Roma!

The flight got in at 6am, before anything opened, including the tourist information booth. Fortunately, I had done some reading up on Rome, so I looked for the train station with the express train to Stazione Termini, the central train and bus station. I found it in no time, but I had no money, so I got some out of the cash station. There was a train departing at 6:37, and I didn't have a ticket, and the ticket booth wasn't open, and the cash I got out of the machine was in too large bills to use the ticket machine! Fortunately, before the train left I found a ticket machine that accepts Visa, and I bought my ticket that way, and I was at Termini by 7am. I don't know why, but I was giddy with excitement about being in Rome, and now that I've been here 2 days, I have not been let down! . . .

Since I arrived at 7am, everything was still closed. I walked around just a bit, but I was carrying my heavy bag, so I didn't get very far. I just got something to eat, bought a couple of postcards and wrote them out while eating, and oriented myself a bit until 8 when I was able to get a map from the tourist info office at the train station. From there I went to Enjoy Rome, a tourist info and tour center, where I booked a room at Hotel Castelfidardo just downt the street a bit. They also told me about a walking tour of the Vatican City at 2:30 that afternoon, so I signed up. I went to the hotel, dropped my stuff off, and went down to find an internet cafe to tell Anastasia where I was staying so that she would know where to go before she left Bangkok. I caught the subway to the Ottaviano stop just in time to meet the tour group. There were only 2 others on the tour and the guide, and that was good for us. We saw St. Peter's basilica, we saw the famous painting on the ceiling by Michelangelo, we saw the Vatican museum, and after the tour I walked up all the stairs to the very top of St. Peter's basilica (quite a haul!), where the view was magnificent! I got my map out and oriented myself for the rest of the day's sightseeing.

I got something to eat and mailed the postcards from the Vatican City (more reliable than Italian postal service) before walking across the Tiber river to the Piazza Novona and on to the Pantheon. I was quite tired of walking by this point, so I tried to figure out the bus system to take me back to the train station (close to the hotel), but while on the bus I saw the 'wedding cake' and saw that the Colesseum was just down the street from there, so I got off the bus and started walking again, and that's how I found the historic section of Rome! The wedding cake was at the Piazza Venetia, and from there I walked along the Roman Forum to the Colesseum, which unfortunately was closed already. But I walked around it and got down by the Circus Maximus before finally heading home.

I went to the internet cafe by the hotel where I met some people who were going out to a club that night, and I wanted to join them, but I was jetlagged, so I tried taking a nap, but I didn't wake up until too late to join them.

The next morning, since I got to sleep early, I woke up early and started sightseeing early. My travel guide recommended a nice place to see the sun rise (a street market in Trestevere), so I caught a bus and did some walking until I got there. Since it's wintertime, there weren't that many vendors (I think the guide is written more for the summer traveller), so I just went to a cozy cafe, and ate some pastries with hot chocolate. From there I went back to the historic section and bought a ticket to see the inside of the roman forum and the colesseum. The whole area is just amazing to see - what humans were able to create 2000 years ago without the aid of modern cranes and construction techniques, and they're still intact (sort of!)!

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