*** So half of this post was written two years ago… It was sitting, half-written, in the drafts, and the rest of it, I wrote August 6, 2018… two years later :).
The first impression I got of Rome when I got off the plane was the insane amount of people there were – locals speaking Italian and an incredible amount of different tourists! Even some Russians :). We went in June and that is a pretty touristy month. And a really, really hot month, as well.
Our first plan was to get tickets to Sicily for the evening (it was kind of a spontaneous trip so we didn’t get tickets in advance). We took a city bus to the train station in the center of the city. I have to admit that that was quite the ride. There was traffic absolutely everywhere – cars going in many different directions, on lanes that don’t particularly even exist, motorcyclists and mopedists weaving in and out of cars. It didn’t help that there were also cars parked on both sides of the streets. People parked anywhere that had space – sidewalks, between trees. Some streets even had double lines of parked cars on both sides. You know those memes you see about really horrible parking? Well that was what the parking was like in Rome. Okay, maybe a little bit worse than that. 🙂
The bus brought us to the station where we had to stand in line for around an hour and a half to buy train tickets to Catania for the night. We were so exhausted since we haven’t really slept the past night so we just sat on our suitcases while we waited. I felt like a homeless person. When we finally got called up to the counter, we bought our tickets and bombarded the lady with questions which she was sweet enough to answer. She even told us about the amazing pizza in Naples.
And finally, we took the metro to the Colosseum. We expected it to take a while so we mentally prepared ourselves for the ride, but it brought us there in a matter of minutes.
Right when we got out at our stop, we were met with the magnificence of the famous Roman amphitheatre. It was definitely a glorious sight to behold (not even being sarcastic about it). We were absolutely awestruck at how majestic it was. After we closed our mouths and lowered our shocked faces from this absolutely amazing sight to behold, we noticed the bustling and quite lengthy lines of people waiting to pay to get inside and got a little nervous because we didn’t have a lot of time to waste.
And that was when our adventures in Rome began.
We were taking pictures across the road from the Colosseum, and this man walked up to us and asked if we were looking to get a tour inside the amphitheatre. Originally, that was our plan so we said yes. He said if we paid just a little more, we could skip the line and just pay his manager and we would be able to come in without the line. Now to anyone, that would’ve been a red flag instantly, but we didn’t even think about it. We were tired and really hot, and we just wanted to take the tour and go get some food. So that was how we got scammed.
We weren’t alone though. There was quite a large group of us, scammees. We had a tour guide that told us many things about the Colosseum – mostly derogatory. I mean, I knew it was a horrible place, and that it was where the Christians were killed back in the day, but only after seeing the place did it all sink in. The tour was supposed to be 1.5 hours long, but the tour guide lead us around for like 30 minutes then told us to take a break and meet up with another guide who would show us around Palatine Hill.
Basically, that other tour guide never really showed up. Or maybe he did, and we somehow missed him. But we never found the guy in the yellow shirt (from what I remember).
The Colosseum was amazing. People still ask me about how it was, and it’s just so difficult to put it into words. It was so much bigger than I ever imagined, and it was so crazy to think that I was walking the same ground that Apostle Paul walked which is what made it so cool.
So anyways, we still wanted to get into Palatine Hill (basically, an extension of the Colloseum). Except, we didn’t have the correct tickets. We found these people, a couple and their grandchild, who were scammed with us, and the guy was so mad that he went to the administrative office and threatened them (well, this was according to what he said happened). He came out of the office carrying seven tickets: three for them and four for us.
I actually don’t remember a ton from Palatine Hill other than it was really hot and dusty and I was super tired and my feet hurt soooo very bad. According to the pictures, it was extremely beautiful, though!
We were only in Rome for the day so we didn’t have a place to stay or take showers, so before going to eat anywhere, we just kinda sat on some random benches on the side of the road and washed the Palatinian dust off of our feet with baby wipes. Thank God my sister brought those things along!
Anyways, we went to this super cute outside/inside Italian restaurant where the crows also had a bit of a snack from the leftovers on peoples’ plates. No joke, there were a lot of crows haunting the place, but I don’t blame ’em. That was some real delicious stuff they served! I ordered some minestrone soup, and I’ve tried to order minestrone soup in the States afterward, but it was never as good. I don’t even remember the taste anymore… but I do remember the feeling I had eating it… and that was one totally content, satisfied, and happy feeling :).
We had this really funny Romanian waiter, who understood English, who totally tried to eavesdrop on our conversation, except because we kept switching between English and Russian (like all bilinguals usually do), he kept getting more and more confused. Finally, when he was gathering our plates, he asked us where we were from, and then when we said, America, he asked us where we were actually from. Then he told us that when he was walking behind us, he noticed that we were texting in Cyrillic letters, and that when he was listening to us and finally thought he understood the gist of our conversation, we would switch over to Russian and leave him in the dust again… literally 🙂 (Did I mention Rome is very dusty?). If he wasn’t such an adorable innocent-looking feller, he would totally qualify into being somewhat of a creep. 😀
We walked around some more and then headed toward our sleeper train where we would be staying the night and headed off to Catania, Sicily. I think that’s totally genius. Sleeping in beds and travelling at the same time. Only later did I find out that the beds were uncomfortable. I was so tired that I knocked out before even realizing how uncomfortable and hot it was.
But as tired as we were, I totally loved the trip… it’s definitely kind of a touristy thing… kind of like the Statue of Liberty… or the Eiffel Tower… and I’ll probably never go there again… because I prefer more local, cultured stuff rather than touristy stuff… but, come on, you gotta go there at least once in your life… and in the beginning, it’ll totally knock your socks off… or your sandals… because you probably won’t be wearing socks.
Recommendations:
- Buy train tickets and Colosseum tickets in advance so you don’t have to stand in the train stations for half the day.
- Don’t go there in June… Apparently the best times to go there are from October to April. Not so hot, less tourists, etc.
- Baby wipes! or wet wipes.. whatever you want to call them… Take those things with you! Especially, when you’re only there for the day. I definitely see why back in Bible times, it was respectable to wash a guest’s feet when they came over… I don’t think I’ve ever been in such a dusty place before… of course, I’m sure there was more dust back then, but then again, if I was a missionary and people didn’t want to receive the Gospel, I, for sure, would’ve had enough dust to shake off before heading off to the next city.
- I feel like if you’re on a less than luxurious European backpacking adventure, you have to expect that you’re not going to be sleeping that much… because it’s true.. you’re not.. and that’s okay.. because you don’t take these European trips way too often… and might as well get the full experience… and plus, it totally build character! 🙂