We arrived in Rome five days ago from Venice (a nearly 4.5 hour trip by train) and were distinctly underwhelmed by the train station upon arrival. Our hostel was not very far from the train station but it was clear we hadn’t picked a particularly nice part of town to stay. Because we were staying five nights in Rome, a very expensive city for accommodation at the best of times, we were trying to find as cheap as place to stay as possible. Our first choice for hostels/B&B was The Beehive but it was booked out and somehow our search for cheap accommodation led us back to the Cherry Hostel. We found out later that everything was booked out because of the Champion’s League Final which was being hosted at the Rome Stadio Olimpico halfway through our trip. At any rate our bed was made, so to speak, and it was in a private room at the Cherry Hostel for 70 euro a night that we were stuck with.

The Cherry Hostel is worth a mention because of the nearly disastrous time we had there. I’ve stayed in some very nice hostels in Europe which were modern, clean, and fairly spacious. The Cherry Hostel was not really any of those things – okay well our room was fairly clean I suppose. I’m not sure if we had the only private double room in the joint but it felt like it should have been a single room. We barely had room to swing a cat and the bathroom was ridiculously tiny. Our room was also just next to reception and the walls were not thick by any stretch of the imagination and we could hear everything, including some girl who was sick ALL night long on the balcony. There was also no air-conditioning so we had to keep the window open to keep ourselves cool. The window happened to look out into a court yard so once again we could here EVERYTHING including two neighbours who seemed to be competing for the World’s Loudest TV. Teesh was not impressed when we first got there. The fact that on our second day and night we had no electricity did not help matters at all. Nor the fact that on the third night, late in the night, someone tried to get into our room. It scared the sh!t out of us!

Pardon the language.

The Filipino woman who seemed to be the manager at the Cherry Hostel, I presume her husband was around somewhere also, was relatively friendly and really knew Rome (so could point out all the relevant areas for us) but she never seemed to really care about managing the hostel and was not always around when we needed her. Its not like other hostels where there is always someone manning reception. There were two positives though – the white bunny and the brown bunny. And no, that’s not a euphemism for anything.

We had about three days to explore Rome (not including the day trip to Naples/Pompeii and the afternoon spent in The Vatican City) which I think was enough to give us a taste of the place.

Photos, Photos, Photos.

When?	End of May 2009
Why Go?	History
Why Not Go?	If you hate tourists.
Weather	Hot!!
Hidden Secret	– Whilst not exactly a hidden secret, a visit to the Monumental Cemetery of the Capuchin Brothers is not often at the top of people’s must do lists when they think of Rome. This is one place I would highly recommend going. It is awesome – both horrifying and cannot-tear-your-eyes-away-from it – you’ll find hundreds of skulls and crossbones woven into “works of art.” Seriously – its way cool.

Day One

The day we arrived in Rome we got there about mid-afternoon but by the time we headed out from the hostel it was early evening. With a few hours of daylight left we thought we’d do a bit of exploring. We ended up down near Circus Maximus at the end of which we saw a big Euro Beach Soccer Cup stadium.

Turns out that to close the Euro Beach Soccer Cup 2009 event (won by Spain 6-4 over Switzerland) they were having an exhibition match featuring world champions Brazil against Italy. Italy actually came eighth in a field of eight at this year’s tournament …. but seemed to hold their own against Brazil in the exhibition match.

They still eventually went down but it was closely fought with a 7-5 victory to the Brazilians after 3 extra minutes of play. We didn’t really care about the results though … just on perving at the guys. 😛 On this note there were loads of guys in the stands with their t-shirts off – though that’s not to say that they actually should have had them off.

After the game we headed to Trastevere which ended up being quite a hike from Circus Maximus. We were hoping to find somewhere nice for dinner. The essence of Trastevere is its rough charm. Separated from central Rome by the Tiber, hence the name meaning “over the Tiber”, its filled with winding, twisting, and narrow lanes which today is where people go to experience the Roman night life. We ended up in a restaurant called Ristorante Paris which despite the name offered traditional Italian cuisine with specialities being typical Roman dishes. This was the first time, in Italy, that we’d indulged in the two-course dinner consisting of the pasta primi and a main secondi. It was too filling. The pasta primi was alright but my secondi was gorgeous seafood (lightly battered and deep fried.)

Keen to walk dinner off we headed up Janiculum Hill which ended up being quite the hike! We were hoping for some panoramic views of Rome and we did get them except it was a little dark to see much. However, the fountain up there was beautiful.

Day Two

On our second day in Rome Teesh organised for us to take a tour of the Colosseum & Ancient Rome with Presto Tours. We met up at the “Colosseo” metro stop near the Colosseum and this is when we really started to see a small part of the 7-10 million of people who visit Rome each year. To say that the place was busy was a huge understatement. Finding our tour group was easy enough and thankfully we’d gone with a tour company who limited their numbers on the tour. We saw many tour groups which were up to 60 people in size which to me just seems absolutely unmanageable – how they got value out of the tour I’m not sure. Sure they were utilising the handy Italian headset system (so you can hear the tour guide wherever they were) but there was little connection throughout the tour with the tour guide.

When visiting somewhere like the Colosseum its definitely well worth taking a tour to get the full history associated with the place. There’s only so much you’ll pick up from a book … and the book is hardly like to point out such etchings as these:

Our tour guide was hilarious – he’d walk around and then pretend to pick up an ancient coin wherever we went. Kind of charming but the funniest thing was that one minute he was there and the next he would disappear! He moved quickly and if you weren’t on your toes you’d lose him. Not very hard to be honest in the millions of people that were visiting the Colosseum that day. Being the day of the Champion’s League final that day there was a kind of exhibition to celebrate the final including a parade of the trophy. The line to pose with it was huge though so I settled for taking a pic from afar.

I could easily recite all the history etc. that we heard on the tour but it can easily be looked up and read. I found myself most interested in fun facts such as the fact that the grave of Julius Caesar lies within the Roman Forum, or that nearly 500,000 people and over a million wild animals were put to death in the Colosseum. Wowza.

After our 3-hour tour we headed down past Capitol Hill:

and down to the Torre Argentina’s Cat Sanctuary! Rome has for a long time been home to homeless cats (just check out all the postcards featuring the felines) but in the Cat Sanctuary, established officially about 15 years ago, the cats can find a proper shelter where they are cared for, cleaned and fed. Unofficially the cats have always sheltered in the ancient ruins of Rome fed by a succession of cat ladies. The Cat Sanctuary is free to visit with daily tours given by volunteers. Teesh was on the one hand in love with the place and totally happy to spend time there but also on the other hand sad that so many cats could be made homeless.

The biggest disappointment with Rome was that, despite the fact that Rome was hosting the Champion’s League final, outside of the stadium itself there was no real party atmosphere anywhere. There was no big screen broadcasting the final, no alcohol was being sold that day and there weren’t really pubs where we could go and find a screen to watch. We finally stumbled upon one near our hostel but that was after nearly an hour of searching!

Day Three

On day three we headed out to Naples and Pompeii.

Day Four

Day four saw us hunting bones and fountains. What a combination.

Out the Appian Way Rome has miles and miles of tunnels, or catacombs, where Christians used to bury their dead and also hold church services. We spent our morning at the Catacombs of St. Domitilla with the promise as the only one of the public catacombs where you were supposed to be able to see bones. Unfortunately, due to tourists before us who used to touch, pock and otherwise deface the bones they have now restricted access to them. Down in the depths of the tunnels you will also be surprised with beautiful pieces of art. Of course now, as the catacombs are dug up, we can only apply our modern thinking to interpret the art and make presumptions about who might be buried in the tunnels but it certainly is an interesting time in history if you like that type of thing. No photos allowed downstairs unfortunately.

You couldn’t count the number of fountains that Rome has on one hand, let alone, two, three or even probably 15 hands so walk into any square and you’ll no doubt come across one. Of course the most well-known fountain has to be the Trevi. We got to the Trevi kind of just after lunch and there were easily hundreds of people milling around it. I often looked at the postcards of the Trevi and wondered how the glorious pictures of it were taken with hardly any people in them? It was all we could do just to get by the water to throw our coin in (to make sure we would return – heh heh.) Apparently, according to wikipedia, approximately 3,000 euros are thrown into the fountain each day which is used to subsidises a supermarket for Rome’s needy.

We came back later that night and still hordes of people. Pleased to say that the Trevi was equally beautiful at night.

Whilst we were in the mood for being around giant groups of tourists we decided we might as well head up to the Spanish Steps. I’m not sure why they are so popular and we joined the bandwagon and got our requisite shots on them. Admittedly they were very pretty but I still don’t understand the fascination …

By the way, no food, no getting jumping into the fountain, no graffiti, no partying and no littering allowed.

Day Five

On our last day in Rome we were heading to The Vatican but before this we decided to explore some of the greenery in Villa Borghese. Home not only to a few galleries its home to a most beautiful heart shaped landscape garden. Teesh and I decided to do something a little active and take one of these two-person bike things. It was a great way to get around the park but I can tell you that it nearly wiped us out!

Last Words

Strangely, unlike many places I’ve visited, I’m sitting on the fence about Rome. Sure its an amazing city, the history is just phenomenal and there are some parts of the city which are simply stunning but working against this are the hordes of tourists, the large number of tourists traps (e.g. finding good local places for food was extremely difficult), and the dirt (every night we would come back to the hostel covered in layers and layers of dust.) Still, I’m definitely glad I can now finally say I’ve been to the eternal city and even with my fences-sitting indecision about Rome I could recognise it is a truly was a magnificent city.