Just Landed in London: While in Rome...

I'm been so lazy updating my blog because I'm quite busy with work and travel. But here we go, I'm hoping to pick it back up one weekend at a time. My first city break is Rome. I took Thursday and Friday off. This is the first trip that I'm going by myself, quite nerve wrecking, but as a result, I'm more organized and did my research before the trip. The biggest thing about rome is to buy passes online, don't wait until you get to the colloseum and queue for the ticket because they were unbelievably long. After a ,to of reading, I bought RomaPass. You get 3 days worth of bus and Metro unlimited trips. It also included two free passes to many tourist places. Vatican City tour was separate, got that online also.

I flew out of Stansted, not Heathrow. Loads of cheap airlines fly out of other cities. I took a train to Stansted. Pretty easy ride. Ryan Air is so cheap (around 100 pounds for this trip) that they charge for every single thing. Make sure to bring a paper copy of the ticket which is just an email confirm with a bar code, if not it will cost you 50 or 60 pounds. Forget about free checked in bag and inflight refreshment. There will be none of that. The seats are unassigned. Queue for everything, including boarding to the plane from the Tarmac.

I landed in Rome Ciampino airport around noon. I already bought a Terravision bus ticket from there to the Termini, which is the main hub of the Metro. From Termini, I can then use my Roma pass to take metro to the station by my hotel. It was a bit confusing in Termini because I didn't know where to pick my pass. Nobody spoke English, but I then found tourist information desk, where I picked up the pass.

Like I said, because I went by myself, I was so prepared. I had a google map print out from termini to BNL ATM machine. I had to use BNL because it's Bank of America global alliance, so no ATM fees. It was just a short walk to the ATM. Next destination was the hotel. The streets in rome are narrow and cobble stoned, not so fun to walk on. The check in was interesting. First it took forever, the guy wrote the receipt on paper. Then after I paid for 3 nights. He dropped the bomb by informing me that the second and third nights are going to be at a different hotel. What? where? He sold it to me by saying the hotel is a better location because it's by Termini. Okay, at this point I couldn't anything. I already paid. Actually it worked out for the better. The second hotel was better. They moved my bag so I didn't need to worry about that.

It was around 2PM when I walked to the Spanish Steps. These are the views taken from the Spanish Steps area.

That night I went to Villa Borghese. It was a long walk and started getting dark, so it was to see the map. I had to take a picture of the park map, so I could see where I had to go.

I got lost a lot in Rome. The city doesn't have a grid. Hard to navigate.

I walked by Trevi Fountain, which was beautiful at night and it was such a tourist magnet. This is a low season, can't imagine what this place is like in September.

The hotel provided breakfast. I was ready to go by 8.30AM. I took the metro to Colosseum. Once the got off the station, Colosseum was right in front you. The ticket for Colosseum, Forum, Palatine Hill are one. I went to the forum first. It was basically the ruin of a village. Very impressive how they survived thousands of years. These are some of the pictures.