Hello all... Here is my usual warning of the fact I'm using my itouch and the autocorrect does fancy things to my words (and I can't edit things after I post them on my itouch), so again please bare with me. I left off with Florence, we found awesome gifts there and it was a gorgeous place, but we were moving on to bigger and older things :) Rome. We left Florence wednesday morning around 10am on out LAST REGIONAL TRAIN!! Yay. It took about four hours to reach Rome (the high speed trains take about one hour). We arrived and got on the metro. The Rome station is like the craziest thing I have ever seen.. It's like a ghetto version of LAX or las Vegas airport, with all the hotels and shops and gyms and food places... But there were a ton of homeless people, one who kicked me in the foot on purpose! (I really wished I could have told him off in Italian.. I was so mad). After feeling like a sardine being smooched into a can we made it on our metro car and was headed to our hotel. We arrived to a apartment building (like ny with the call buttons) and no one was in at out hotel. We had to wait for a half am hour until the man who owns it randomly arrived (annoying) but we got in it's was ok, and the man was very nice and helpful. So we were just happy to be on a clean place. He was showing us the map of Rome and where we should go (barely understanding with his accent) he says to us... You should go here at night, it's where all the gay bars are. At the time I thought cool, because usually all the cool night clubs are gay bars are... Not think much of it. It wasn't until later when a couple was coming to look at the place (he seems to be trying to sell it) that they were giving us thumbs up (haha me and Kate thought it was weird but we went with it), they then asked us if we were from Germany ( yet another odd thing we thought)... To make the story short... I guess woman don't travel together in Italy (especially Rome) because everyone thought me and kate were a couple. When we FINALLY clicked because some creepy homeless man just kinda came out and said it, me and Kate were like ohhhhh and many things TOTALLY made sense. Haha ok that was our funny Rome story.
Down to the nitty-gritty, bottom line.. Rome is amazing. Not the prettiest/cleanest of cities.. But you could spend a week there and still not have done everything/seen everything. As I said, we arrived Wednesday afternoon and got settled in, we then went exploring. Starting at this plaza with two churches that are mirror images if eachother (sorry I don't have the book with the specific names, I'll add them later after the trip). Which was pretty coil. From there we walked down the streets (GREAT SHOPPING). Kate and I got amazing Louis Vuitton purses (cough cough) the Italian leather makes them feel amazing (Italian leather is AWESOME) and we got some other gifts as we walked down to the Spanish steps. We hung out there a little, tool pictures, walked up the steps and took more pictures, then headed down the street to go to the Trevi Fountain. When we got there.. I was in awe.. It is soo much bigger and soo more WOW than u can imagine or think about from pictures and the square is so much to tinnier than I thought too, there is no square it is pretty much the fountain and that's it. We got there around sunset so we took pictures, made our wishes for everyone (threw in our coins) and sat down and Kate ate the gelato she bought. It was a pretty great afternoon, after that we walked back to the metro and went back to the hotel. The next day we had tickets to the cOllseum with a tour guide. We got to go all the way to the top level and below to the basement, along with hearing all the stories/information about the colosseum, it was amazing and a "can't believe I'm here" moment. So I totally recommend getting the tour from the colosseum if you go bc like I said you get to go to places normal ticket holders or outside tour groups don't get to get (they just get floor 1 and 2). After the colosseum we went to the forum, which was hot!! But pretty cool. Some parts were boring and others really interesting (this place is hugeee we were ther for like 4 hours). After those two big spits we were tuckered out so we headed back and went to bed. Friday we had tickets for the Vatican Museum, and they are not kidding when they tell you to buy tickets ahead of time, there were like at least 500 people on line to buy tickets the line was insane... We just got right in (pretty awesome). We spent 5 hours in the museum (we got the audio guides) spending time seeing everything in every room in this place (and listening to everything) it was crazy how much stuff they had and the different types of things they had. And of course we saw the Sistine chapel, where there us a constant reminder that there is no talking and no photos with hearing " NO PHOTO, SHHHHHH" from the guards at the top of their lungs every 2 minutes, hahaha. Kate was getting annoyed with him, while I was sneaking stealthy camera shots (no flash of course) hahaha. We were super tired after the museum (I actually took a little cat nap at one point in our adventures). And went over to look at the church and Vatican square. There was another huge line for the church, so we decided to leave that for another trip to Rome, since we had a 640 am flight the next day (so everyone buy tickets to both the museum and the church ahead of time!) hehe. We had been checking the past couple days with different ways to get the the airport at 430am to be at our flight, buses would take too long, metros aren't open yet, taxi I guess... Until we stumbled on upon hiring a car! It would cost is 50 euros to take a taxi (plus weird bag fees or whatever random thing they were going to make up), or take a hired car (Mercedes) for 60 euros flat fee. We chose the Mercedes.. Of course!! It was so awesome (we felt cool) being picked up especially that early and dark by a nice man to take us to the airport, no hassles. He was a PIMP driver!! Going like 140 km/hr is the middle of the highway, let's just saw he was very efficient (and fun). We got to the airport WAY in time (and no stress so it was totally worth it) and checked in. After going through "security" (after what they make you do in america it was like kids playing security.. Haha). But we got on our plane after a little run in with the "can your carry on fit in here" box/sign thing. Took about 10 tries and looking like a retard, but finally got them in and out of that stupid thing smoothly and was able to board our plane. Our plane was a more generic version of southwest... U even had to pay for any drinks you wanted. Me and Kate didn't mind too much, we passed out I think before we even took off. Hahaha. So we arrive in Athens, Greece at about 10 am (one hour time change).
We couldn't believe it... Three countries down, only one more to go! Wow time has flown by.
We are now about to head to our first island (Crete) on a night ferry. Heading out soon to head to the port city (Piraeus) that serves Athens. I have caught you up until this past Saturday morning, up until Athens. When I get Internet next I will updated you on our four days in Athens.
Yay! Can't wait to be island hoping.. Tomorrow we will be doing the Samarian Gorge hike (hike to a small town on the south side of the island only accessible by this hike or by boat) have a late lunch and hang there, before taking a boat back to a road to the take a bus back up to our starting point :) CAN'T WAIT!
Bye for now!
No comments:
Post a Comment