Ticket to Fumicino airport, Rome

Giver of Life!

Eventually, we got to the base of the hill and decided the 1000 GRD fares to ride the cable car up to the highest point was not unreasonable. The cable car was kinda weird because it didn't go up the mountain on the outside, but traveled on a track that seemed to have been bored through the middle of the mountain. It was only about 50-100m long, but on a very steep grade (surprise, surprise). Anyway, we went up there and the view, again, was breathtaking.

I started to get real thirsty whilst watching this guy set up his little kiosk. I swear, he took about an hour! He was moving so slow, I was getting hungry and more than a little cranky by this time. Thankfully, his prices for water and food were reasonable, and whilst I waited for him to cook the cheese pie he advertised, we got some water and an apple pie. Eventually he brought out the cheese pies and although Mark didn't like his, I loved mine. I think the cheese was some sort of feta or maybe goat's milk. Either way, it was very strong and bitey.

We waited until the sun set and then caught the cable car back down the hill. We went back to our hotel via the scenic route (i.e I got us lost :)).

After getting back from my big detour from the hotel, we went to bed earlyish and intended to get up for dinner but yet again we slept through it.

The next day we left Athens for Rome. Luckily, we checked out a bit earlier and intended to catch the early bus to the airport. When we got to the bus stop, there was a crowd of backpackers there. Mark strikes up a conversation with a couple of Brits who said they had been waiting 50 minutes for a bus! We waited for about 10 minutes, and finally the bus came. Everyone pushed and shoved to get on, and it was standing room only for most people. Unfortunately, Mark and I got separated during the crush, but still maintained eye contact.

We got to the airport after about 50 mins on the bus. The bus seemed to take a lot longer getting to the airport than it did to get to Athens! The traffic on the way was horrific.

Our flight left at 12.50 or something, and we got there at 12.10 - 1 hr and 10mins late for check in. Needless to say, I was sketching a bit. Finally we made it on the plane and took off for Rome.

Tuesday 4 September, 2001 (Rome)

This is terrible.. we don't know what day it is! It took us a while to work it out.

We got to Rome and found the train to Termini Station (Rome's most central and busiest train station) pretty easily. There was a couple with a baby in our carriage, and they kept insisting on me holding their little kid. (It was cute though :)). It was a good, friendly moment - especially when I got to give the baby back! They even offered us food - some sort of chip I think, and Mark returned the favor by digging out some lollies he had in his pack. "Columbines.. from Australia" he said. I couldn't stop laughing.

We got to Termini and decided to get the hell out of there! Termini was huge and crowded and it was a hot day so we needed to find our hotel pretty quick.

We walked down the street our hotel should have been on, but it was blocked at one end - some huge construction work going on. Luckily, the hotel was in my Let's Go as a recommended hotel, so we got the phone number and called them for directions. Turns out, we had taken a minor wrong turn (so easy to do!) so we backtracked and finally made it.

The Hotel Kennedy is very expensive (around ITL 209,000 a night, roughly AUD$200) and it was kind of crap. Having said that, it was close to everything so that kind of made up for it. We couldn't find the bathroom light switch at first - we tried every switch we could find. Eventually, I had to call reception and get them to come show us. How embarrassing!

The shower was the smallest shower I've ever seen! You could barely turn around in it. (Although granted I am not a small girl :))

We put down our packs and went off in search of food.

Bus ticket from Fumicino to Termini

The Colosseum, Rome

A couple of streets away, there was this grotty looking, handwritten sign, local frequented dive of a place that sold pizza 'al taglio' (by the slice). It was weird.. you picked out your pizza which was displayed in huge slabs on the counter, and you told them how much to cut off. They then weigh it and charge you a per kilo price. We bought a couple of different ones (about ITL 5,000 or AUD$5) each and some of these potatoes that looked like they had been cubed and fried. I swear to God I've never had potatoes so good!

Anyway, on the way back to the hotel, we stopped at a supermarket which was heaps tiny and brought bread, swiss cheese, proscuitto, these smoked cocktail sausage things, some water, some coke and some grapes. Back at our hotel room, we had a little impromptu picnic. (That cost the earth - about ITL30,000, AUD$30 plus). Again, we intended to go out for dinner but slept. (I think we were still full from the picnic anyway). We woke up pretty late that night, having missed dinner again, and decided to go for a walk to the Colosseum, as it was relatively close to our hotel. On the way we passed a church called Santa Maria Maggiore which was quite beautiful and merited some video footage. We got to the Coliseum, expecting it to be lit up, but only bits of it were. (It probably wouldn't even show up on the video). But it was HUGE! Very imposing against the night sky. We lay down on the grass under a full moon and the Coliseum and looked up at it. We were so close it seemed as though it would fall on us.

On the way back to the hotel, we passed several net cafes and the infamous Shiny Bright laundry which also has net access. We resolved to go there the next night and wash our stinky clothes.

Wednesday 5 September, 2001 (Rome/Vatican City)

Today we got up early and headed for the Vatican to see the Pope. (He only addresses the public on Wednesdays, but we didn't know that at the time!) Finding the Metro line from Termini was a nightmare. Everywhere we looked trains were going intercity but not locally. Eventually, we found that you had to go underground to get to station Ottaviano which is closest to Vatican City. We got on the train and in 15minutes or so we were there. I really had no idea where to go, but we just followed the hordes of people and we were fine. We eventually stumbled upon Piazza San Pietro (St Peter's Square) where the Pope was addressing an audience of several thousand people. He was so far away that he appeared as a white speck in a crowd of people. Luckily, he also appeared on huge television screens put up all around the square. It was awe inspiring to say the least. Mark rang Damo and they had a chat for a bit, but then it started to rain. Everyone huddled under the shelter of the outer parts of the square, but it was summer rain so it stopped pretty quickly. Around the Vatican were all these tacky little stores selling everything from replicas of the Coliseum (some painted with classy blue sparkles! Only $25), commemorative Pope plates and tacky vatican lamps. Unfortunately, no Pope-soap-on-a-rope as I was hoping.

We took the trek to the Sistine Chapel and walked for miles and miles around really old works of art. I videotaped a lot of it, but the actual chapel where Michaelangelo painted his famous works was anti-camera, anti-videotape and even anti-talking. We had a good look and beat a hasty retreat.

We decided to walk from the Vatican to Piazza di Spagna (the Spanish Steps) which was about 1.5-2 km away. Along the way, we stopped at a café and had a couple of pizzas by the slice, a dish of potatoes (spectacular, yet again!) and a couple of beers. We sat outside on plastic picnic tables in the shade of the trees and I imagined that this is what they meant by living La Dolce Vita (the good life).

The famous Trevi Fountain

When we got to the Spanish Steps, it was a hive of tourist activity. People were running around everywhere so we kept tight holds on our daypacks and wallets. There were tonnes of people sitting on the steps, and many were drinking from the fountain in front of it. (It was a warm day, and I heard somewhere that by law the water in the fountains must be drinkable… it is an offence to bath in them). Again, there was an eclectic mix of tourist stalls selling reproduction statue junk. We stopped and bought some postcards and moved on to Fontana di Trevi (the Trevi Fountain).

It was only a short walk to this world famous fountain, and again we followed the tourists.

My friend Kevin went there the next day and he said it was "just a fountain" , but I thought it was one of the most beautiful works of art I'd ever seen. We sat and ate fantastic gelati (it never be the same again) and admired the fountain. From there it was a hike back to our hotel. On the way back, my sister called me and I had to do some tech support! (I never stop working! :))

When we got back to the hotel, Mark fell asleep and I was bored so I wrote some postcards. I decided to go on a hunt for stamps and left the hotel for the tobacconists across the road which sold stamps. The nearest postbox was back at Termini station so after passing an Italian guy hanging around outside the tobacconists leering at passersby, I headed that way. I am scared of Termini station. There's thousands of people there, hundreds of corridors and is so very easy to get lost. Eventually I found the postboxes hidden in a corner somewhere, and went back to the hotel.

After Mark woke up, we packed up our laundry stuff and headed for Shiny Bright. Unfortunately my weblog was down so I couldn't post. We also couldn't figure out how to work the washing machines, but luckily some guy helped us. We washed, dried and emailed and set off to look for a place for dinner. (Our first real dinner since we were awake!)

We had dinner just down the street from our hotel, at a place called Trattoria Giovanni. I picked this place because there were Italians eating there, so it seemed like the real thing. The minute we walked in the owner greeted us with open arms and a big Italian "Heeeeeyyyyyy! <insert Italian greeting that I didn't understand>". We sat down and Mark had a beer, I had a coke and we ordered our food. Because of our bigger lunch we declined to eat the traditional "primi" (first course) and straight to "secondi" (second course). I ordered escalopes with mushrooms (thinly sliced veal in a mushroom sauce) and Mark has Weiner Schnitzel. We also ordered a salad and a dish of potatoes (seeing a theme here?) which we polished off as well. For desert we sampled the Tartufo which was more like sponge cake but tasted absolutely heavenly. The whole thing came to around $70 *gulp* but with the atmosphere plus a live roving accordian music guy, I think it was well worth it.

Earlier on in the evening, when we did our washing I got my friend Kevin's mobile number from hotmail and called him. He had just arrived in Rome from Naples that evening, and by the time we had caught up with him (after dinner, around 12.30 midnight) he still hadn't found somewhere to sleep. I met him for the first time downstairs from our hotel, and it was a very surreal experience. Meeting someone on a cool summers night at midnight in Rome, who you've been chatting to on irc for years but never met will do that to you ;)

We agreed to meet up in Florence the next night for dinner and we went our separate ways.

The view from Hotel Kennedy, Rome

Thank God for the phrasebook!