I’ve had a brilliant weekend in Rome. It wasn’t without dramas though! I had my work xmas party work on the Friday so didn’t stay up too late since out flight was very early Saturday morning. Steph told me our flight was at 6am and said she had booked a taxi and that it would pick me up at 510 after picking her up. I waited outside my place for ages but it didn’t show. I finally got her on her mobile after trying so many times and she was still asleep! Luckily a taxi place is across the road from where I live so I booked a taxi and it was to come in 5 mins! The taxi arrived and started driving about 100 kms/hour to get me to the airport faster. I finally got there and turned out flight wasn’t till 650! Phew!!! I checked both of us in and then Steph arrived, drunk!! She had her xmas party Friday night as well and had only got to bed a few hours before her taxi arrived so slept right though.

We arrived in Rome and took a train from airport to Termini Station in the city. The hostel wasn’t too far away so we decided to walk there. The place was just like a regular 3 bedroom apartment turned hostel. It had a great location and was run by 2 Italian born Indians. They slept in the living room while the 3 bedrooms were filled with bunk beds. We dropped our bags off and then we were off sightseeing. Our first stop, Vatican City! We got to St Peters Square and waited in line for about 45 minutes to get into the Vatican. We did an audio tour of St Peters Basilica which was very fascinating. The audio tour was good because we got to learn about the Vatican at our own pace and go back to it if we wanted to hear it again or if we missed something or if we wanted to leave something out, we could just skip it.  Later on, we went up some very narrow stairs so that we could get up to the top of the building where we saw some amazing views of Rome! Other sights we saw included the Castel Sant’Angel, the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, & Piazza Navona.

The next morning, we had another early start! We went to the Colosseum and did another audio tour which was also very interesting. I was amazed; I couldn’t believe I was standing in the Colosseum! After that went though the Roman Forums. All this was incredible, I couldn’t believe it had been there for so long. We also checked out Capitaline Hill and admired all the Baroque style buildings; Everything was all symmetrical. We walked to the Spanish steps and on the way, passing more beautiful buildings, narrow roads, sacred areas and cute boutique stores. We then went into the Capitoline museum. We realised that we should’ve gone in the museum when we first walked past. We thought that we would be saving time by going later but instead wasted more time just walking around.

My Italian flatmate Maurizio told me the best food in Rome is not in the city centre itself but just outside of it in the suburb called Trastevere. We took a tram there from the city and we were not disappointed. The food here was so good and everything was very reasonable compared to what we were paying in the city centre. Only downside was that no one here could speak English!! Our last activity for the weekend was a visit to the supermarket where we stocked up on Italian biscuits and chocolates for our friends (and for ourselves) back in Ireland!!!