James & Vilija

Having finished our day trip to Pompei we were sitting at the Pompei train station exhausted after another long day and lots of walking. As if we should have expected anything else, the regional train that we needed to take back to Napoli for the connection through to Roma was running late. This significantly reduced the chance that we would make our connection in Napoli. When it did arrive and took us to Napoli, we were two headless chickens running through the train station in search of the ticket office and then our subsequent train. With a stroke of luck we were on the correct train, complete with tickets in time. Anyone of the bemused locals who had bet on the crazed strangers missing their train lost their bets.

The reason we were keen to be back in Roma was that we were meeting a friend of Michaella’s from Australia who is also living here in Italy. Marco currently lives in Brescia, north-east of Milano and had spent Christmas visiting family in Napoli. Marco has had a lot of the same experiences as us including battling unsympathetic bureaucracy etc… It turned out that we were both planning on being in Roma for NYE and made plans to meet up. (more…)

Some handy hints for those of you planning a trip to Rome: (more…)

After a fantastic Christmas with the OC and family, and the relaxing days that followed, on the 27th a 7.30am train from Genova saw us arrive in Rome around lunchtime. After a few disorientating minutes at Termini train station, we got our orientation, weekly metro tickets (how organised were we!?) and jumped on the B-line that saw us exit right out the front of the Colosseum! I was immediately in awe, I wasn’t expecting it to be looming upon us as soon as we exited our stop. James was a little less impressed, disappointed by the black marks and cracks in this Roman icon caused by years of pollution and the metro system that runs a little too close below. We circled the Colosseum in search for the street where we were staying and were impressed to find that we were staying about a 100m down the road from it, with it sitting at the end of our street. (more…)