(light blue = on foot / dark blue = bus, metro, train etc)
The flight over was fine… and empty! I EXTRA regret paying to reserve our seats! UGH what a rip off!! We paid 45$ each for our seats on the way there because we wanted 2 seats together with no 3rd body to get in our way, making it easier to sleep. Turns out, the entire row in front of me was empty so I was able to take it over and sleep flat. It’s obviously not the most comfortable, but it beats being somewhat reclined and therefore I got some good REM sleep in.
(it's blue because of the lighting in the plane)
Thanks to feeling rested when we arrived, we were able to hit the ground running. After checking into our hotel around 1PM and changing into lighter clothes, we started with the Gardens of the Villa Torlonia. It was kind of a let down, an underwhelming place for tourists, and it was too hot in the sun to bother exploring it any more detail other than just following the main path through it. At one point, while trying to dodge the heat, we stepped into a shady patch under a row of trees… and into a huge mud puddle and ruined our shoes. Great.
Next: FOOD. We had a pizza in a nice resto near the gardens, and I of course accompanied it with an Aperol Spritz!
We started with Porta Pia and the Vittoria Column.
The Santa Maria Della Vittoria Church which included Bernini’s Ecstasy of Saint Teresa... I regret not focusing enough to get a better picture of the sculpture.
The Quatro Fontane, 4 fountains that decorate an intersection.
Pizza Bernini and the Fontana del Trione.
The Spanish Steps which were hidden under a thick crust of tourists.
I popped into the Trinità dei Monti Church to light a candle for my father on his 75th birthday.
And finally we stopped for a drink at Piazza del Popolo.
Lastly, it was Piazza Navona for a snack-supper before calling it a day.
Getting back to the hotel was supposed to be easy. One bus: #62. We waited and waited and when the 64 showed up we considered taking it to Termini and then the metro from there. The 64 however is notorious for pick pockets so we said we’d stick to plan A and take the 62.
Three 64s later, we got fed up and took it. From Termini, it’s supposed to be 3 metro stops to our hotel in Piazza Bologna, but guess what: the Line B was closed! ARGH. Tired by then, we said we’d take the commuter train to Tibutina (one stop) and walk to the hotel from there (about 10 minutes).
We soon came to our senses, bad idea – why not just take another bus instead of spending extra money on the train? We bought bus passes after all! We eventually found one that would bring us home in 9 quick stops, but the whole ordeal added over an hour to our journey so we were both getting cranky.
Too add to our public transportation woes, I realised we had forgotten to validate our bus passes. They work with a magnetized strip, so we had already started using them, but you are still supposed to validate your first ride so it gets stamped. We didn’t see a machine to validate the cards in the metro, but there was one on the bus so Frank put his card in…. and the machine ate it. 24 euros gone…. until the machine spit it out again a good 5 minutes later; thank you, God.
We made it back to the room by about 9.
This is the 3rd time we’ve stayed at this hotel because we liked it every other time, so much so that I didn’t even shop around this time. I regret it. It’s not bad, but it's not as nice as I remember so I feel a little more research might have produced better results in a similar price range. Ah well, done is done.
Time now to collapse!
Good night.
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