Wednesday 8th November 2017
Back in my younger days, I didn’t mind holidays that involved an early start. In fact, I found getting up at the crack of dawn and bundled into the back of my parents’ car and plied with sweets and other treats to keep me and my brothers behaved as we headed to the Eurotunnel and into France (our usual family holiday routine) quite exciting. Nowadays the dream for me is to get up at a civilised time, have some breakfast and a nice cup of tea and saunter casually to the airport. With that in mind I was less than impressed when the Boy’s alarm went off at 3am to try and encourage us to get out of bed and on the road to Gatwick for our 6.45am flight. I maintain we could have had at least another 15 minutes alarm free but I kept that to myself.
After ditching the car in long term parking, we only had to spend a few minutes shivering uncontrollably at the bus stop before the shuttle bus came to take us to the north terminal. Once there, I treated myself to a tuna melt from Eat and an OJ in an attempt to bring myself to life. That combination often does the trick but on this occasion it didn’t really work. Sleeping through the flight was far more useful.
The handy thing about not having cabin baggage was that we were basically able to walk through Arrivals and get to the train station pretty quickly when we arrived at the other end. En route I spotted people sleeping in reclining chairs and pouffes in the airport. I could have done with those in Gatwick at 5am.
Once we’d figured out how to use the ticket machines and each paid our €14 for a train into the city centre (a bus or slower train would have been cheaper but we just wanted to get into town as quickly as possible), we made our way to the platform. Still being exhausted, we both pretty much passed out for the whole 30 minute train ride into Rome. As we pulled into the station, I wasn’t ready to get off but I figured I hadn’t come to Rome to sleep on a train as it went backwards and forth to the airport so we disembarked and I loaded up Citymapper to show us the walk to our Airbnb.
After walking for about 25 minutes, it became clear that we were not in the right place. I checked my app. As I often do in London, I had just put in the postcode, figuring that would take us close enough to the right place but it turned out the post code here covered a much larger area. I re-programmed and we subsequently walked for about 15 minutes back in the direction we’d just come. It was a good job we weren’t exhausted and short on time…
On the way, we cut through a park for some nice scenery. In one direction, I spotted some large ruins. It was the Colosseum. I hadn’t realised we’d be staying that close. At least we’d already managed some sightseeing on my detour.
Eventually we found our Airbnb. Technically check-in wasn’t for another couple of hours but we needed to dump our stuff and thankfully when we arrived the place was already ready for us. The initial plan was to have a quick turnaround and be out the door but instead we stayed for a power nap. We needed it and this was supposed to be a holiday. What’s a holiday without sleeping at not-night times of day.
We emerged an hour or so later in need of food. We wanted something substantial but we needed something quick so we popped into a place on the corner called Zizzi that sold pizza slices. Obviously pizza is what you come to Italy for but I didn’t love my choices. I chose my first slice because the meat looked amazing. I didn’t realise the lack of tomato and cheese underneath it. Instead it had mint and some kind of green bean paste. The Boy finished that one off for me. I went for my second slice due to its level of obvious cheesiness but I again didn’t realise the lack of tomato. Instead it just had a lot of kale and some indecipherable meat. I like kale but it turns out not on a pizza. Thankfully the Boy’s margarita was much tastier so I just stole a slice of that.
Refuelled, we headed off towards the Colosseum. We hadn’t booked tickets so we had to queue for a while but it wasn’t too bad and did make it cheaper. Unfortunately the tickets to the underground sections were sold out and tours of this part by private companies were super expensive so we just got entry into the main section. It was a shame as this would be my third time here and it would have been nice to see something new but it was the Boy’s first time and we still had fun.
By the time we got through, we’d missed the last tour of the day and neither of us are fans of audioguides so we decided to make up our own alternative fact tour. Did you know what when it rains, the underground section is turned into a public swimming pool and the walls are used as lanes? Or that the recycling bins there are from ancient Roman times and were the first of their kind?
As we reached the end of our wanderings around the Colosseum (at about 4.15pm), we heard an announcement asking everyone to leave as the place was closing. That couldn’t be right. I thought I had misheard as Google had said closing was at 7pm but everyone started making their way towards the exit. We were pretty much done but our €12 ticket had also included entry into the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill. If the Colosseum was closing I figured those would be too and that had been our plan for the afternoon. We quickly made our way in their direction only to have my fears confirmed. It turned out that all three sites closed about an hour before sunset. Because that’s not a hard time to predict. Thankfully our ticket was valid for two days so we could go tomorrow but we would have to replan my Rome itinerary.
We decided to head to the Pantheon instead, which was one of the places I particularly wanted to go to. I’d been to Rome twice before: once with my family when I was 12 where we blitzed as many sites as possible (this included the Pantheon but I didn’t feel like I’d really appreciated it at the time) and once when I was 17 on a school trip where we’d done a few places, of which the Pantheon was not one. I at least needed to stick my head round the door on this trip.
It was about a 25 minute walk between the Colosseum and the Pantheon (passed the Arch of Constantine, the Altar of the Fatherland and some seemingly unnamed ruins) so we’d have plenty of time as it closed at 6pm (although I was again relying on Google) but I unhelpfully put a dent in our time there by being indecisive and then continuously taking us down the wrong pathways as I once again tried and failed to navigate Roman Citymapper.
Eventually, we made it. It was pretty dark by this point and the atmosphere was added to by a violinist busking in the square in front of the Pantheon. As we walked into the church, he launched into a rendition of Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You, which I’m sure is what ancient Roman buskers would have played.
As the Pantheon was free to get into, we didn’t have to worry about not being able to spend too long there. We wandered round, gazed up at the hole in the ceiling, found Raphael’s tomb and then left. We were pretty exhausted by this point but I knew we weren’t far from the Trevi Fountain so I figured it was silly not to tie in a visit, especially because I remembered from my school trip to Rome that it was particularly nice at night.
We arrived to find a very busy square. We popped into one of the surrounding gelato places (I got a couple of scoops of chocolate and stracciatella – it was delicious and only €2.50) and managed to find a spot by the fountain to sit and eat it. We might have been tired and there might have been crowds of people everywhere but it turned out to be a really nice activity.
Before we left, we snapped a selfie and a man with a polaroid camera offered to take one of us using my phone. I nervously accepted expecting him to ask for money. Fortunately, no payment was demanded (he didn’t even seem annoyed when I turned down his offer of a polaroid picture) but sadly none of the pictures came out that great as the Boy thought our photographer would run off with my phone and it was written all over his face.
From the Trevi Fountain we walked back in the direction of our Airbnb, stopping a what turned out to be quite a fancy deli-like supermarket called Super Elite to pick up some bits for dinner. I know the point of going to Italy is to eat the local food but we just wanted to crash out and this would be cheaper. Besides the Boy is actually a good cook and he did make a tasty carbonara. When in Rome.
We spent the evening laying in bed watching Friends on the Boy’s iPad and drinking prosecco. You can judge us but it was perfect.
Ellis Goes On Holiday 