After by far the worst poker year I’ve had in by 30’s it’s time to take a break. Obviously I’d prefer to travel after a nice little upswing, but that sort of thing doesn’t seem to happen this year, and I need to keep my sanity. For longer trips I still have a few entire regions that I’ve never set foot in, so it’s time to knock another one off the list, the Balkans.
I’ve heard lots of good things about the Balkans from other travelers, especially in recent years, which means it’s time to go now before it gets too popular. Or it’s probably too late. But either way it seems like Western Europe is getting expensive and crowded enough that more and more people will keep heading further east in the near future. I think Bulgaria and Romania are next up on the chopping block. So looking at flights to the region, there was one clear winner, a $300 flight from Chicago to Rome, bag check included, via TAP Portugal. Unfortunately it involved a 4.5 hour layover in Lisbon, but we can deal for that price. So the trip will start in Rome!
After about 20 hours from leaving the house in Naperville, I finally landed in the Eternal City. The airport isn’t really near the city center, but fortunately they have a train you can take for 15 Euros. Btw whenever I mention the Euro, you can tack on an extra 10% and that’s what it is in dollars. I figured I’d be hopping on the buses and metro a lot, so I decided to stay close to the central station, Termini. And of course it’s cheaper. Getting off the train, the station itself is very nice! Leaving the station its pretty apparent it’s a more run down part of town, the buildings are older and still charming, but lots of grit and graffiti. Some unsavory people hanging around the station. Pickpocketing happens quite a bit in Rome, but mostly to those who aren’t very aware of their surroundings.
Ground level is kind of a weird mix of classic Italian cafes with outdoor seating and immigrant run convenience stores and cheap merchandise shops. Anyway this is all fine with me, it’s not like I’m here on a romantic getaway. I find my building, get buzzed in, it opens up into a nice courtyard with a turtle pond and then you have to find your guesthouse (among several on the property). I guess they’re not big on signage here. The room is pretty simplebut has all the basics, the aircon works great (very important) and the big wooden shutters opens up into the courtyard. Everything looks nice, but outdated, feels like Rome.
All I want to do is sleep at this point, its 8pm already but I’ve got half an hour until sunset, so might as well and go for a little stroll my first night in Rome while the light is still nice. There’s a big beautiful church, although they’re restoring the part of it, and there’s some cute little restaurants around, but overall it seems like a pretty quiet part of town. But as soon as it gets dark the restaurants turn on their lights for the outdoor seating and that’s when people start coming out, pretty pleasant. I wasn’t in the mood for a sitdown, so I grabbed a slice of pizza and went to bed. It should be noted that Roman style pizza is a thicker crispier crust (not the super thin crust like Napoli pizza) and it’s in rectangles (kinda like Detroit style Pizza) and you can pick the size you want and they weigh it. I think I like it better than the thin floppy crust. But anyway, it was bedtime for me, down by 9:00.
Eight hours later I’m awake, and I’m pretty sure I’m not falling back asleep. So what to do? I’ve heard the famous Trevi fountain is an absolute madhouse during the day, so why not walk over there for sunrise? (6am) One thing I noticed by looking on google maps is that everything is much close together than I had originally thought. I figured I’d for sure be taking the metro over there, but it’s only a 30 minute walk, and I’ve got time to kill, so walking it is. There’s actually a decent amount of activity at 5am with the garbage trucks and produce delivery trucks going around. I get to the fountain at 5:30 and there’s a lot of people there! It’s still dark out for Christ sakes. It seems to be a mix of people who stayed up all night and people like me who got there super early. I must say it’s a very very nice fountain, but the amount of hub bub around it is pretty wild. I figure I’d keep on walking around a bit more until it got a bit brighter outside.
Walking around Rome in the early morning is pretty fantastic, the weather is perfect and there’s hardly anyone around. The architecture in the city is exquisite, and there’s some sort of massive old church, or monument, or statue on like every block. You really never know what you’re gonna get, but it’s gonna be old, white marble, and opulent. These are things that would be a big deal in any other city, In Rome they hardly even qualify as a tourist attraction, they’re just there, a normal part of the scenery.
I looped back to the Trevi fountain, its even more packed at 6am, the whole front row is basically girls in nice dresses getting they’re photos taken. Yeahhh, this place is not for me. Time to keep on moving, the Pantheon is calling my name. And of course the walk over there is just super pleasant, weaving through the cobblestone alleys that occasionally open up into little piazzas with cafes, none open though. Italy is not a wake up early country, I certainly wouldn’t be finding any coffeeshops open at 6 like you would in the US. Anyway I stumble into a big beefy structure with grand pillars out front, yep that’s it! Almost nobody there. If you arrive a few hours later there you’d never be able to take a clean photo with the throngs of people out front waiting to get in. And that would be me actually!
I won’t bore you with too many more details of how the walk went, but at one point I went through a neighborhood that had an arch, an aqueduct, and some huge pillars standing right there, a restaurant was almost under the arch and apartment building backed right up to the pillars. Just super cool. I finished up with going inside the Pantheon which opened up a 9am with lines down the street. But they moved quick at least. So the first morning in Rome was a very enjoyable experience, very much unlike the afternoon experience, the Vatican museums and Sistine Chapel….
the dog park
Every random church is gorgeous
Capitoline Hill
Joining the fellow tourists at the Pantheon
the famous roof, it’s too big to a get much of a photograph!