Rome was an adventure to say the least. But it ended up being our favorite place. We would, hands down, go back to Italy. It was beautiful, historic, the people were friendly. But it didn’t start out so great…The flight from Dulles to Rome was great. Smooth, so much food. But man is 9 hours in an airplane a long time. It’s the longest flight I’ve ever been on and all of my joints hurt when I got off. We slept a little but not a whole lot. Definitely not a full night of sleep worth, especially since we were going to hit the ground running in Rome.

We land and get our luggage (thankfully our checked bags made it), hit the restroom, then go try to buy our train tickets. Well apparently in Italy they have PINs for their credit cards. Their train ticket kiosks required you to put a PIN in even if it was a credit card and you couldn’t bypass it. So we tried once on our own, then asked the attendant and he said no you have to use a PIN. So thankfully we had gotten Euros before we left America so we were able to purchase our tickets. We go over to the platform and make it just before our train leaves - woohoo! Now we had heard that Termini station - where we would be getting off in Rome - was a pretty sketchy place with a lot of pick pocketers. And we didn’t turn on our international data so I had printed directions of all the places we needed to go (lol). Now Termini station is a huge station. The main hub in Rome. It has both a metro station (underground) and a train station (above ground) and it’s massive. We come out of the station and immediately start looking for the road we are supposed to take straight down from Termini to our B&B. Well the first thing we notice is the road names aren’t on signs, they are on the sides of buildings which makes it a lot harder to read them from far away…long story short, we got lost. Like “walked-around-in-circles-because-we-didn’t-want-to-stop-and-look-at-our-directions-but-couldn’t-find-the-street-we-were-looking-for-because-our-directions-didn’t-have-all-the-road-names-on-it” lost on our way from Termini to our B&B. But after getting away from Termini station and fear of pick pocketing, we finally asked someone where the road was and proceeded to our B&B. Eventually we got there, but mind you, we had hauled one checked bag, two carry ons, and two backpacks all that way over cobblestone streets, so we weren’t wheeling, we were basically carrying…Needless to say we weren’t off to a great start and Ryan wasn’t very happy with me lol (he was the one with the checked bag). Pro tip: splurge on international data so you don’t get lost and walk for 5 miles with luggage.

We got to our B&B, after asking a few more people for help because roads were not easy to find, and rang in. Lucy, the best hostess, told us to come in and that the B&B was on the fourth floor. We didn’t realize there was an elevator…so after hauling the luggage all over Rome, we also hauled it up 4 flights of stairs, which were basically in a circle and every time we thought we were at the top…we weren’t. BUT we made it and we sat down for a little while. Then while waiting for check in, we found a little cafe to have breakfast (pizza) and coffee for Ryan.

After breakfast and check-in we went walking to try to find the Trevi Fountain before we had to be back for our Colosseum tour. Instead of finding the Trevi fountain, we found the Pantheon and then from there, followed signs to the Trevi fountain. I was prepared to be underwhelmed at the Trevi fountain based on what I’ve heard from others but it was BEAUTIFUL. Not only the artistry that went into it but the clearness of the water. We learned later that the Trevi fountain water is the best in Rome and we should have filled our water bottles up off to the side of it.

We went on a three hour plus colosseum, Roman forum, and Palatine hill tour with Diego and learned a lot and definitely got our money’s worth. We would have been happy being done after the Colosseum because of our adventures in the morning but it was worth it to stick around. The architecture and what the ancient Romans were able to do before power tools is amazing.

We went to dinner at Ai Tre Scalini on recommendation from Lucy and it was so good. I got lasagna with meat sauce and Ryan got ravioli with pine nuts. Both were amazing. We also got seasoned green olives...because when in Italy, right? I don’t even like olives and they were so good. And instead of bread they had these things that looked like giant Cheerios only they tasted like crunchy bread and were delicious. I had a Prosecco and Ryan had a Pinot Grigio, both local to Italy and both very yummy.

Our B&B, Made in Rome B&B was awesome. They were super accommodating as we got in early, were able to leave our bags, and had a tour scheduled during check in time so we were able to check in early. Our room had a balcony looking into a little, very Italian, alley way. You could see parts of the Roman Forum from our balcony and upstairs on the veranda you could see much of the Roman Forum, Palatine Hill, and the Colosseum. It was so close to the action. We finished our walking tour of the “Big Three” and were so glad the room was so close to the Roman Forum that we walked there in under 3 minutes including waiting at a cross walk.

Fun facts we learned about Rome:

There are fountains EVERYWHERE and the water is safe to drink at all of them...yet we paid for water at dinner 🤦🏽‍♀️
Cats freely roam the city, but we didn’t see a single one
Many of the street names are on the sides of buildings instead of street signs. It makes it a lot more beautiful than the ugly green signs we have in America but harder to see and find
Jet lag is real but the way to overcome it in a day instead of a week is to basically stay awake for over 24 hours and push through 😂 we got up at 8:30am EST on Monday morning and went to sleep at 7:30pm Rome time on Tuesday (1:30pm EST). We slept some on the plane but definitely not solid. I nodded off at one point (maybe more than one lol) during our Big Three tour and during dinner 😂But we made it. And proceeded to sleep for 13+ hours Tuesday night.

We woke up on our first and only morning in Rome after having slept for 13+ hours. Our feet felt a little better and we still had some things we wanted to see and do before we had to head out to catch the train to the port. We went back up to the Colosseum where I wanted to capture a full picture of it. The day before we were so close, I only was able to capture partial pictures of it. While there we realized how many peddlers there were trying to sell selfie sticks and charging ports for phones and silly bracelets. We then walked back through the Roman Forum and took the time to read many of the signs. We were able to find some nice Americans who promised they wouldn’t steal our cameras (and they didn’t) to take our picture. We got some gelato (10/10 recommend the strawberry 😍😍😍 I wish I had gotten two scoops of that instead of one strawberry and one banana) and made it back to our B&B to grab our luggage about the time the skies opened up. Talk about dumping rain and thunderstorms. Thankfully by the time we got ourselves situated and headed to the Coloseo metro station to get us up to Termini (we decided we weren’t walking again, one because it was uphill the whole way, and two because tickets were only €1.50 per person) it had all but stopped raining. We had rain coats but that surely didn’t stop the peddlers from trying to sell us ponchos and umbrellas. Ryan and I were like “Where the heck do they get this stuff? Do they just have umbrellas stuffed in their bag and switch out selfie sticks for umbrellas whenever it starts raining??” Apparently they do.

We made it to Coloseo station, hopped on the blue line two stops to Termini and tried not to get lost as we transitioned from the Termini metro station to the Termini train station—two different things. We had to go upstairs and find our platform, which of course was as far away as possible 😂 and after triple checking that the train number on the platform matched the one on our ticket, we hopped on the train to Civitavecchia. It was an uneventful trip despite groups of school aged kids being on the train...on a Wednesday at 1pm...I was confused but 🤷🏽‍♀️

Once in Civitavecchia, we had to find the bus. I looked at the map, Ryan looked out the door and guess who found it first? Yep...him lol. We were able to squeeze on the first bus which took us to the port. At the port they had more buses for you to get on based on your cruise line which we found odd but extremely convenient as it took us right to the cruise terminal. We checked our large bag and checked in to the ship. The easiest cruise check-in I’ve ever done with no lines to wait in. It was great. Next thing we know, we’re in our home for the next 11 days. AND our room was already ready when we got on which was great! We went to find food and spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the ship. We went to dinner in the main dining room where we met our waiter, Jake, and we learned that they like to put pepper on EVERYTHING. The seas were pretty rockin’ thanks to a storm so everyone was all over the place in the halls. We tried to go up to the club because apparently there was a DJ but there was literally one couple in there and they were sitting at the bar. It was then that we knew we were very much outnumbered on this cruise by old people lol. So, instead, we went to the piano bar which was hopping and found out that would be our place to be each night.

Now for the reason I’m sure you’re here, the pictures: