This morning we were awakened by the sound of thunder, it was actually before the alarm, which was set for 6:45 AM We knew from the weather forecast last night that there was some severe weather moving though early in the morning.
Since I was awake, I got up and headed to the shower. It was nice to know that we did not have to wait on the hot water to replenish now that we understood we were on a gas system, and that hot water came from our on-demand hot water heater.
Shortly after I finished my shower, I got Stephanie up, and she got showered and ready. We ate some breakfast of bananas and yogurt, and finished our packing. We were ready long before the time we were scheduled to catch our shuttle at 8:55 AM, so it was nice to know we could relax a bit before taking our luggage down all of the steps to the shuttle pick-up point at the Bar Internazionale. We wanted to be a little early, everything in Italy seems to be on a different schedule, so we had decided to leave the apartment at 8:35 AM, well before the scheduled pick-up time.
We left on time and made sure we had the gate open and the bags down to the bottom of the steps before we locked the door and left the keys inside. Luckily, the rain had stopped by the time we were ready to leave, but it was still very cloudy.
It was a little trouble getting the luggage down the steps, I did it in increments, I tried taking both bags at once one time, but carrying nearly 100 pounds of luggage down steps was too much, so I then started taking one bag at a time to the next landing, then going back up to get the next one, and carrying it down. Stephanie was taking care of my camera bag and her backpack.
We got to the bottom of the steps and were immediately approached by a gentleman asking our names, and if we were taking s shuttle to Napoli. He verified our names that were listed on his phone, and we headed down the hill to his van. We thought we were the last pickup at 8:55 AM for the 8:30 AM shuttle, but we ended up being the first people on the shuttle. It was good that we were early arriving at the pick up location. We proceeded down into Positano and picked up two other couples, one from Australia, an one from California, as we learned later into the trip.
There was not a lot of traffic on the Amalfi Coast highway as we headed toward Naples, and our driver was very entertaining. He was from Naples, but lived with his wife and three children in a small town near Sorrento, the town his wife was from. They had met at the university in Naples, and his children were all athletes. He apparently was highly educated, he had licenses to do explosives, and to run tunneling machines, among other things, and had worked on the longest tunnel in the area that we passed through on the way to Naples. He was doing the shuttle driving so that he could stay close to home with his family, most of his jobs doing what he was best at, and made the most money at, were always away from home.
The drive to the Naples train station took a little over two hours, there was one wreck that slowed down the traffic closer in to Naples. By the time we arrived at the Naples Train Station, it was raining, and windy. We were dropped off in a parking lot right outside the station and headed inside after we got our luggage out of the shuttle. It was still raining, but it was just a short walk into the station, so we did not get out our rain jackets.
The first order of business was to find a restroom. The drive had taken longer than expected, and we needed to find the facilities. They were on the far side of the station, and almost outside, they were in an area that was barely covered from the rain and colder weather. I went first. Stephanie did not need to use the restroom yet. It was a Euro 0.50 charge, but they were clean. It was really raining now, and much colder, so we got out our raincoats. We wanted to find some lunch before our 12:00 PM train to Rome, and we found a sandwich shop inside the station. The food was actually pretty good, and after finishing, we headed out to see if our train had been assigned a platform number. We happened to run into the couple from Australia that we had shared the shuttle with, and it happened that we were on the same train, but they were going farther on to Florence, and we were only going on to the first stop at Rome Termini.
For some reason, our platform was not being announced, and it was a little confusing because there was another train going to Rome just 5 minutes earlier than ours, The Australian couple was in a little bit of a panic, they thought the earlier train may have been combined with ours , but that was not the case. Eventually, although delayed, they finally assigned our train a platform.
We headed out onto the platform area to the designated place for Coach No. 6, and it was a good distance out. The train was just arriving as we reached the designated area for Coach 6, and then headed to the end of the coach for the lower number seats. Unfortunately, train personnel were trying to load something onto that end of the Coach, so we had to go to the far end and board there. We headed to the opposite end of our coach and placed our luggage on the floor between the seats in the open area between opposing direction seats. We were hoping there was not anyone assigned to sit beside us, and that came true as the train started out of the station. We had opposing seats again so one would be in the direction of forward travel for Stephanie since she does not like to ride backwards. We were able to sit side by side facing forward for our short one hour and six minute ride to Rome.
This high speed train was much nicer than the one we had ridden from Rome to Naples. Even though they were the same type of train, this was seemed newer. Train attendants came by and gave us water bottles and a snack, it was similar to airline service. They also offered three different newspapers, but of course we declined since they were obviously in Italian.
I worked a little on the blog since they had high speed, well relatively high speed, Wi-Fi on the train. This train was really smooth, and it also had monitors to tell us our speed, and where we were in the journey. By the time we approached Rome, it was sunny outside, and we did not have to worry about any rain. We arrived about 10 minutes late, normal for Italian trains, and exited with our luggage. We stopped to pack our rain jackets back into our luggage because it was nice and sunny here, and they were no longer needed. We did that out of the way on the platform right after we got off the train since we had to open one suitcase, and it was easier to do it there than inside the busy, crowded terminal.
We headed out of Rome Termini Station, and started the walk to our hotel, the Aenea Superior Inn, which was about a 12 minute walk from the station. We knew the way to the hotel since we had stayed here on a previous trip. We arrived and buzzed in to the intercom system, and the receptionist came out to meet us at the large entrance door on the street. The hotel shares this building with residences, so that outer door remains locked all of the time.
Our room was ready and we checked in, We were on the same floor as the time we stayed here before in 2016, it is newer than the original rooms one floor up. We were at the end of the hall, so we would not be next to the room used for the cleaning service and storage, which was the case last time we stayed here. We hoped this room would be quieter, there was a lot of noise in the mornings from the service room we stayed next to last time.
We unpacked some items and got settled into the room. It was a nice size room, but nowhere near as big as the last apartment we had in Positano, but also not nearly as expensive. Once we were settled in and got ready, we ventured out into Rome. We wanted to purchase a 72 hour Roma transportation card to start using tomorrow, so we headed to the Metro Station nearby. Unfortunately, the ticket machine only took cash, but would not give more than Euro 6.00 in change, and all we had was a Euro 50.00 bill, too big to purchase the passes and meet the maximum change restriction. We then headed toward the Metro station at the main rail station.
On the way to that station, we passed by a church we had not visited before, it was built out of the ruins from a Roman Bath, and the name of the church was The Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels and the Martyrs. It had originally been redesigned by Michelangelo in 1564, he wanted to utilize some of the walls of the Roman Bath. Other parts were completed sometime later in 1749. It was really pretty inside and had a meridian line, which is a version of a sundial, added to the floor in 1702. The sunlight goes through a small opening in the wall of the church at noon, and indicates the date where it shines on the floor.
After leaving the church we walked to Metro Station that was a little ways away from the main train station. Unfortunately, we did not find a ticket office at that Metro Station either, so we abandoned that task, hoping now to just find a Bankomat ATM and get some money in smaller denominations. Certainly we expected to see an ATM as we walked to various sights in Rome.
We decided to head to the Trevi Fountain from here and them to the Spanish Steps, they were not that far from our hotel, at least not on the map.
We walked to the Trevi Fountain first, and it was packed with people, as expected. We took a few photos and then headed to the Spanish Steps, another landmark of Rome. After the Spanish Steps, we continued our walk to the northern gates of the city of Rome near the Piazza de Popolo. Three main streets converge here at the Piazza, and there are two identical churches on the corner of two of the streets flanking the middle street.
We had not been to this part of Rome before, so it was nice to see something different. There was also a Cathedral there, the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo, which we visited. It was pretty ornate inside, but a little dark unless you paid for timed illumination.
There was a Metro Station nearby, so we opted to each purchase a single 100 minute ticket for the ride back toward our hotel. It was getting late, and we needed to find somewhere to eat. Before we went to the metro, we checked Google Maps to find a grocery nearby. Google Maps showed a Coop Store not too far from the Metro Station. We walked there and got some supplies, a couple of bottles of wine, some yogurt for breakfasts, and two bottles of Diet Coke for Stephanie.
We rode the M1 Metro to the stop nearest our hotel, and them walked the rest of the way there. We finally found a Bankomat ATM on the way home and withdrew money in Euro 20.00 denominations, small enough for the Metro Ticket Machine purchase of our 72 hour passes, which we will now purchase in the morning.
Once home, we mapped out the route to our favorite restaurant near the hotel that we love to visit. Unfortunately, we found out via Google Maps that it was closed on Mondays, so we needed an alternative place to eat. We looked at several other restaurants nearby on Google, and decided on one just a few blocks away called La Carbonara. It did not open until 7:00 PM, so we rested in the room for a while and them left about 7:15 PM and walked there in just a few minutes. It was a really small location, and it was already very full with people eating. Someone ahead of us asked about waiting for a table, and they were told that nothing was available until 10:00 PM. That was not an option for us.
We headed back up the street to another place we had seen with good reviews on Google, Ristorante TEMA, that we had passed on the walk to La Carbonara. We requested a table for two and were seated right away. It was fairly crowded, but had quite a few empty tables. The food was reasonable, but the wine was only sold by the bottle, and seemed a little pricey, but we ordered some anyway. We ordered our pasta, Stephanie had a spaghetti dish, and I had Penne pasta with the spicy Arabbiatta sauce. Before the pasta came out, they brought us each a complimentary appetizer, fried zucchini and anchovy dipped and fried in a batter. We would never have ordered it ourselves, we are not fans of anchovies, but this was actually quite good, maybe the anchovies were fresh, and that made the difference.
The meals came out and they served us bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Everything was good including the wine we ordered. After dinner, they brought us two small glasses and refrigerated bottles of both limoncello and something called Liquore Agricanto Paladin, both considered Digestivo’s, or after dinner drinks. They were complimentary, which was nice. I had the limoncello and Stephanie tried the Liquore Agricanto Paladin, which had a cherry taste, at least that was what we thought. They were very thankful that we had eaten there, the service was great and the food was good.
We headed back to the room, we were both tired from the long day of travel, and then all of the walking in Rome. Tomorrow, we need to get up fairly early so we can head over to St. Peter’s to go through the Basilica before our tour of the Necropolis under the Basilica, the Scavi Tour we had reserved long ago, which is tomorrow at 11:15 AM.