Seriously. Let me start off by giving you a little background. Back in college I studied in Rome and my roommate, Kate and I developed a pretty strong opinion about Romans in general. They are rude, and pushy and many are constantly trying to rip you off in some way. I am not just making a snap judgment based on Mr. A and my time in Rome this time. Upon arrival in Rome after almost 24 hours of travel I was yet again quickly reminded that Romans… really do suck.
The hubs and I headed out of the airport terminal and were quickly duped into buying a phone card, only to later realize the phones now have pay by credit card directly on the phone… so yea we did not need that. Then we needed to change money, the first place just flat out would not do it for Mr. A just because and the second tried to rip him off on the conversion rate. This was all going on while I was in three lines to buy a train ticket to the city. After getting to the front of the line, oh yea the lady just would not take my bank card, not because they did not take them but because it was going to take too long. SERIOUSLY. After quickly snapping back into my Romans-suck-so-be-a-bitch armor I told the lady she had to take my card and got fussy and all of a sudden BAM she handed me the tickets. Y’all this was before we even left the airport…
Knowing that Roman cab drivers will try to rip you off I told Mr. A we should just take the subway; it is only 1 euro and was right by the flat we were renting. Perfect, cheap and easy. Well we get to Termini and again the ripping off begins. I go to buy our tickets, all while wearing my special bitch armor, and lo and behold the gypsy people are there trying to beg for money from me because they pressed a button on the machine that I used. I promptly said no and got yelled at in Italian. Awesome start to this trip right?
Well after a brief and scary trip on the subway we walked to apartment and had our minds blown. We stayed in a neighborhood that backed up to the forum. It was UNREAL. The street we stayed on had cobblestone and was over 600 year old with ivy growing all around you. It was like you walked into a whole other city. I quickly relaxed and realized I was going to have a much different experience this time around. Romans may suck, but at least the building we were staying in was amazing!
Here are some pictures of our newly renovated 100 euro a night flat:
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| Our bilding |
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| The living room |
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| Kitchen |
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| Eating area |
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| Window to the courtyard |
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| Bathroom |
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| I loved this ceiling... it was over 600 years old. |
Awesome right? I know! We even did a bit of food shopping. It was so nice to have a quiet place to escape the chaos that was Rome.
After settling in Mr. A convinced me that we should not nap, even though I had not slept in 24 hours, so we headed out to start to get the lay of the land. Here is a shot of what was at the end of our street:
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| Old shit at the end of our street! |
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| Trajan's market right at the end of our street. |
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| To the left the Colosseum... |
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| To the right the wedding cake... |
Yea that’s the forum… amazing. So we walked around and did the wedding cake monument, Trajan’s Colum and Market, and a bit of other wondering. We then headed to the baths of Dioclecian and Piazza Republica:
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| Pizza Republica |
We then promptly realized we needed to take a nap. So we went back to the apartment and passed out for 3 hours. It was glorious. Here are some pictures from that first day of touring:
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| Trajan's column |
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| Love the flag here |
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| Mr. A found his "good" fanta |
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| We walked by this on our way home every night. Unreal. |
That night we went to dinner off of Via del Corso and walked up to Piazza Del Popolo and had a bottle of wine and gelato. Perfect end to a hectic and yet wonderful first day back in the eternal city.
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| Sunset over Rome |
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| Piazza by our building |
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| Piazza del Popolo |
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| Wine and my love... |
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| We walked by the Trevi fountain on our way home. More on this later. |
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| And the Spanish steps. |
As a side note, because I love food and baking so much I am going to be putting together a whole separate set of blog posts about the food we had. Don’t worry you will get to hear all about the black truffle handmade pasta that we liked the bowls after… we keep it classy in Italy.
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