we set out to get the bus to San Sebastian and almost missed the bus! Got to the top of the road and there was the bus just pulling into the stop. Barry ran and I followed, not running, as I was pulling a suitcase behind me. We did get on - whew thinking that was a good start to out trip. Bus to San Sebastian - no problems. Flight to Barcelona delayed by just over an hour which meant that by the time we got to the hotel, right next to the airport, and then to our room it was close to 1.30 am and we had a wake up call arranged for 5.15am. Not much sleep!
Flight to Rome was ok and then we decided to take a shuttle to the apartment - 2 hours later we got there. We passed 2 accidents and were stuck in a traffic jam for a little while plus we were the last of 4 others to be delivered to hotels etc. We were over the travel, just wanted to get on with our holiday.
The apartment was great, small with almost everything we could need, only 10 minutes walk to the colosseum, Roman Forum and Palatine Hill, 2 minutes to a metro station and lots of restaurants, bars etc were all around us and we found a little superette a few minutes walk from our door where we bought coffee, tea and other such essentials. We found out that the area the apartment is in is the oldest residential part of Rome.
our street, the apartment is about half way down, on the left
the windows above the door with the open shutters is our apartment
The only things missing from the apartment were information re where to find the nearest metro, the shop, the nearest information center and most of all - a map of Rome. May be we shouldn't expect them but they've been in other places that we've stayed in and I think that when someone lists their place as tourist accommodation they should al least provide these basic things.,
It meant that we spent the first day looking for a tourist information center and finally asked some people who were looking at a map where they had got it from, to which they replied, " our hotel, here, have this one because we've got 2".
Gratefully, we accepted their map and found our bearings. Turns out that Rome doesn't have actual 'info centers' but 'info kiosks' and we also found a kind of travel/tourist place not far from our place, the next day! In the meantime we'd bought an English language guide book in the big bookshop in the main rail terminal. We were all sorted re info etc, and feeling very tired - we'd walked for miles all over the city, so stopped at a little restaurant in the street next to ours for dinner. Very nice dinner it was too and kind of expensive. Not all little places are cheap but we simply couldn't be bothered looking for a cheap place. Everywhere was busy and we had our dinner out on the street because there was no room inside. Well, when I say we sat outside - we had a table and chairs, it was part of the restaurant but no choice about being inside or outside. Then up the street, round the corner, in the door, up 1 flight of stairs, into the apartment and then sleep at last. Not quite, I forgot - we tried to book a guided tour of the Colosseum because, with a guide we got to go down into tunnels and right up to the 3 rd tier, without a guide these 2 places are off limits. We simply couldn't get it right, we tried and tried and gave up, fairly fed up with it, so then we went to bed. It had been a very long day!
side street just off our street about 50 meters along
about 10 minutes from our place
No comments:
Post a Comment