Rome

    We arranged to have breakfast at 8:30 AM and after breakfast we packed up and Domenico drove us to the train station. Breakfast was nice. We had some fresh bread and pastries and they also had sliced cheese and ham available. Domenico made a pile of scrambled eggs of us as well.

 

Rise and shine, today we invade Rome

 



It was about 10 AM when we left to get to the train station. This time it was busy with people and trains were running. Several people helped us getting the kids on the train and with our luggage. Everyone seemed really nice. The train was quite full and we managed to get one seat. When we bought our tickets, they had a ticket that included the train ride as well as Metro tickets for Rome. Hannah is pretty much free on all trains here, Stevie pays a discounted rate. The kids ride Metro for free.

 

 

Waiting for the subway to Rome

 

    At the train station we spoke to a couple from England. The woman’s name was Sheila. The funny thing was that she saw us talking to the Italian lady that helped us get around and she thought I was speaking Italian. It was actually quite surprising that not many people spoke English in Civitavecchia considering it is such a large port.

    On the train we met a family from Scotland who were on a spring break with their kids. They were taking a quick trip to Rome from their cruise ship. There was also an Italian woman sitting next to us who told us that strikes were a national hobby in Italy.

    When we arrived in Rome (Roma Termini – main train station), it was really busy with tourists and local people. There were lots of warnings about pick-pockets and the lady that helped us in Civitavecchia warned us of them as well. It was quite a change going from the small town into Rome. People were quite a bit more abrupt and sometimes downright rude. I guess it is a big city thing.

 

We had the kids sit on their butts to protect them from the pick pockets.  Just kidding, Kat and I wore some thin money purses that fit inside your pants and are strapped around you, not kidding. 

 

The B&B was about 2 blocks from the Subway station and 2 blocks from the Vatican wall in another direction. It is on the main road that visitors take to the Vatican. Francesca met us downstairs and helped us get into our room. This B&B was a converted apartment. To get to our building we had to go through a nice courtyard and up the elevator to the 4^th floor. It took 3 trips to get us and our stuff to the apartment as the elevator was very small. The room was nice and clean and facing the street. This made the room quite noisy but when the window was closed, it was too warm. Luckily, the noise from the street went down a little during the night. We had our own bathroom but it was away from the room at the other end of the hallway. The bathroom was very small but my biggest issue with it was that you could not lock the door from inside. Even though this bathroom was just for us, anyone else in the B&B could walk in on you. This, frankly, made me uncomfortable while taking a shower.

 

 

The Vatican/St. Peters Square was only two blocks from our hotel in Rome.  In retrospect, we wish that we had used our little time there to visit it rather than the $25.00 a person to see the Colosseum

   Once we dropped of our luggage, we went to eat lunch. We stopped at Burger King right across the street to be sure that the kids eat something. They were both hungry and not very happy. After lunch, we walked back to the Metro and took it to the Termini train station. We wanted to buy tickets to get out of Italy the next morning while the trains were running. We found the ticket area. There were many automated ticket kiosks (and odds are that our credit card would not work in them) but it was not possible to purchase tickets to a destination outside of Italy. We had to go to a ticket window.

    This was rather interesting. One had to pick a number and wait for their number to be called. When my ticket came out, it had number 437. I looked at the display that showed numbers being called. The numbers were in 220s. We found a spot to sit on the floor across from the ticket offices and waited. About an hour later, we got to buy our tickets. It was not possible to get to Prague in one day (if you did not want to travel overnight) but we walked away with a ticket to Innsbruck in Austria with just one train change in Bologna. We are actually on the train from Bologna to Austria as I am typing this. The tickets cost about 250 euros.

    Once we had our tickets, we got back on the Metro and took it to the Colosseum. I was looking for signs to guide us from the Metro station to the Colosseum but no directions were needed. As you walk out on the street, the Colosseum is right across the street. We followed the crowd to find the ticket office. It was getting late (it was about 5 PM) and the line to get tickets was long. They were also offering tickets for the last guided English tour of the day.

 

 

Someday, the kids will be able to look back at the hundreds of photos and videos of our trek across the world.  We intend to use these photos and videos to teach or reinforce their, language, culture, history and geography lessons.  A woman, unknown to us, walked up to us on the last day of the cruise and told us she was a retired Montessori teacher and that she had been watching our kids throughout the cruise.  She told us that she was absolutely impressed at how we were teaching our kids moment by moment and day by day while traveling.  Kudos to Kat and the kids for a great job.

 

While waiting for our tour, we met two families from California and we spoke for a little while. We shared with them what we learned about the train strikes and they told us about the strike of the workers who fill ATM machines (which they learned about the hard way).  Later, we joined our group but it was too much for the kids to stand in one place for 15 minutes and listen to the guide. We returned our amplifiers to her and left the group to walk around the Colosseum by ourselves. It was after 6 PM when we left the Colosseum.

 

 

The Colosseum

 

Two guys dressed in Roman soldier outfits took pictures with us and them with our camera and I figured they were doing it for a tip (of our choosing). Steve thought it was a nice service (kind of like dressed up characters at theme parks in the US). But once they took some pictures (with our camera), they said it was 10 euro. I gave them a smaller tip (that I planned to do) and then we did our best to get away.  It was amazing that the city allows such scam artist to operate directly in front of the Colosseum and in sight of the police who were there. 

 

Finally away from the boring tour, the kids were able to walk about freely and we got many pictures that we would have missed if we had stayed with the talkative tour guide

 

We got back on the metro and took it all the way to the station near our hotel. From there we walked to the restaurant that Francesca recommended. The food was decent (not great) and the best part was that they had gluten free pasta. It was nice for Stevie to be able to get some spaghetti. Of course, like all restaurant meals, 4 orders of pasta with some water and 1 beer cost about $75. Steve says that it is not the pick pockets on the street that you have to worry about.  It is the thieves running the restaurants that charge you $75.00 for crappy meals that only have two tablespoons of meat.  Again, the meat sauce was mediocre and had a tiny portion of actual meat in it.  Steve's lasagna was average and with little meat.     American Italian Food = 2,  Italian Food = 0.  We decided not to walk to St. Peter’s square in the Vatican because it was starting to get dark, we were tired and the kids were cranky.

Quite frankly, we cannot wait to get out of Italy. Rome, especially, has not been very enjoyable. Too crowded, rude people and lots of scammers always trying to get something out of you.  At the hotel we Skyped with Steve’s mom (Kat’s mom was online but probably not at the computer) for a little bit and then we took showers and went to bed.  We set our alarm for 6 AM so that we could leave at 7:15 AM.