Day 26 Civitiveccia & Rome

Rome Day 1

We had to be up crazy early to be packed and ready to get off the boat by 7:15 AM. We chose that time, but either way we would have been kicked out by 9:30 anyway. If we were the first ones to get off we got to carry our own luggage off the boat and not deal with the madness of baggage claim and all, much easier. After getting off the boat we walked to the train station to get on a train to Rome for our next adventure. For being Rome’s port, Civitivecchia is not very close via train. On the slow regional train it took us almost 2 hours to get there. By the time it arrived we were tired and ready to get off the train. Then we had to walk through the train station to the opposite end where the metro boards so we could get on the metro to our hotel stop. Travel by train is fairly easy if you are familiar with the system and travel lightly. When there is a kid involved there is no such thing as traveling lightly. We got more than a few funny looks as we trudged through the station and streets with our bags. In our defense we had been on a cruise for the last ten days and it had been 12 since we’d last had access to our car and wash facilities. Two large rolling suitcases connected to one another, each of us with a backpack on, a small duffle bag and a stroller is no fun to lug up and down stairs in train and metro stations. If you are thinking why didn’t you just take the elevator dumb dumb? I should remind you we are not in the USA, ADA does not exist, and accessibility for handicapped people in wheelchairs is nothing short of a miracle.

Anyway…we finally made it to the hotel hot and tired. The room was like a sauna, no air conditioning, but at least they were kind enough to provide us a fan, which at this point I was totally thrilled with. We’ve learned things in Italy are never what they appear to be. We use booking.com to book hotels every time we travel and we usually find the hotel descriptions, reviews, and photos on that site to be very accurate when we arrive at the hotel we have chosen. In Italy, this does not hold true. Most of the hotels we’ve seen pictures of do not look anything like the hotel you actually get. They advertise air conditioning and there is A/C, in the lobby area and not in the rooms. Or there is AC in the rooms, but they do not actually turn it on. Same with internet, they advertise WIFI, but when you get there it is always down, or if by chance it is working it will only work in the lobby or common area, never in your room. So frustrating. Shelby was not thrilled with no air so he asked at the desk and they girl said she didn’t realize we had booked an air conditioned room and gave us a new room that did have air. We had to move but it was worth it, because it felt like Rome was going to burn again at any moment it was so hot. After moving rooms and unpacking a little bit we went to grab some pizza for lunch and found a shady spot under a tree to eat in and then we started walking.

We walked ALL OVER ROME and saw many of the sights you must see while visiting Rome. We hit up the Trevi fountain, saw a lot of ancient buildings, a lot of ruins, some amazing sights, The Forum ruins, the outside of The Colloseum and many other sights. We learned you could probably die rich selling drinks on the street in Rome. A bottle of water is 1 – 1.50 Euro, oh wait you want cold water? That is 2 Euro. Bastards! Can of coke, 4 Euro (roughly 6 USD!) Bottle of Powerade will cost you 4-5 Euro. Seriously, if I actually liked Italy I would retire here and sell water on the street and become a millionaire. The first grocery store we came to we went in and bought a 6 pack of bottled water for less than 2 Euro. Not cold, but who cares!