Day 20 - Monday 26 September - Florence to Rome

Woke up at 3:30ish and never got back to sleep. Stressing about All The Things. Sigh.

Uneventful train trip from Florence to Rome on a Frecciarossa train. GPS wouldn't work though #grunt. Stoopid faraday cages. Even with big windows it just struggles. Lots of tunnels sure don't help.

The first Frecciarossa train we caught - from Florence to Rome

Got to Rome and found the B ok (another one of these B&Bs that doesn't do breakfast). Second floor, but at least there's a working lift. For one person at a time heh.

Luckily the dude had our room ready, and I asked him if he could please call the tour company to organise tonight. First couple of times just got answering machine, but he did eventually get through and we organised a pickup time/place. But yeah my phone is definitely borked. I'm receiving SMSes from Australia, but can't make or receive phone calls. Tried to get onto Optus on phone and web, but neither make it at all obvious where to even look to see if any sort of roaming is enabled. Very upsetting. Why does everything have to be so hard???

And it was raining.

We thought we should go out and see *something* but didn't really have an idea of what. In the end we decided on the Spanish Steps, since we could take a train to it. As we were walking towards the station some dude was like "hop on hop off tour?" .. which we walked past.. and then I stopped. It's sure be an easy way to get taken around and see more things, even in the rain. So we went back and said sure. So he walked us to the GreenLine stop near the station. We had to wait a while for a bus and there was a bit of a queue and it was a bit chaotic. But we got on in the end, and I didn't mind getting a wet butt from the "window" seat.

We decided to stay on for two laps - one sitting on the right side, and one sitting on the left. And it was actually quite enjoyable, especially since the rain stopped and could relax and enjoy it.

The Colosseum!

Arco di Constantino

Arches Severiane on the Palatine

Torre della Moletta and the southeastern end of the Circus Maximus

Concert being setup to play in the Circus Maximus

Buildings around Piazza Venezia

Monument to Victor Emmanuel II

Chiesa Santa Maria di Loreto

Colonna della Pace

Basilica Papale di Santa Maria Maggiore from the southeast

Basilica Papale di Santa Maria Maggiore from the northwest

Tempio di Ercole Vincitore

Teatro di Marcello, a theatre which predates the Colosseum

Monument to Victor Emmanuel II

Targa commemorativa di Michelangelo Buonarroti

Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia (with Mussolini's Balcony)

View across Ponte Sant'Angelo to Castel Sant'Angelo

View across the River Tiber to Chiesa Sacro Cuore del Suffragio

Chiesa San Rocco all'Augusteo (left) and Chiesa di San Girolamo dei Croati (right)

The first Greenline Tours bus we toured Rome on

We got most of the way through the second lap before getting off near the Spanish Steps to have a look.

View west from the top of the Spanish Steps
Photo by Mum

TrinitÃ dei Monti at the top of the Spanish Steps

Fontana della Barcaccia and the view up the Spanish Steps

Then we wandered through the stoopidly expensive restaurants trying to find one that wasn't so stoopidly expensive. As it was like 15:30 and we hadn't had anything since breakfast and we'd be out late so we thought we'd make it our main meal. Although the meal ended up not being so big anyway. hmmm.

After lunch we wandered down to the Tiber and along it looking at bridges. Ended up at Hadrian's Mausoleum.

Roman altar in Museo dell'Ara Pacis
Photo by Mum

Ponte Cavour

Corte di cassazione (City courthouse)

Angel with the Cross by Ercole Ferrata on Ponte Sant'Angelo

Castel Sant'Angelo and Ponte Sant'Angelo

Then hopped on another bus back to Termini.

Propilei Neoclassici

City walls at Porta Pinciana

Got back to the room and downloaded the GPS and photos so far.

And went into battle with Optus. The dude was like, oh you need a roaming plan for your phone to work - that gives you data and calls/text but you don't have to use the data.. it's like $5/day or $35 for 7 days. Are you freaking kidding me??? That'd be $140! Which is ridiculous for a month. And I'm certainly not going to pay that for "just in case" someone needs to call me. SMSes still work. You can sms me if you need me.

Of course that didn't help me this morning when I was trying to call an Italian number here.

Fortunately the tour worked out and the dude turned up, and it was just the two of us. He took us on a wonderful meandering drive around Rome. We saw lots of really cool stuff by night which was super awesome. But it did make for a super late night - we didn't get back til nearly 23:00.