Originally, my mama and I had planned to do this Italy trip as her 60th birthday adventure. However, my university decided to change the vacation dates to two weeks earlier and though we couldn’t celebrate her 60th there, we were still able to enjoy our Italian adventure!
Coming from opposite sides of the world, we met up in Rome with Giorgio there to take us to our B&B-style accommodations at Abitazione Pigneto. It was a cute apartment with the rooms rented out and a common area for breakfast, the Internet or a chat with whomever was there. The location was a bit outside of the center and catching bus 81 or 810 to return at night was infrequent at times causing one to question the benefits of cost over convenience. Ultimately, though it was a nice place to stay and always interesting to see different parts of a city.
As for Rome…where does one begin?
First, it is a good idea to purchase a Roma Pass before starting your visit to sites. You can purchase them at train stations or information centers if you want to wait until you arrive. For 25Euros, you get free entry into two museums or archaeological sites and reduced prices for others over three days. You may also take public transportation freely. The booklet includes a map and information about places to visit. Considering that just to get into the Colosseum costs about that, it’s definitely worth the purchase.
As we had only about two days to see the sights, we wasted no time after settling in to hit the streets and see what we could see. The first stop was a small church of San Giovanni. The inside of these churches are amazing!
Then, we continued along to catch the Colosseum, Roman Forum and Palatine Hill where there were ruins of buildings with amazing architecture. All were very breath-taking and for me, put Egypt to shame despite my awe of the size of the temples there.
From jet lag, traveling and such, we were pretty wiped out after trying to take in all of this. So, we headed back to the hotel to rest up before taking in a late dinner (sadly no pictures of the first meal in Italy!).
Vatican City coming up….
-T
P.S. All pics of the various cities will be posted after all the trip information. 🙂 (There are a lot….)
