Rome, Rome, Rome to Boat

Rome

With our open itinerary, we were unsure of where to go next, but knew we would need to leave the EU to renew our travel visa sometime in the next couple months.  We somehow decided that our best logical option would be to go on a cruise of the Eastern Mediterranean. We found a last minute cruise deal at price lower than our daily budget leaving from Rome that Friday.

After a night of price hunting our way out of Austria, we took a tired and tough plane ride at 3am from Vienna dropping us into Rome at 7am.  After spending the last three weeks in German-speaking countries, we had to dust off our Italian and trade our Danke's for Grazie's. Our German-Italian AirBNB hosts helped ease the transition, and picked us up from their local train station in their old tiny Fiat. We were thrown off right away by the erratic, aggressive driving in Italy, where lane lines rarely exist, and are even more rarely observed.  

On this stay, we realized that if an AirBNB review hints at something negative, it's probably a bigger issue sugar-coated because hosts read the reviews. So, our AirBNB's location was much farther from the city center than we'd expected. Our hosts explained how easy it was to reach the center of Rome with 3 quick bus transfers on two different bus lines because the metro shut down every night for construction.

It was almost 8am once we settled in at their place. We were going to nap because of how much sleep we missed from the early morning flight, but our hosts took offense to us not using every moment we had in Rome. So, after a delicious espresso on their balcony, we were back in the Fiat rolling down the hill to the Metro station.

A "splattering pig" vendor shows his wares

We found Rome to be very different than we left it when we visited years ago. We had Romanticized (pun intended) memories of cheap, mind-blowingly delicious pasta at every restaurant and the crowds of tourists to be less of a nuisance. Even though it was almost November, every road was bustling with people. Every major tourist site was full of immigrant vendors selling exploding rubber pigs and noisemakers.  The supply far exceeded the demand.


We spent the day re-visiting sites we'd seen before, equipped with podcast walking tours from Rick Steves for many of them. After an overpriced meal at an over praised restaurant, we were ready to head back across the city and out of town to find our AirBNB. We reached the metro station to find the gate already shut for the nightly construction. No problem, we'd take the bus instead. For some reason though, the bus directions that had seemed so easy over espresso that morning were very difficult in reality. The first bus we had to catch wasn't listed at any stops in the area near the metro. We asked around with our awful Spanish-infused-Italian. Bus drivers' only help was saying that it wasn't their bus, and police officers had never heard of the route. It started raining.

We walked and walked and pieced together information from people on where our stop could be. We finally discovered the only stop in the area for our route, boarded the bus and rode it for a half hour in the right direction.  We remembered our hosts' instructions to take the bus two stops past the metro station to get to the house, but hadn't remembered that we were also supposed to get off at the metro station to change lines first.  So we hopped off the bus into a completely foreign neighborhood, and spent the next hour piecing together a route back home with the help of some friendly pizzeria owners.  3 hours after we left Rome's center, we were back at our lodging.


Public transportation continued to elude us, as floods the next day left most of the Metro stations out of commission.  We bussed back into the city, armed with clearly marked maps, and made the most of our last day in Rome, exploring Trastevere, a neighborhood we hadn't been to our first visit.  We hit another well-reviewed restaurant and left with similar disappointment, and headed back home by bus, older and wiser than the day before.


The next morning our transportation curse struck again. We were scheduled to take the train to Civitavecchia to board the ship, but the train workers were all on strike.  Our hosts were very helpful, finding us a bus and dropping us off, but didn't ever address how to buy a ticket, which resulted in our free 2-hour transfer to the port.




Best Sights:
The sunset over Circus Maximus (see photo).


The fountains and the street performers in Piazza Navona.


The Basilica of St. Clemente: a 12th century church on top of a 4th century church on top of a 1st century Roman house.


Best Tips:
To save money on expensive dinners, go to bars that serve an aperitivo buffet for a light free dinner when you buy a drink.