I only got about three hours of sleep last night. My alarm went off at 3:15am and I grudgingly rolled out of bed to get ready. Despite knowing how much it'd cost, I ordered a taxi. Because my flight was such an early one there was no other way for me to get to the airport. The buses and metro don't start up until 6am.
I left the house at 4am and was at the airport by 4:30. Security took two minutes and I could literally see my gate from the security line, so I had quite a bit of waiting time. Finally, at 5:45 they started boarding. It took forever, and it was already 6:30 (our set departure time) when the last person made it on. So needless to say we were late in leaving.
I had been prepared for Ryanair's stingy carryon baggage policy. I made enough room in my backpack so that I'd be able to stuff my purse in if needed. I'd heard from many people that they were very strict on what you bring on the plane. But guess what?! I got to the airport and found out they changed their policy last year! They are now the same as every other airline: 1 carryon, 1 personal item. Awesome, now I had room for souvenirs :)
I slept for most of the flight. Even though we'd left late our plane somehow landed half an hour early. I quickly made my way past baggage claim and to the shuttle busses, where I bought a ticket and got on, headed for Rome.
The bus stopped at Termini station half an hour later and I walked to my hostel in less than ten minutes time. I was planning on checking in and then sending Caron a message to figure out where they were at, but when I went to drop off my bag I conveniently happened to run into her and her friends. None of us had eaten breakfast yet so we walked towards the train station hoping to find some food.
As we walked she introduced me to the other three girls in the group and we talked about our plan for the day. We decided we'd buy a hop on/off tour bus pass and ride it to the Vatican. We had all bought tickets online and our reserved entry time was 12:00pm, so we had just under two hours to get there. Plenty of time.
Breakfast was quick but delicious. I ordered a cappuccino and a pastry. Both were very good. We drank our coffee at the bar, Italian style. When everyone had finished we went and found seats on the top deck of our double decker tour bus and headed to see the sights!
We saw some really cool buildings from our bus. Unfortunately our audio commentary wasn't working, so we didn't learn what those neat buildings were. There were a few stops before ours at the Vatican. Those stops were supposed to be for many of the famous monuments, but we couldn't see any of them from the bus. It was still really awesome to simply drive through the city. The architecture, old and new, is beautiful, and there are random pillars or ruins throughout the city. I kept thinking, "oh my gosh, how cool is this?! I'm actually in ROME!".
We got off at the stop for the Vatican and, unlike the other stops, saw it right away. We started down the street towards St. Peter's Basilica.
We stood in St. Peter's Square and took in the tall, white marble pillared walkways and the enormous basilica. The line for the basilica was crazy long and we didn't have a lot of time, so we went in the direction of the Vatican Museums. Down a long street and around the corner we found the entrance. With our pre-bought tickets we were able to go straight in, which was especially nice considering the size of the "buy tickets" line.
The place was gigantic. To give you an idea of how much so, it took us almost three hours to go through it, and that's basically without stopping. They had all sorts of things on display there: statues, church artifacts, pictures... My favorite part was the incredible painting and/or design of all of the ceilings. The best of these was, of course, the Sistine chapel. It was beautiful, and I found it absolutely amazing that someone actually painted all of that! Wow.
By the time we'd finished with the Museums we were exhausted and famished. We found a small pizza place and ordered "pizza al taglio", by the slice. It was good, but not hot and therefore not incredible. Though most of us were too hungry at that point to care.
With food in our stomachs we were in much better moods and ready to tackle the rest of our to do list. We hopped on the bus again and got off at the Spanish Steps. Since the bus dropped us off a few blocks from the actual monument it took us awhile to find the place. When we did, it started raining. We took some pictures and started walking in the direction of the Trevi Fountain, which we already knew was covered in scaffolding but wanted to see anyway. This also took us awhile to find, and when we did it was, in fact, hardly worth seeing. We couldn't see much of it at all. We couldn't even toss a coin in. Oh well, that's alright. I don't need to throw a coin in a fountain to know I'll be back here someday :)
After a quick stop for gelato we headed for the Colosseum. It was quite a ways away, but we got there eventually. We accidentally found the Pantheon, went past huge museums, up lots of stairs, and by a bunch of ruins before we knew we were in the right place. There it was, all lit up, all the way at the end of the street.
Our goal had been to make it there before the ticket office closed and before it got dark. Neither of those things happened and we were left taking pictures of the outside of the building in the dark. We made plans to get up early Sunday so that we could see the inside as well. Then, with aching feet, we started walking towards the bus stop for the Colosseum.
If you're ever in Rome, don't buy a hop on, hop off bus pass. We walked fifteen minutes just to find our stop. The stop for the Colosseum was FIFTEEN MINUTES from the Colosseum! Ridiculous. We then waited another twenty five minutes for our bus. Meanwhile, the rain had started falling again, and we were all tired of being on our feet. When we did finally get on the bus it felt amazing to finally be sitting down and dry.
As we rode through the city on the bus the rain began to pick up. Soon it was pouring. The streets became rivers, water poured into the bus from the opening up top, lightening crashed and thunder roared. It wasn't any better when we arrived at our stop. The ten minute walk back to the hostel was hilarious. Umbrella or not, it didn't matter. By the time we got back to the hostel were soaked through. We officially checked into our rooms (all of us ended up in different rooms), dried off, and then met downstairs so we could go find a place to eat at.
The one good pasta place I'd read about before the trip was nowhere to be found. So we looked at the menus of some of the other ristorantes on our hostel's street. We picked one that looked nice but still had fairly good prices. Our waiter was really nice. He spoke English, but wanted to know why we didn't speak Italian. He joked with us and gave us recommendations on what we should eat. We split a margarita pizza (which was delicious) and then all got different pasta dishes. I had spinach and cheese ravioli. It was good. The noodles were definitely made there and the tomato sauce was great. After another gelato for dessert (when in Rome, right?) we agreed to meet at 7:30 Sunday morning in the lobby so we could get an early start and see the Colosseum before they had to leave for their flight at 11am. I went up to my room, set my alarm, climbed in bed, and fell asleep almost immediately.
Day one in Rome was amazing.
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