Italy Trip Re-Cap Part III: The Rome Saga begins

So here is the last installment of our Rome trip in my third entry. I invite you to see all of the trip pictures at http://653146190782660608.slide.com/?public_pr=true

Picture I: In front of the Fallen Solider Memorial
Picture II: Ditto with that huge pack on my back
Picture III: Us in front of Trevi Fountain giving Powerade a shot out (It does pay Craig's bills you know)
Picture IV: Our last meal in Rome at the most phenom restaurant. I can still taste the asparagus on ravioli.

And so the last part of our trip and the Rome saga story begins..........................

Jumping back on the train to return to Rome from Naples, we had apprehensions, should we stay here, travel the Coast a bit more, perhaps go to Sorrento, or head to Rome? We figured, we wanted to see what the “big deal” was with this City so we embarked on the 2 ½ hour train ride and ended up in the City Centre. We immediately went to the metro and got off at the metro near the Spanish Steps. Holy crap, there were thousands of people on the street, sidewalks, everywhere. Little did we know that the day we arrived was a holiday in Rome equivalent to America’s 4^th of July. So imagine being in the DC on the Mall at the height of the hour right before the fireworks. That was all of Rome for the entire duration of our trip.

We had already seen the Colloseum on our first day in Italy, and really we thought it would be bigger. I guess just being in Rome ended up being exactly like it was in history books, so we were not too impressed. We walked for about 4 hours through the streets stopping off every once in a while to see if any hotels had rooms. And absolutely no one hotel had a room. I really started to become upset and I was exhausted, my feet hurt and the 40 lb. pack on my back was not making the situation any better. Luckily Craig completely took a hold of the situation and went into the hotels for us to ask.

Before we left for the trip he had told me that he booked us at the Rome Marriott Park for 3 nights. It was a spa hotel with outstanding views and though nice, from the map it seemed like it was about seven miles from the city centre. So on our last night in Naples, we decided to cancel our reservation and just wing it in Rome because we had such great luck getting great hotels in Naples. BIG MISTAKE. HUGE. The city was completely booked, so after our four hours of seeing a few sites we decided to go back to the Termini station and ask the information desk to find us a hotel. There was a very nice man who said, “Look, I can find you a hotel, but they are not in good areas and not worth the money they charge you.” We totally appreciated his honesty and we decided to try the Rome Marriott Park Hotel (Via Colonnello Tommaso Masala ) since we had the reservation the previous night.

Well we didn’t want to pay the 40 Euros to get to the hotel so we asked information how to get there. She informed us we should get on the metro, go to the 128 Bus and at the end of that bus line would be the hotel.

Houston – that’s a negatory. But we had no other options. So at 6 p.m. we hopped on the metro and got off in a very sketchy part of the city. I was a bit flustered, but we easily caught the bus and were on our way. After about 2 stops, the bus stops, and the driver exits the bus. YES! He exited the bus, took his bag and walked away. I’m sitting in the back of this filthy bus in a sketchy part of the city with no driver and no idea where we are.

At this point, we had had a couple of hours of hell travel so all we could do was laugh it off and wait. We didn’t even mind we were sitting on the side of the rode with about 40 Europeans waiting for a new driver.

About 20 minutes later the driver comes back, same driver, and jumps back in his seat and away we go. I guess he needed to tinkle. So we were literally on a 40 MINUTE bus ride up and down, around and around and we started to get to the country side, near the highway where there was no sign of much civilization. This was not the Rome we expected and I just couldn’t believe that a Marriott would be a hotel out here in the middle of freaking no-where. Finally, after the gypsies sitting next to me got off, I checked my bag to make sure nothing was missing and we were the last people on the bus except for this one other American couple, obviously, the dumb Americans (us included) were going to the same place. The bus driver said we were almost there. I was dumbfounded. We pulled up to this residential area, near the highway with a BMW dealership on one side and this huge Marriott that was like a conference center at the top of the hill. But was made it ever more hilarious was that the road to the top of the hill had these packs of dogs just sitting on the side of road. About 20 dogs, all very mutt yet still kinda cute, sitting there looking at our bus like “Here come the dumb Americans” who booked a hotel in the middle of no where.

So we walk into the hotel which was gorgeous but we had no reservation. We of course played dumb like “Gosh, we have no idea what happened to our reservation”. After about 30 minutes we had our room at 169 Euros a night. A bit pricey! Our total hotel bill was more than $500 American dollars for 2 nights. The hotel attendant also told us that we could take the shuttle bus into the city (a 30 minute drive) which we though was great. Then she was like, that will be 10 Euros a person. And the last bus leaving from Rome is at 11 p.m. HUH? Nightlife in DC doesn’t begin until midnight. What were we gonna do till 11 p.m. Nevertheless, we booked the shuttle for noon and the returning bus at 9 p.m. because we figured we were just totally over Rome and this portion of the trip we just wanted to see some sights and get it over with. Upstairs we went and we walked in to an outrageously gorgeous room with two, yes two, marble bathrooms, a giant comfy bed and a decent view of the countryside and highway to the right.

I was so exhausted and my feet killing me so I immediately jumped into a very hot bath in our huge Jacuzzi tub. For an hour I sat there thinking, what the heck, how did we end up the sticks in Rome?

We decided to eat dinner at the hotel’s restaurant because there were NO OTHER OPTIONS. We were in the middle of nowhere. We get dressed up. I’m refreshed and we go down to the hotels very nice restaurant. The menu just looked like any other Marriott menu so I ordered a pasta, because we are in Italy right. Pasta and pizza are the prime dishes, right? WRONG. The worst pasta I ever had in my entire life. I asked the to take my plate back it was that bad, but Craig was starving so he ate the entire plate that he had ordered. As the bill comes, the server had still charged me for our pasta, though I had ordered a sloppy and pretty gross club sandwich to take its place. Who goes to Rome and orders a club sandwich? It was my only option people I promise!

I asked her to please remove the pasta that I did not eat from the bill and the server proceeded to tell me that they did not do that. Which I couldn’t believe. I had walked 4 hours that day, been on a filthy bus and metro, walked up hill to get to a hotel in the middle of no where. I was not in the mood to entertain the idea of me paying for shitty pasta as I had been in Naples having the best meals of my life the day before.

Nevertheless, after a long heated conversation, the pasta was removed, we went upstairs and PASSED OUT at like 10 p.m.

Waking up at 10 a.m. the next day we got dressed. And headed out to the shuttle to go to Rome.

Driving into Rome the first place we saw was the Vatican. And we thought it would be a great idea to go see Pope’s home that in case you did not know, is situated on 120 acres and is its own country. But the line to get in literally had about 500 people in it. That was our second sign that Rome was going to be an experience. We instead decided to look at the little street vendors and hang out a bit in the area by the river. That was a good idea and we saw some great architecture. We decided to jump on the train and go to different parts of the city. I really wanted to shop and we had a few places we wanted to see.

We saw again the Colosseum which I learned could hold at one time 55,000 people, we saw the Pantheon which was the largest done in the world for quite some time. We saw St. Peter’s Basilica which is the largest church in the entire world! And we saw Trevi Fountain which was packed with a sea of people there to take pictures. Rome was just entirely too touristy and the holiday did not make it any better. But we did have lunch at a very tiny and quaint restaurant off the beaten path at a place called Oemtica Osteria in Rome (Via della Lupa 6). We had pasta and pizza and house wine and sitting outside with the green vines and flowers around us made it very romantic. Italians love to let you linger over your food and take your time, so often you have to ask fo the bill. But we really appreciated not being disturbed and be able to enjoy our food without a server saying, would you like the bill.

We strolled through the Forum Romanum which had gorgeous temples, arches and old world charm. There was a violin quartet playing as we walked by but they were swamped with people and my feet was throbbing so I really could not enjoy. And we finally ventured around the Piazza di Spagna (Spanish steps) and walked along the uber expensive shops and stores.

Perhaps the best part of Rome was the SHOPPING. Despite there being tons of tourists and us having travel hell I found so many gifts for myself and others. Craig didn’t have the best of luck, but I was very happy with all of my purchases.

So I put together a little list of where we shopped, what was bought and the location for you.

• Mr. Wine SAS in Rome where I bought my Nero d’ Avola and Baglio Hopps Incantari (Piazza del parlamento 7)
• At Coin I bought a phenom turquoise necklace and grey necklace. Both very big and heavy, but totally my style in jewelry (Plaza le Appio 7)
• A monogram J with gold wax for all of those personal notes I love to write from Campo Marzio
• Silver jewelry from a street vendor
• Glass beads in green and black from la Pallina in Rome (Via Margutta 61c) This was perhaps my best buy because I plan to use these glass beads to make earrings for my girlfriends as gifts!
• Cigars for my dad
• Bags of very colorful and flavorful pasta (Naples)
  
• A pashmina scarf in baby blue (Naples)
  
• A ring from Cartavelina for my mom along with earrings for me and a dope necklace (Via Scarlatti 34) (Naples)

Our last few hours in Rome were at L’Osteria di Cicerone in Rome (Via Cicerone 22a) where we had the most amazing asparagus ravioli with cream sauce, three different types of pizza’s that Craig crushed and a bottle of Dolcetto d’ Alba. We liked this restaurant immensely! So much that we went back to get on the shuttle at 9 p.m. and there was a father and daughter there who wanted to jump on the packed 9 p.m. bus. We decided to switch tickets with them and go on the 11 p.m. bus so we could go back to this restaurant to eat again and have more wine and Limoncello for Craig.

At 11 p.m., very tired, a bit drunk and super full, we jumped on the last shuttle after Craig’s 3^rd pizza in less than three hours and we headed back to our hotel. We packed that night because we had to be up at 6 a.m. to head to the airport to hopefully jump on our flight back to the States stand-by.

And the saga continues………….we waited for 4 hours for our delayed flight and the entire flight was full. The flight attendant told Craig that only one of us could get on in Business and there were no other seats, but they were trying to bump someone to first class and then we could both possibly sit in business but we would not know until the very last minute. And the last minute it was! As they were about to begin boarding the flight they handed Craig two Business tickets. The people around us who had heard our saga cheered with us! American’s totally know how to unite and celebrate together in a time of struggle at the airport.

We go on the plane (after I got a full body search from a security person) which kind of blew my mind because we had already gone through security. And we walked on to our flight. It was a grand time coming back in Business class though Craig and I did no sit next to each other. He got completely trashed and drank entirely too much. I slept and watched movies and read the Financial Times. We were on our way back to reality, back to jobs, back to bills, back to $3.70 gas, a bad windshield wiper and a car that needs alignment! But you know what…………… the entire trip was worth it, the backpacks, the hotels, the shopping, the stress, the worn out PUMA’s I never want to wear again, the little fights in Rome, the stress at the airport, the wonderful weather, phenom food and wine and the time that Craig and I were able to spend together and be in each others presence non-stop. I’ll remember my trip for the rest of my life!