrilling experience. As the
plane was descending, we could see the beautiful hilly landscape of Italy. Everything was much greener and more lush
than back home (as we had just had a hail storm the day before).
The process
of collecting our luggage and going through customs was a breeze. We quickly made our way out of the airport
and to the shuttle section outside. I
had pre-arranged tickets through a company called Terravision for a shuttle
service from the airport to the main train station in Rome: Roma Termini. Whereas a taxi can cost 60-100 Euros, this
cost only 4 Euros each, so it was much more economical and also gave us a
chance to meet some fellow tourists on the journey.
The journey
was quite smooth and we were able to see much of the Roman countryside. Once we arrived at the central station, it
was extremely chaotic. We each had our
backpacks and our large suitcases full of luggage, but we were surrounded by
hundreds of people coming to and from various areas in the country.
Although I
had our route mapped out from the train station to the hotel, we had to find
out how to get to San Pietro station (and buy the tickets to do so). I had asked numerous employees only to find
that they didn’t speak English. I
finally found a man in a newspaper booth who sold me metro tickets that would
take us to San Pietro station.
The problem
here was that the departing platform was about 4 levels below which meant
numerous trips down the escalator with our luggage. This was relatively easy for Jessie and I,
but Hildy was unfamiliar with how to position a 50lb suitcase on a moving escalator
without having it fall over. The added
stress of large crowds didn’t help this situation much.
Once we
finally found our platform, we got on the metro and soon were at San Pietro
station. Due to the fact that this was a
smaller stop, there weren’t escalators or elevators in place. This meant that we had to carry our luggage
up multiple flights of stairs in order to exit the station. Of course, I carried Hildy’s luggage up too, so
once we reached the top, I was quite tired.
As soon as
we were on the street, I tried to orient our current position with the map I
had prepared. I had carefully planned
the exact location of the train stop with walking directions to our hotel. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any of the
street names in front of me on the map I was holding. I began asking Italians around me for help
reading my map but no one was overly helpful in this. In the end, we decided to walk in the general
direction of the Vatican with the hopes of stumbling upon our hotel.
This plan
didn’t work out as well as we had hoped and after about 10 minutes of walking
(with our heavy luggage) we decided to get a taxi. What we later learned was that there are two
San Pietro stations in Rome. One is for
the metro and one is for the train. The
map I had printed out was for the train station, and was only 400 meters from
our hotel, but we had arrived by the metro, which was a significant distance
away.
In the end,
the cab brought us to our destination and we were met by the owner of the
B&B Emilia. She helped us get
upstairs and showed us to our room. It
was nicely decorated and very clean. We
had a shared kitchen with breakfast and a great coffeemaker as well. The best aspect of this B&B was the
location: it was right next to the Vatican and an easy walk to many of the
major sites in Rome.
Once we had
all our luggage settled in the room and Emilia gave us a tour of the
facilities, we realized how hungry we were.
Oma was quite tired, and so Jessie and I offered to pick up some take
out lunch while she had a rest. She agreed and we quickly ventured down the
road to find a nice restaurant. This was
a slightly overwhelming task because there were at least 50 restaurants within
sight, offering pizza and pasta, and we had no way to make a decision. In the end, we settled on a little restaurant
with a lovely patio and a waiter who spoke English. We ordered a butter and sage ravioli dish and
a margarita pizza to go. When we arrived
back at the hotel, Oma had had a little rest and was much more refreshed. We enjoyed our first Italian meal and were
looking forward to more.
After we
ate, we all had a short nap. Until now
the weather had been cloudy but not raining (the forecast predicted showers, so
this was a blessing) but it had just started to rain. We wanted to tour around, but decided to stay
indoors for a while until the rain stopped.
Later that
evening, we went for a walk through St. Peter’s Square and were surprised at
the lack of people around. It was a
great opportunity to see the Vatican and surrounding areas away from the
crowds. We continued a bit to Saint
Angelo Castle and walked along the river.
By this point, the sun was beginning to set and Hildy was worried that
we would be unsafe at night. In an
effort to be understanding, we decided to turn around and focus our attention
on finding dinner and going to bed.
Our hotel
host Emilia had suggested two restaurants to try so we walked around endeavouring
to find them. When we got there (at
around 9pm) both were busy and had no seating room. Instead of waiting around, we decided to pick
up a few things from a small pizzeria next door. Thanks to the help of a friendly Italian man
beside me, we ordered a spinach and cabbage pastry square, a pizza slice with
mayonnaise, tomato, buffalo mozzarella, and basis and finally a large marinated
artichoke. While we waited in line, a
German couple came in behind us and I spoke a bit to them in German. Hildy was greatly impressed with my speaking
abilities…. I guess some of the Deutscheschule paid off! We took our food home and had a nice meal in
our kitchen. Jessie and I were both
impressed with the artichoke (Hildy ate it, but said it wasn’t her thing).
We were all
asleep by 10pm and I woke up fully alert by 3am. The time change was going to take some
getting used to, so I tried to get back to sleep.
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