We arrived slightly behind schedule on our flight to Rome, but much less than the delay we had departing Charlotte. We were pretty tired from not getting enough sleep on the plane, but overall, we were doing as well as could be expected.
We got off the plane and headed to Immigration, which went really smoothly. There were a lot of customs agents available for processing passports, even for non-European Union passports like ours. I always feel sorry for cruise passengers from Europe when they go to the USA, the lines are long, and the forms are confusing, and why do we even have customs, no one else seems to, and there were no confusing forms to fill out (why can’t we do it this way in the USA). We then headed to baggage claim to begin the stressful “did our bags make it” routine. The baggage claim area in Rome was really nice, there were about 14 different baggage claim carousels. However, since there appeared to be about three or more International flights arriving within a few minutes of our flight, there were quite a lot of other passengers and luggage to get offloaded.
We think there was only one person actually unloading luggage at our baggage claim, it took forever for many of the bags to come out. Of course, all of the first class and other high priority passengers got their bags first. After waiting (and a little worrying) about 25 minutes, our bags finally came out. There were not a lot of other passengers waiting for bags, so ours must have been some of the last to get unloaded. Maybe that was because we were so early arriving in Charlotte for our flight to Rome, and the bags were first on, last off. We were a little anxious, but when both bags came out within a few seconds of each other, we sighed in relief.
After collecting our suitcases we left the baggage claim area and headed to the tourist information booth to purchase our “Roma” cards, which allow us to visit two sights for free and also to ride any of the inter city public transportation systems for 72 hours. We had to wait for a few other persons in line, some asking really stupid questions, but after all, it is an information desk. One lady from the UK could not even get out the correct reservation for her hotel in Rome to hand to the patient lady so that the attendant could give her directions on how to get there. She really had no clue, and I was just so surprised that there are people that don’t take the time to figure out the directions before they leave home.
We finally got the Roma Passes and headed to the train station in the airport to purchase the special Leonardo Express tickets into Rome. We used an automated ticket machine and were happy to find that our credit card worked, although it did not ask for a PIN.
We waited about ten minutes and the train arrived. Within another ten minutes we were heading to the main train station in Rome, Termini. The trip into Rome was uneventful, and we enjoyed the peacefulness of the 31 minute ride.
We got off the train in Termini, and headed outside for the fifteen minute walk to our hotel. We had written down directions and used google maps street view to look at the route. There were some issues with non luggage friendly curbs, but we made it to the hotel in about fifteen minutes. We rang the buzzer and they released the door lock for us to come up one floor to the hotel desk, which occupies two floors in a generally residential housing building.
They were expecting us since we had let them know our tentative arrival time, and after checking our Passport information, we were taken to our room, which we were thankful was available earlier than the normal 2:00 PM check in time. It was about noon, and had taken about two hours from the time the plane landed for us to get to the hotel.
We were very pleased with the room, it is on a quiet courtyard, and not on the main street. After organizing our luggage, and cleaning up a little from the long flight, we gathered up our backpacks and camera gear and headed out for some lunch and sightseeing. We had put together a detailed plan on what we intended to see today, based on having to store our luggage an a secured room at the hotel, and returning for check in a couple of hours later. However, since we were already in our room, we decided to change the plan. The change was also based on the current weather forecast for Rome. They were forecasting rain for all day Thursday and also on Friday morning, which was the morning we had originally planned to visit the Colosseum. We decided to go and visit the Colosseum first thing today since it was included in the Roma Pass, and the pass was supposed to provide us with a quicker entry, avoiding the long ticket lines.
It was just a short ten minute walk to the Colosseum from the hotel, and as expected, there were fairly long lines for entry. We went to the special Roma Pass line, and it was much shorter than the line to purchase tickets. We found out that these were really the lines to go through security screenings, which were before the ticket windows and the entry point. We had brought three bottle of water from the hotel, and were disappointed to see that no full water bottles were permitted through security. Initially, we did not see that they were scanning all bags, so we thought we could hide them inside our backpacks, but once we saw the x-ray machines, we knew better, and began to drink the waters like everyone else around us. We downed two of the three, and Stephanie kept the last one in her bag, hoping they would not see it, but of course, it was observed and promptly confiscated. We guessed this was to avoid anyone bringing in any flammable liquids for setting fires, thank you terrorists.
We were able to keep the empty bottles, which we later filled back up from the water spigot fountain inside the Colosseum, which are typically used for drinking water all around Rome.
Of course, the entire Colosseum was packed with tourists, and it was actually a little hard to get around in some areas, which was why we had originally planned to visit here first thing in the morning, to avoid all of the tour groups. Not much had changed in the eight years since we first visited the Colosseum, but it is still an impressive sight even though much of the original structure is missing. It had to really be impressive in Roman times.
After the Colosseum, we visited the arch right outside for some photos, and then decided to go ahead and take the nearby Metro to the St. Paul Outside the Walls Church, several metro stops to the south of the main area of ancient Rome.
We hopped on the Metro at the Colosseum stop and headed to the Metro stop for the Church. It was just a few blocks walk to the church from the station, but the front entrance was in the middle on the farthest side from the metro station, so it was quite a walk to get around to the entrance once we got to the church.
There were several military guards posted at the church for security, and we had also seen them in the Metro stops and at the Colosseum, so I guess they are at the most high profile areas and sights around Rome for protection.
We entered the church through their Holy Doors, this was the first of the four Major Basilicas we would be visiting during this special Year of Mercy, where the Holy Doors were opened. The church was not crowded inside at all, and was really nice and peaceful after being in the crowded Colosseum. It was very large inside, but mostly empty other than some pews and chairs near the front altar. There was a recessed area where you could view the end of the marble sarcophagus that is purported to be the buried remains of St. Paul, which were placed there in the original church building that had been built on this site.
We noticed that two priests were setting up for a Mass, so we decided to stay and attend the Mass. At first, we were unaware that there was a special group of people on a Pilgrimage, and that this was their group setting up for Mass. However, when the priest welcomed everyone, it became clear that they were all together as a large group. The group was all from several parishes in Louisiana. It was nice that this unexpected event occurred, and also nice that it was entirely in English. There were four priests and two deacons celebrating the Mass and probably 60 people in the group.
After Mass, we talked with another couple, who were like us, not part of the group from Louisiana. They were from Texas and were just here to visit the church, as well as the other three Papal Basilicas. They had been in Rome for a few days already, and fully understood how tired we were from the travel and time change.
We visited the gift shop at the church, and then headed back to the Metro Station to ride back into the city center and head the the Spanish Steps. It had sprinkled rain on us while we were walking to the metro, and of course, we had not packed our rain gear or umbrellas in our backpacks, the forecast had not called for any rain. It looked like the clouds were moving through, so we decided not to go back to the room to pickup our rain gear, it was going to take too long.
When we arrived at the metro stop nearest to the Spanish Steps, and went outside, it was showering much harder. We found a protected area and waited out the rain shower. It diminished some, so we went ahead and climbed up the Spanish Steps, something neither of us had ever done on any previous trips to Rome.
Most of the time, in better weather, most of the steps are being used for benches, but with the rain, the steps were mostly clear of sitting people, which made it nicer. The views from the top were nice, overlooking the city towards the Vatican and St. Peter’s. There is a church at the top of the steps, and we headed there to visit and try and get out of the rain. We did not know that the church was now a private school, and there was no entry. There was a covered area at the church entrance, so we, along with several others, used it to keep dry while the rain moved out.
Once the rain quit, we headed over to the Trevi Fountain, not to distant from the Spanish Steps. It was getting dark, but there was still enough light for some photos. Of course, it was really crowded at the fountain. After a few pictures, we headed to the closest Metro stop to head back to the area near our hotel to try and find the restaurant we had really enjoyed while here on our honeymoon in 2008. As we walked to the Metro station, we passed a COOP grocery store and went in an purchased some wine for later.
It was showering again, but not bad. We had to connect from Metro Line A to B at the Termini Stop, and the train was really crowded with people on their way home, especially at Termini, which is not only the main train station, but the only place on the entire Metro system where both of the metro lines intersect, and you can transfer to the other line.
We finally made it to the metro stop near our hotel, Cavour, and headed up Via Urbana to look for the restaurant. We had actually seen a small restaurant on the way out to the Colosseum, and it appeared to have a good menu, so we stopped there to eat, too tired to look for the one we had visited before. It was pretty funny that once we were inside, we discovered it was our place, and were happy that we had accidentally found it. We had not recognized it from the outside both earlier today, or even now, but once inside, it was easily recognizable from the table that was near the entrance that we had sat at in 2008 on one of our two dinners here.
We were glad to be sitting, both of us were tired and a little sore from all of the walking. We ordered a liter of red, or “rosso” house wine and dinner, which was really good once again. The restaurant was packed when we left, and there were even people waiting outside to be seated.
The hotel had requested that we pay for the room in advance tomorrow morning, and we wanted to take advantage of their 5% cash discount, so we needed to visit an ATM to get the cash. Unfortunately, we had not gotten our ATM card out to bring with us when we left the hotel earlier, so we went to the room to retrieve it, and headed out to find an ATM machine.
I had tried to do a search on Google, but could not find an ATM through google that was nearby. Of course, we had seen many during the day while we were walking around town. We knew there were bound to be ATM’s at the Termini Train station, so we headed there. It is about ten minutes walking time, but entirely uphill to the station, and we were already tired. It took a little bit, but we finally located the ATM machines and got our cash, and then walked back to the hotel. It was about 10:30 PM, and we were really tired, but knew it was good for time adjustment to be on the go and stay up as late as we could on the first day. Mission accomplished.
We were happy to finally be able to take showers after all of the travel, and visiting in Rome. Unfortunately, there seemed to be a lack of hot water for the shower, so we did not enjoy that as much as we had hoped after a long day. We later figured out that the shower faucet is really tricky to operate, and not easily adjusted, so while there was really plenty of hot water, we had not adjusted the faucet to take advantage of it.
After showering, we enjoyed some of the wine we purchased earlier before calling it a night. We set the alarm for 6:30 AM and drifted off to sleep.