Florence to Rome

After our early start yesterday we decided to sleep in today and have a relaxed trip to get to Rome. However our plans were somewhat thwarted with the sun beating down on our tent and so we got up about 8am. We relaxed around the campsite for a while and then finally caught the bus to the station and caught our train to Rome, no noteworthy passengers this time. On the way to the train station I was chatting with Peter about the stupid system of validating transport tickets and how annoying it would be if you had got on the bus on your way home and couldn't get to the validating machine because the bus was so packed to get slammed with a 50euro fine.

We made it to Rome, and even managed to find our 'hostel'. It was a bizarre little set up indeed. We eventually found the reception which was more like a cupboard. We had managed to wake the owner from his afternoon nap and so he was a little groggy. He asked us to pay and we said we didn't have the money on us then but could we pay them later, he said fine. We were shown to our room, down the stairs across the courtyard, up the stairs and there we were. We were initially pleased with our room. It was cool, it had a double bed, it had it's own bathroom, and it had loo paper! However, being a well trained B&B cleaner, I soon noticed various little things that tainted my feeling of the room. First up was the curtain rail, it seemed to be secured on one end, but was dangling by a thread (get it, a screw thread) on the other end. I had visions of that final screw pulling out and the curtain rail stabbing me in the middle of the night. Next up was the shower, if you had it on full bore (which would have been great!) you had about 1min before the tray filled up due to the drain being blocked. Without a plunger there was not much I could do. Then there was the toilet, which became blocked. I managed to fix that one OK and it wasn't as gross as it's sounds. Anyway, after a quick shower it was off for a quick explore...

On the Metro we go, we buy our ticket and we try to validate it, it's got a time on it, so we assume that is OK. There is no-one around to ask what to do, so off we go. When we get off the Metro there are the ticket inspectors, our tickets, it turns out have not been validated. Despite our pleading and saying that we didn't know how to validate the tickets, there were no signs and no-one there to ask we get slammed with a 50euro ($92NZ, £34) fine, EACH. What a welcome to this city. It took a fair bit of time to get this sorted. By the end of it I'm in tears at how stupid we were and how ironic it was that we had brought in total 12 bus tickets and 4 train tickets, we had validated them all and done it all right and they had never been checked. The one time we unintentionally don't do it right we get caught. Needless to say this put a bit of a dampener on the rest of our trip in Rome, and Italy. It seemed that this fine was put in place purely for tourists who don't speak the language! Umm perhaps I am still a little bitter about it.... For those that haven't yet been to Rome, it's the yellow machines on the barriers that you have to put your ticket in. The ticket should then have two times on it, one for when you brought it and one for when you went through the barrier.

Anyway, Peter was a total star and once again we realised what a great team we are. I was seething in anger, lots and lots of bad words flowed from my mouth, tears streaming down my cheeks and Peter calmly steered me towards our destination, would stop in the middle of the masses of people to hug me and sooth me. Perhaps he felt I was angry enough for the both of us! We finally made it to the Trevi Fountain, I sat there crying about how stupid the whole system was and how much I hated Rome. Looking back it sounds pathetic, but I was bitter! I did a little HK on myself and soon got over it. Meanwhile Peter has been taking photos of the lovely fountain and a lovely Aussie couple ask him to take their photo and they offer to take ours, they have the same camera. So now we have a lovely photo of me in my rage, I'm sure they thought that Peter and I had had a massive barney they way I was. There is this thing that if you throw a coin over your shoulder into the fountain you will come back to Rome. We didn't throw a coin. Peter thought it was funny that the last time he was there he did throw a coin and thought he'd never go back and he did.

After that little fiasco we wondered round Rome a lot more and got very sore tired feet. My impressions of Rome (sure they may be tinted) was it was a dirty grubby city with lots and lots of graffiti. Oh and a whole load of old stuff! After our long walk we thought we would brave the Metro and go home, only to discover they had closed the metro for 'engineering' works. So we had an even longer walk back home with McDonald's for dinner. Needless to say, Rome Day 1 was NOT ideal!