Rome In A Day

With a full night of rest we were ready to take on the day. Well, almost. The jet lag lingers a bit longer when you travel west to east. We chose to forget all the walking for the day and just ride. Rome has four or five hop on hop off bus lines. All of them offer pretty much the same thing. We chose the Greenline Bus service. It had three routes which were kind of the same but two of them extended out from the city center a bit.

On most any corner you can find someone in a red vest that says Hop On Hop Off. They have all the information for all the buses. The fellow who explained it all to us led us to a corner souvenir/news stand where we purchased tickets. You can also buy them on the bus but he was so good about explaining it all to us that we went with him across the street to purchase ours.

Since it was early, about 9 am, we were on the first bus to leave from the stop. We chose the blue line which was the longest of the two that were at this stop (Terminal A). The top of the bus was covered but open and we scored a front seat so we had a great view as we toured the city.

This, I believe, is the third time we’ve been in Rome. I do need to keep better notes. We have explored most of the prime places to see, the Forum, the Colosseum, the Trevi, the Pantheon, etc. The enchanting thing about Rome is that no matter where you go there is a piece of the past. From the moment you step out of the train terminal you are immediately immersed. We followed an ancient stone wall to the corner of the street to find our hotel the day before. Ancient baths were across the street.

The open sides of the bus made for a pleasant ride on a day that was a bit overcast but still promising to become very warm. While many of the sites to see were a little off the main route, there was a good commentary running about them and some of the things we could see.

The extension of the blue route that we’d chosen took us out to a more residential area with lots of beautiful flowering tree lined streets and pretty apartment buildings. This was an area where there were quite a few museums and the zoo. The zoo sounded interesting and I almost suggested getting off there but thought better of it. The route was only a little more than half done and the morning was waning.

We passed the Forum and the Colosseum and were back again at our starting point which was near our hotel. After a short rest stop, we weren’t real hungry but needed to stay on a schedule to continue to get used to the time change. We settled on McDonald’s. Yes, here we were in Rome going to McD’s. It was easy. We knew where it was in the nearby train station/mall and we could eat lighter than pasta.

Back at the bus stop again, we wanted to take the orange line. The orange bus showed up (it had an orange stripe on front) but it turned out to be doing the short green route that just hit the major points of interest rather than going out a bit to a place called Eatary so we found ourselves ending our afternoon early. That was fine. We were still tired and an afternoon nap was welcomed.

During one of our past trips that happened to coincide with an anniversary, we had eaten in a piazza that was full of sidewalk restaurants and a couple of fountains, one of which was very large but had been covered at that time for renovation. It had been one of the more romantic experiences we’d had in Rome with entertainers stopping to perform near our table.

With the realization that nothing is ever recreated quite the same as the sweet memories, we searched my blog to try to find the name of the piazza. I couldn’t find the reference. Some of my older posts were a little funky. I searched the net for famous Rome fountains and found the one I remembered. It is called “the four rivers” or Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi. Google maps had it a 37 minute walk from our hotel. Considering we had spent the day riding we decided to walk it. The weather was not as hot as the day before and we knew it would take us mostly downhill. We agreed that we would take a taxi back if it seemed too much after we ate.

The walk was not bad and took us past the Trevi fountain again which was packed with people. After weaving our way through the crowd we started past the Pantheon which was also crowded but apparently more from a fencing exhibition or contest for young people that was going on. We arrived at the Piazza Novana and were pleased to see that even though it wasn’t quite six o’clock, the restaurants were open and yes, hustling people to come in. They are gentle hustlers though and quite engaging.

We settled upon one restaurant and had a nice dinner. As the evening cooled and we finished our pasta dishes, we ambitiously chose to walk back to the hotel. There would be a little uphill climb but Bob promised gelato halfway home and I wasn’t going to pass it up this time. We found a small place for gelato part way up an incline and stopped for our treat. There was a small area to sit and eat it so we could rest a bit as well.

Refreshed, we finished our trek back and sank into bed, satisfied with our adventure and ready to begin the next one in the morning that would take us to Civitavecchia and our ship to begin our cruise.

A Half Day In Rome

 After getting our room key to work, we locked the door, put out the Do Not Disturb tag and tried to sleep a bit. Jet lag is awful and when you've had two large time adjustments within a week it's murderous. We awoke after a couple of hours feeling hungry and decided to take a walk and find something to eat along the way. 

The walk was a bit longer than we should have gone and, while gradual, we were walking downhill. We ended up at the Trevi Fountain and took a couple of pictures. We weren't up to elbowing through the crowd to toss a coin over our heads We'd done that before and sure enough, here we were back again. It must work. 

On a side street, we paused to look at a menu at a pizza/pasta sidewalk cafe. It was just long enough to feel a gentle pressure on the elbow and have a chair pulled out for us. All good. We ended up sitting between two American couples, one touring on their own and another with a large tour group. It was enjoyable conversation and hopefully ours made sense.

Real Italian pizza. Strangely, it tastes
a lot like American.

The temperature was rising. The sun was shining brightly and we were wearing down the longer we walked. We thought we would make it to the Colosseum but thought better of it. We glimpsed it down the street as we turned away to head for our hotel. 

As we walked, it felt like we had walked uphill both ways. At least it wasn't snowing but it was hot. A stop for water helped some but my legs were feeling like the water I'd drank and I was close to saying, "Call a cab before we have to call an ambulance." We made it though, stopping several times to rest and collapsed into bed again. 

Another hour of sleep and we were up to shower and find food again, not because we were hungry but because we needed to start to get on the right schedule for the time zone. We walked around the block and found the sweetest sidewalk restaurant. Cloths covered the tables, twinkling lights were strung through the bushes that hid the street mostly from view and the service was wonderful.

After a light dinner of salads, a bowl of tortellini in broth for me and a small plate of spaghetti Bolognese for Bob, we walked to the train station to get come gelato (for Bob). The train station is like a huge two floor mall with platforms for trains and then beneath the basement floor, the metro system. The mall is full of shops and quick places to eat. Bob's gelato was good and I almost wished I had some but I didn't need the stomachache just then.

Unlike Iceland, Italy has McDonald's. What they don't have is brewed McDonald's coffee. When Bob ordered what the kiosk said was American coffee, it turned out to be just Americano made from espresso. 

Back at the hotel, we watched a bit of the CNN channel and found that another UA flight to Rome out of Newark the day before ours had dropped suddenly 28,000 feet in the turbulence. Thank goodness I hadn't seen that before we boarded ours. 

Sleep came quickly once the lights were out. Buono Notte, Roma.

What A Night! Good Morning Roma!

 Most of our air flights over the years have worked out well. We have not had a difficult time with any for many air miles. Our luck was about to change. Not drastically but enough to be an irritation. 

We flew from CLE to Newark without a problem. As a matter of fact for me, it was quite nice. Bob got an upgrade to first class and let me take it. As he told his seat mates who posed with him for a selfie that he sent me, he was trying to be sure we'd make it to the 55th anniversary. I did enjoy the pampering, if you can call it that. First class is not what it used to be and this was just a short ride anyway.

Our flight had been changed to leave a little earlier so we arrived with about three hours to kill in Newark. After a fifteen minute ride on a shuttle to the international terminal, we searched for a United Club. The one we found was a temporary setup while they constructed a new one. The lady sent us over to another one that was closer to our gate anyway. The problem seemed to be that you needed the VISA card, not the MasterCard to get in. It was all very confusing and we were running out of time by then to find food. Bob will settle the problem for the future when we get home.

The restaurants in the Newark airport were all pretty expensive. I consider a hamburger and fries for $25 a bit much. We finally decided it wasn't going to get any better and ordered one to split. While we waited for it to arrive, I found a map online for the airport. Wouldn't you know. There was a Wendy's just a few steps from our gate. We didn't check the prices. We didn't need to make ourselves feel worse.

Embarkation for the flight to Rome went fairly smoothly considering it was a large full plane. Once everyone was settled, the announcement came that we would be delayed fifteen minutes because they couldn't get the video system to work. Someone had already spent four hours troubleshooting, she said. Then another announcement and another delay. By the time they decided we could do without, we were almost an hour late taking off. 

Now you wouldn't think the video system would be all that important. Just entertainment. Not so. Not only do they rely on it for the safety talk, which somehow managed to make it most of the way through, but it also controls the individual lights overhead. Thankfully Bob had some movies he could watch on his iPad. Others weren't so fortunate and they were bored. The noise level in the plane rose as many around us were all part of a tour group and shouted to one another.

Cue the turbulence. I didn't think Hurricane Lee was close enough to affect us yet but I'm guessing that's what gave us a rough start. "Dinner" was delayed almost an hour until we were through the rough ride. When it did roll down the aisle, there was a nasty smell of food. Not appetizing at all. Our choices were pasta that was swimming in a watery sauce and some sort of chicken dish with rice. The entrees were accompanied by some sort of little greens and a clump of barley salad and a roll that was hard enough to make me worry I would break a tooth biting into it. Thankfully our expensive hamburger was still with us and we weren't that hungry anyway.

But wait! There's more. Off and on turbulence delayed some of the dinner cleanup. By the time we were ready to try to get some zzzs, the lights were finally dimmed. Now comes the fun part. There was no way to turn on your individual light above the seat so if you had reading material that wasn't digital, you were out of luck unless you could see well in dim light. Then there were the people who were bored. The couple in the seats across the aisle got into a loud discussion about the music choices of the wife and what hubby wanted to listen to. The guy in the seat just in front of him couldn't keep his pillow under his head and it kept flying in my direction. Then the best one. I still don't know what they were looking for but the couple turned on their phone lights and weren't careful about where the beams were directed. I'm usually pretty patient but I was ready to say something when finally the lights turned off. 

Between off and on turbulence which meant the loud seat belt tone was off and on, and the flight stewards coming through shaking plastic bags calling out "garbage" or "trash" and finally the water run. "Water! Anyone want water?" if we slept an hour out of the seven hour flight, I would be surprised. 

But we landed safely, made it through immigration smoothly, found the train to Rome from the airport and our hotel that was just around the corner from the train station. At this point I was truly grateful that Bob had arranged for an early checkin. We were ready to crash.

And then...the key wouldn't work for the door to our room. To make a long story shorter, it required the manager and then the maintenance man before the key would work. Good morning Roma!

Traveling To Ancient Rome

This week we are traveling to ancient Rome by way of our Vacation Bible School at church. There is a marketplace where the "family groups" will learn to write with "octopus ink", make laurel wreaths, how to dress in a toga, metal working, carpentry, and several other crafts. The Apostle Paul will be there with stories to tell and there will be lots of joyful noises as the kids learn new songs. It is a week of fun and a busy one at that for all of us who are involved. And of course some wonderful snacks with a story time as well.

This year I'm going to take the rest of the week off from posting so that I can enjoy our trip to ancient Rome. I'll be up and running again on Monday!