Rome Revisited, Last Stop – Italy Adventures

I was going to just add this on to the original Rome post, when we started our travels in Italy, but Emma suggested that I make a new post, and well, she knows best, right? So here it is, a completely new post on our last day spent in Rome before our flight the following day!

I’m really glad we decided to head back to Rome the day before our flight, rather than getting the train back from Florence in the morning. It probably would have resulted in a lot of running about no doubt, but this way we were able to pack the night before, and then hop on the Leonardo Express from Rome’s Termini station which was only 5 minutes from our hotel.

For this visit back to Rome, we stayed in the Augusta Lucilla Palace, a hotel which is literally a 5-10 minute walk from Termini Station, ideal if you’re looking to catch the train to the airport, or wanting to make use of the metro system. The hotel itself was lovely, and they upgraded our room to this HUGE suite, with a bed that vibrates (massages, apparently)!

We arrived quite early to the hotel, and weren’t able to check in, but they took our bags from us and asked us to come back for around 1pm, so that left a few hours to go kill some time. With our stomachs rumbling, we went and grabbed some breakfast on Piazza della Repubblica, overlooking the Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri.

We had hoped to leave the rain behind in Florence, but sadly, Rome was the same. It was actually pretty cold when the wind was blowing, Emma rocking a jacket, but I was still determined with the shorts and t-shirt, regretting it a little at breakfast. Perfect temperature for walking though, especially with a light drizzle to cool you down every now and again, and since we seemed to enjoy walking, that’s just what we done!

Heading to the Colosseum, as I was determined to get a picture of the arch (Arco di Costantino) which is next to it, however, I didn’t remember the foreground and background to be so bleak, so it really was a little underwhelming.

Arco di Costantino, underwhelming, right?

Anyway, we decided to head in the direction of the arch, but this just seemed to be where all the coaches stopped to drop people off to visit the Colosseum, and then we found the entrance to the Palatino, or the Palatine Hill, and for only 7e each or so, this was bound to kill some time.

Entrance to the Palatino.

The Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill are adjacent to each other, so paying this one entrance fee, meant we were free to roam around this large area of ancient ruins. Really really really worth doing if you have a spare couple of hours just to wander around.

Some of the ruins in here are just amazing, I’ll leave the pictures to do the talking.

PS. Make sure you check out absolutely all of the view points on offer for some spectacular views of the Colosseum and across the Roman Forum itself.

New Balance 996PU

It was now well after 1pm, so we headed back to the hotel so we could check in and change our clothes.

Our plan for the rest of the day was simple… City Sightseeing Tours! But this probably really wasn’t the best idea considering just how wet it would get.

New Balance MFL574 Fresh Foam

Similar to the City Sightseeing Tours in Florence, the bus departed from the train station, so we headed there to buy some tickets and wait for the bus. However, it had just started pouring down with rain, but we were determined that we’d complete the full tour which took around an hour.

In all honesty, we probably should have done this bus tour on the first day, because we realised how surprisingly close everything was, particularly how close the Vatican City was to our first hotel, and the Castel Sant’Angelo.

I probably spent most of the time trying to avoid the absolute river that was flowing off the roof of the bus and into the bus itself, but my shorts were already absolutely soaking and feeling like wet cardboard. I figured it was probably best to put the camera back in it’s bag, so sadly there are no shots from the bus tour. While trying to avoid the rain running into the bus, we drove past the Basilica Papale di Santa Maria Maggiore, and decided that we’d get off here once the tour had completed and then went back around to this stop.

The Basilica Papale di Santa Maria Maggiore is spectacular! Don’t let the back of it fool you, as that’s the side you’ll probably see from the road, so make sure you walk round to the front and head in to explore.

Basilicas were clearly on the agenda today, and we headed back to the spot where we had breakfast in the morning, the Piazza della Republicca, to check out the Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, a 16th century church that doesn’t look like much from the outside, but trust me, you need to go in!

And sadly, that’s pretty much it in terms of our time in Rome, and our time in Italy. We spent the night just chilling with no camera, lots of food, ice cream, and searching through all the souvenir shops for last minute Pope related gifts for my family.

Hopefully some of the info in the last few blog posts of our trips to Rome, Pompeii, Pisa and Florence will be of use to anyone planning to go there, or if not, I hope you just enjoyed looking at the pictures, because I know I enjoyed taking them and exploring these amazing places. Already looking forward to planning our next trip to Italy and exploring somewhere new!