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Anthony Wornum |
| Gender: | Male | | Lives in: | London United Kingdom | | Registered: | 11 March 2003 | | Last visit: | 10 September 2005 |
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| Rome Review: Rome ~ worth the hassle. | | Written by Anthony Wornum on 24 May 2003
| This was not my first visit but Rome is not one of those cities you can 'do' in one trip anyway. My friend and I were there for 3 days in May 2003.
Getting there: We flew with Ryanair from Stansted. Well, the hotels in Rome are so expensive you need to make savings somewhere. Ryanair is good but since they don't issue seat numbers the rush for the best seats upon boarding the plane is stressful and undignified. In Rome you arrive at Ciampino. Get the blue (COTRAL) bus opposite the arrivals area. It goes first to Ciampino railway station and then to Anagnina Metro station. Snag with the bus is that the working machine selling tickets at the bus stop was actually selling metro tickets not bus tickets. You have to buy the 1 euro tickets from the blue company's own machine next to it, which (like so many Rome ticket machines) was not working so we got sent to the bar in the departures area where the tickets had run out. Eventually a fellow passenger sold us a couple of tickets from his booklet. Or as a last resort you can pay 5 euros to the driver. But we found all this out the hard way. On the return journey the bus broke down and we had to wait for a replacement so all in all you need to allow at least two hours to get to Ciampino from central Rome and I do think that Ryanair and the transport companies should get together to make it easier. Signposting is poor and although people are very friendly and helpful don't expect them to speak much English.
Rome is wonderful. Well, the churches, museums, views, street life, atmosphere, food, people etc etc make it unforgettable. Take good shoes and a good map and guide book and walk everywhere; or use the limited Metro if it goes anywhere near where you want to be. If going by Metro to the Vatican Museums get off at Ottaviano which is the stop marked for St Peters (S. Pietro). They try to get Vatican Museum visitors to go to Cipro but Ottaviano is closest to both. The Metro is cheap if you can actually find a machine or bar which will sell you tickets. Validate your ticket by stamping it in the machine at the barrier as you go in.
Don't take taxis unless you have to, especially from outside the main railway station; they will rip you off unless you insist they run the meter. If you call for a taxi from a restaurant the meter starts when the taxi answers your call, so it will arrive with something on the meter already which is normal.
Don't buy drinks at a bar unless you intend to stay standing to consume them. It is a lot cheaper to stand at the bar and if you take them to a seat like you would do in the UK they will charge you a supplement for sitting down. Again, the crazy Italian system of where and how to pay for things takes a bit of getting used to. If you want to save money by standing you have to buy a ticket at the till first and swap it for your drinks; if you sit at a table the waiter does it all, at the "table service" prices. Do drink cappucinos at any bar in Rome and you'll never want one of those awful ones in Starbucks ever again.
As for the traffic: when crossing roads in Rome, do as the Romans do. This means launching yourself out into the traffic and letting it weave round you. Scary. But you have to do it at zebra crossings or you will die anyway, just waiting for them to stop. Do take care in the traffic, it is fast and noisy and it wears you down. And watch out for pickpockets. On my first ever visit to Rome I almost fell prey to an old trick: a group of small children dressed as one might expect beggars to be dressed surrounded me and a few of them made a lot of noise and tugged at my clothes to distract me while one tried to remove my wallet. It didn't work but it could easily have done had I not been aware of what the motive was. Needless to say the children had a shadowy adult 'minder' not far away. There are beggars and buskers and walking rose sellers but no more of them than you might see in the touristy parts of London.
Overall: Rome is well worth the hassle. It was my fourth visit and I would go again any time. |
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