Return to Rome

Rome, Day 24, 8 June 2009

An early breakfast at the Maiori hotel and a farewell to Richard Gere and we are off to the bus stop. This is more like the weather we are expecting. The sun is really hot at 8:30am as we wait at the bus stop.  The bus arrives late and we stand initially, but a really nice lady in the front seat shows me such kindness, allowing me to put my bag at her feet for a while.  She shows me the ECG patches she has and is obviously going for medical treatment. There is heated discussion from some of the other women with the driver again and we pick up that there are more passengers to be picked up at the next stop and this will be a problem.  In addition to engaging in intense conversation with the passengers, the driver is also fossicking with his cell phone, taking calls and making calls, all the while swinging the bus around hairpin bends on a sheer cliff face road.  Apart from receiving a call the women had demanded he call the bus company to put on more buses!! Va bene.

We find two of the last three seats and enjoy the ride along the coast back to Salerno for a while.  The sun sparkling on the blue, blue, glassy water is a lovely sight.  Local fishermen are going about their daily tasks in small boats.  I have a fleeting longing to have their lives, but no, we are really ready to go home now and looking forward to Rome for a day.  We have a lot of renewed energy for our business, but unfortunately not a corresponding amount of funding!

There are no first class seats left on the Eurostar when we get to Salerno Station to book it, so we slum it in second class.  However, this turns out to be a near new Eurostar train and second class is better than some of the first class seats we have had.  Our final train trip is without drama, but we are now fully aware of the root meaning of the word "luggage".  I manage to get off the train in Rome with all the bags bar Kathy's day pack in one manoeuvre.  Wow!

It is great to have some idea of the layout of Rome immediately around the station and we find the hotel relatively easily.  We squeeze into a small and ancient lift, which groans under the combined weight of our luggage and us to deliver us to the fourth floor, where "Hotel Katty" is.  The room is tiny, but all we need for a one night stay.  Talk about energy conservation, I didn't know you could get 1 Watt bulbs, but they found the lowest possible in this hotel.  In addition, the one main light for the entire room was maybe a 5 Watt but was on a timer and went off after a while!!  The bathroom had a sign up about "No woshing or eating in the room"!!  We think that Kathy's mum has impacted every hotel in Italy, after her setting fire to the curtains in a Milan hotel with a portable gas cooker!!  The proprietor and family basically live in the same space as the hotel rooms and apart from being very basic, it was fine and they were lovely people.

We decide to go out and just womble around Rome rather than do the tourist thing.  Before long we are hopelessly lost and have to ask directions a number of times before finding our way back to the hotel tired and hot.  However, we manage to cross a busy intersection by going underground via a book and CD shop and end up making some purchases there of real Italian music to take home.  I get some Gian Maria Testa that we had never seen before and also a copy of the Zucchero CD for the victims of the earthquake.

Our traditional Campari that night was the highlight really.  We went to a really local bar and enjoyed the local atmosphere very much.

Interestingly, just down the road from us was the British Embassy.  When we arrived, I had wondered why there was this army vehicle with two soldiers with Uzzi automatic weapons slung casually over their shoulders.  When we walked up the road later, we saw more of them on more or less 24 hour guard duty.

We don't have the energy for any tourist sight seeing in Rome this time and choose to wander the streets around our hotel.  Rome is an amazing city and we both have a sense that we would like to spend more time here next time.