All Trains Lead to Rome

Our first task when arriving in Rome was to find the 310 bus, which according to our directions took us to our accommodation 6 stops away. We did wait 6 stops but I'm guessing the bus didn't stop at everyone as we ended up getting off at the wrong stop. Fortunately after asking for directions we were at our hostel in 5 or so minutes.

On our arrival we met up with a guy called Sam who was staying in our room and decided we would go on the pub crawl in Rome as a couple of girls staying in the hostel had been on it the previous night and said it was a good laugh so we thought we may as well. The meeting place was the Spanish steps in the city at 9pm and by the time we left the hostel it was 8:45 so we were cutting it pretty close as our hostel was a bit out of the way. Well this ended up being a mission and a half, as well as killing our feet trying to speed walk to get there in time we got lost and didn't arrive until 9:30.

There were so many people at the Spanish steps that we had no idea if anyone from the pub crawl was still here but an Ozzie guy managed to spot us and took us to the first bar where it was as much Carlsberg you can drink and an unlimited supply of pizza (This was a bonus as we had not eaten yet). This Ozzie guy told us we were gonna get absolutely smashed and it would be off the scale etc etc and that "Eating was Cheating" haha - we ignored him because he was an idiot and we were more sensible than that ;-)!

The pizza was terrible, it was like those cheapo Margarita ones you get from Aldi or something, it was free anyway so I couldn't complain and I was starving. So we drank a few bottles of beer ate some pizza and then went on a mammoth walk to the next bar which was seriously about a 45 minute walk. The club that we got too was pretty cool, although Matt got a round of 3 drinks which set him back 30 euros!! ouch!

After we out danced everyone it was off on another trek to a Boat where the party continued. This boat had a bar and a dance floor so it was all good. This is also where they held a wet t-shirt competition for the girls which was amusing yet partially nauseating due to the kind of girls which took part as you can no doubt imagine. It wasn't too long until we'd had enough as yet again most of the people were morons, we really didn't learn our lesson from the last pub crawl we went on.

We got up at about 11am after a good lye in and decided to take a walk around the city and see the main sites. I marked these on my map and drew lines on it to remember where we had walked and seen, other wise we would have probably walked around in circles or got lost again. Everything we saw was amazing and just so huge it was unbelievable. After a good days walking around we went back to the hostel as we got a free pasta dinner, which turned out to be really nice and definitely worth ditching a meal out in a restaurant for as it was free.

Quite a few people staying at the hostel came back for dinner so we all decided to go out for some drinks together and the woman behind reception was clocking off so she said she would take us to this other hostel where there was a bar with cheap drinks!

The following day we went to see one of the new seven wonders of the world - The Colosseum. We had been told to go and get our tickets from Palatino, which is a big hill in Rome that was the city centre of ancient Rome. The queue here was much smaller than the one for the Colosseum and the ticket allowed us to get in there as well so it was a bonus. The ruins at Palatino were awesome and the Colosseum was beyond belief, I was hard to believe we were actually standing in it.

It was then off to get some lunch and find a church we had been told about that had loads of human bones in it which sounded particularly interesting. We got off at the right metro station and found the nearest place to get a big beer and some good food, after which I asked the waiter where the place with bones was - to which he replied "boats?" and made a rowing action haha! After I set him straight he pointed to a building right next to us so we didn't have to go far at all.

This was a Crypt where a monk had decided it would be a nice thing to create a memorial to the 400 or so dead monks out of the bones. It was pretty spooky and rather bizarre to see all of these human remains stacked and placed to form a gruesome kind of art, it does need to be seen to be believed.

That was enough for us, we had done our walking for the day and it was roasting hot so we went back to chill out for the rest of the afternoon at the hostel with pizza and beer on the sofa padding the time by watching a few films back to back.

Our last full day had to include a trip to the Vatican City, where we went up to the top of the dome on the Basilica having to walk up hundreds of steps in a narrow space where I had to lean my head over to one side so that I could get up there. After a painstaking number of steps being in a really hot and confines space we made it to the top where it was jam packed with people who had either just got up there or that were queueing to get back down. It was good to be able to see over the whole of Rome and we managed to get some good scenery photos.

We were going to check out the Sistine Chapel but we found out that it had closed at 1pm as it was a Saturday so we missed out. It was lunchtime anyway so we hunted down a good restaurant and sat down for a feed before grabbing a Gelato and heading back to the hostel.

The Gelato (ice creams) here are amazing!!!! I kept going back for more as they tasted soo good! I wish ice cream tasted that good at home. After a short nap we finished off the pizza we had left over from the night before, got another Gelato and went out for drinks with a gang of people from the hostel.

We had been recommended to go to an area of Rome where there were some cool bars and had to get the bus there as there was not a nearby train station and it was too far to walk. After walking around aimlessly trying to find this place we ended up giving in and sat down at a nearby bar which had relatively cheap drinks and spent the rest of the evening there.

The plan was to get the bus back but we realised that although the tickets were 24 hour tickets they actually expired at midnight so were were a bit stuck as there was no nearby metro station either. After a bit of debating we decided we would walk back, which in the end took us well over an hour as it we were the other side of Rome.

I quite enjoyed the walk back as we got to see some awesome sights at night, but also passed some strange people such as Transvestite prostitutes who we swiftly walked passed. By the time we got in it was about 4am and I didn't end up going to bed until 4:45 and din't get to sleep for a while after due to snoring and my mozzie bites itching like hell. This wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't set the alarm to get up at 6:45 in order to get to the bus station in time to get our coach to the airport.