Ken and Elise's trip

Day 19: Arrival in Rome

   We left our lovely little hotel in Mestre and grabbed a morning train to Rome. I’ll be quite honest here--neither of us was especially looking forward to Rome. We had read such awful things about pickpockets and scam artists that we were simply not enthusiastic. We knew it would be hot too, and we just weren’t up for it. However, you can’t do a tour of Europe and leave Rome out, so we had dutifully scheduled 2 ½ days there.

   We arrived around noon, and finally had the unbelievable experience of finding our hotel without trouble. Ken had researched it well on Mapquest, and had a small map he had drawn. I was a bit nervous about Rome Termini (the main train station in Rome) as it is supposedly rife with pickpockets and you have to watch your stuff every second. Also, after the monstrous size of the Milan station, I was expecting Termini to be even bigger and harder to navigate. It may actually be bigger;  I don’t know. All I know is that it was laid out in a more friendly fashion and we had absolutely no trouble navigating it. We saw nary a pickpocket either--well we probably did see them as I believe they are endemic to the station, but they never bothered us once.

  Ken navigated us out the side of the station, down a street or two, and right up to the door of our hotel. It was situated on the second floor of a large building which houses quite a number of tenants---Casa di Eddy (the name of our hotel) has several rooms on the second floor. I’ll admit to being a bit apprehensive about this one. It was close to the train station which is definitely not the best neighborhood in Rome. And the price was excellent. The reviews were good on it too, but I questioned how it could be really very nice at that price--AND be safe. As it turned out, all my worries were for nothing.

   The place was just lovely. We met the manager, Joseph and liked him immensely. He works a second job, so is not always at the desk. However, he was there to greet us and show us to our rooms. He also showed us a very nice sitting room which was available for guests to use. It had cool fruit juices, cool water, and coffee cake which one could partake of at any time one wished.

  The room, too, was just great. So very comfortable. But it wasn’t the room that caught Ken’s attention. He fell in love with the bathroom--the shower in particular. Once again we had both a toilet and a bidet (which we still have not figured out how to use). But it was the shower that made my man’s heart sing! It was what they call a “rain shower” and I must admit that it did feel like sort of a gentle rain coming down on you.  It was huge with a nice area to sit down in if you wanted. It was all of ceramic tile with a glass door that closed. There were actually two showers--the rain shower and another spigot that sprayed water on you another way. It really was quite fancy. Before long Ken was calculating how to remove the bathtub in our middle bath and replace the whole thing with a replica of the one at this hotel. He mentioned it to Joseph who immediately starting showing him the ins and outs of it and how they did it in other rooms.

   I liked the shower just fine, but I loved the room! The bed was memory foam mattress and so very soft and comfortable. Everything was so nicely appointed you really sort of didn’t want to leave. I felt VERY safe there which surprised me. I had expected to be nervous about leaving the room and our valuables, but I just never worried about it. There was a safe in the room and we did use it, but I never felt we had too. The security getting into the building was great, and there was just something about Joseph that made you feel that anything he managed would be totally safe.

  We rested a little and then decided to try to find the Colosseum which I had read was within fairly easy walking distance of the hotel. We checked with Joseph who said it should take about 20 minutes. “All the way down, down down,” he smiled. “But coming back, all the way up, up, up which is why you take the metro coming back.”

  Well that didn’t sound too auspicious and I actually did think we should look into the metro. But we are still the country Gorths and would just rather not have to deal with learning the metro in a strange city if we can avoid it.  And of course, the best way to avoid it is to walk! I wish I knew how many miles we have walked on this trip. I can guarantee you, it’s an astonishing amount!

   Off we went, following Joseph’s map. We were trudging along pretty well when Ken said, “Do you see it!” “See what?” I asked grumpily wishing that someone would magically appear with a wheelchair and say, “Hello madam, you look a bit warm. May I give you a nice push to wherever it is you need to go?” “The Colosseum,” Ken replied. “That has to be it--just ahead.” And sure enough, when I raised my tired head enough to look, there it was! The Colosseum. Where so much history has taken place. Oh how very grand and huge it was. We arrived at it a few minutes later and just stood there taking it in, thinking of all the tales it could tell if it could just talk. I thought of the Christians thrown to the lions--the chariots that had been driven inside it. I forgot how tired and hot I was. All I could think of was that Ken and I were actually standing in front of the actual Colosseum.

  Finally we woke up to reality and realized we were hungry.  There were quite a few outdoor cafes around the Colosseum so we wandered over to them. Once again, almost before we knew what happened, a hawker had us sitting at a table. We had a very good meal with some of the best minestrone soup I have ever had (although Ken still insists that the one we had the night before in Venice was better).

   After eating, we walked down to the Colosseum and actually touched it. As we left we went into a lovely park across from it and we had the pleasure of seeing the “windows” lit by the setting sun. It was a glorious experience.

  I have to admit that I was not looking forward to the march back to the room. I kept hearing Joseph's “and all the way back up, up, up” comments in my mind. My feet were tired and even though the evening temperatures were cooler, I just wished we could afford a taxi. I whimpered my thoughts to Ken who looked at me a bit surprised.. “I don’t think it is going to be that bad,” he said. “Did you really notice all that much of a hill when we went down?” I had to admit that I hadn’t and as it turned out he was right. The trip back was not intense at all. Apparently when you’ve climbed up to Mary’s Bridge or trudged the Alps, that little climb up from the Coliseum is not that big a deal.

   We got back to the hotel with no incident and without falling prey to the millions of pickpockets. We fell gratefully into our comfortable beds--after trying out the amazing shower of course.

End of Day 19

Ruins being excavated by the Coliseum. They date back to AD 86!

Ken touches the Coliseum

One of our gazillion photos of the Coliseum

Ken was fascinated by these right on the street gas pumps. Scooters could just pull over and gas up.