Italy Trip 2019 Day 0 and Day 1 (10th December - 11th December)

We had been really looking forward to our Italy trip even though we initially wanted to go Romania to see the Dracula castle instead. By the third week of July, we realised the cost of air ticket to remote places like Romania had went up to 1.7k and it was too costly to spend so much on air ticket. I went to Skyscanner and searched through all the destinations in Europe according to the price of air ticket, and popular places like Greece and Italy came up top in the list as these places are the most accessible. P is not keen in Greece so we decided on Italy instead. I spent a few months doing research and got more and more excited about the trip.

Prior to the trip, there were many warnings from friends about the pickpockets in Italy and basically Europe. It was not our first trip to Europe but I got a little paranoid when I went online to search more information, it really seemed like many people had bad experiences. There was only a few days of rest after my Japan trip and I quickly washed repacked all my winter clothings into the luggage in preparation for the trip. We also specially bought money zipper to hide our cash under our clothes.

My meal on Etihad Airways

The aircraft is older than the previous time

As Etihad airways is still the cheapest to Europe and we had quite a good experience taking the airlines to UK the previous time, we bought tickets on Etihad again. However, upon boarding the flight, I noticed the aircraft is older than the previous trip and there were also groups of Singaporeans on the flight, flying to the middle east for Mecca pilgrimage.

Food was average at the lounge

Waiting to board our flight to Rome

Shower room at the lounge

Visit to the lounge during transit

During the transit, there was 2 hour to spare and I use my Amex PP lounge voucher here so that we can get a rest and take a shower before the next flight. For the subsequent flight, I was sitting on the middle seat watching Spiderman 3: Far From Home and I felt the seat was quite uncomfortable as the guy next to me was quite tall. I really missed my business class experience and I hope for the next trip to Europe, we will be able to upgrade.

The connecting train from gate to terminal

First sight of Rome after getting out from the airport

The green door of Zefiro Home

Room 2 that we stayed for a few nights

Our beds in the room, very very comfy

The shower room

Outside our airbnb apartment

After a long long flight, we finally reached Rome and it was still early morning of 11th December. We were staying for four nights at a Airbnb Zefiro Home and the owner had contacted us prior to the stay to check our arrival time, I'll totally recommend this place and I was happy to chance upon it when researching for the trip on Tripadvisor/ Agoda. There was a Filipino lady taking care of the place and P was really happy to see her there as they could communicate in Tagalog during our stay. There was no specific check in hours and they could accommodate us checking in at any time. The owner also sent a driver to pick us up from the airport at a cost of 48 Euros (we gave 50 including tipping) and we took it up as we did not want to risk navigating the city on our own with our luggages just after we arrived. Remember our paranoia?

The marvel of the colosseum 

The grandeur of the place during sunset

The Forum structure

View from the other side 

We knocked out and rested in the very comfortable room until it was 2pm, we finally got up and got ready for our first exploration around Rome. Once we stepped out from the green door of Zefiro Home, we could see the colosseum down the street, it was just that near to our accommodation and we were really excited! I've made a booking for the colosseum tour the next day but we decided to just head there and to do a pre-tour recce since colosseum is so iconic and it should be among the first few pictures we take in the city.

During my research, I saw many comments that Rome is always super crowded with tourists during summer and I'm glad we decided to visit during winter as it was not really that crowded with tourists when we went. It was already near sunset and we walked one round around the exterior of the grand landmark and took many photos from different angles. We saw some blacks (probably the scammers we read about) really to sell stuff at the entrance but it was easy enough to just ignore them and walk on.

After leaving Colosseum, we were quite hungry so we walked across the street to explore. We also had to find our way to Apple Store as we forgot to bring our Apple Watch charger. Along the way, we passed a shop selling bread and sandwiches and we went in to get a sandwich. The taste was so so good and it was such a great first meal/snack we enjoyed in Rome.

The basilica across the street 

The magnificent basilica

P doing his confession

We navigated our way to the Apple Store, got the charger and started walking randomly around the place. We came across a church which looked really grand and we went in to take a look. There were many worshippers and entry was free although we had to get through some checks before going in. I always see those confession booths in the movies, and it was the first time I saw priests really sitting inside and people went up to them for confessions. I checked Tripadvisor and realised it's the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, one of the landmarks in Rome.

After leaving the church, we explored a little around the surroundings, it was only 5pm but the sky was already dark. We decided to go back to the hotel for a short break before heading to Trevi fountain again. We finally found the right direction towards Trevi fountain from our hotel and we headed there. It was a little intimidating as Rome did not have any streetlamps but I soon found it very surreal as Rome is so cool, so traditional and I'm really impressed how grand the artefacts are and how well the Romans had preserved them. In Rome and in fact all of Italy, there were no buildings taller than these artefacts, it is a stark contrast to other cities but showed how well the country treasure these buildings.

The ruins of the Imperial Forum 

Admiring the ruins in the dark

Altar of the fatherland

The location of Zefiro Home in Monti district is really good as we could walk to most of the landmarks in Rome, except for the Vatican which is a bit further away. We had a rough itinerary though most of the time we just wandered around and explored quite randomly. We wanted to walk to the famous Trevi fountain area that night and also get dinner, while marveling at the landmarks along the way. The Imperial Forum ruins were the nearest to our hotel after the Colosseum, it was at the area right after we passed the Cavour subway station towards Trevi fountain direction. Next, we saw the Altar of the Fatherland and stopped to take many photographs, when we first saw the structure on the way to Zefiro, we thought the statues outside looked really iconic and we've been wanting to find out what structure that was. In fact, we walk past the landmark everyday.

P was keen to get inside to visit the museums and stuff but it was already closed by the time we got there, and we decided to go back again. After the detour up the steps of the huge monument, we got a bit lost and walked in the opposite direction from Trevi fountain. We compared the map and the road and buildings we spotted, then realised we had to turn back after 15-20min of walking.

We should be walking towards this instead

Very grand area for photographs

After this small adventure, we realised we should get across the street everytime we get to the monument and did not lose our way around the area again. The streets across were busier and crowded with people and there were signage to bring us to the Trevi fountain. We were walking around for an hour after the Altar of the fatherland before we finally reached the Trevi fountain.

Another grand monument of Italy

Real iconic

Real impressive

The crowd at the fountain

Trevi fountain should be the most famous fountain in the world, or one of the most famous. It's really grand and words cant describe how impressive it was. There were lots of people gathering around the fountain taking photographs, and it was really hard to get any nice group photos or selfies/wefies. We helped other groups get their photographs and in turn had ours taken. I saw photographs online and in the summer it's even worse than the crowd we encountered.

We managed to get our photos

Another shot taken together

Glad that we managed to get some help with our photos

I was feeling so cold and tired after the long walk, we made the most basic mistake any tourist would make under such conditions, as we looked for a place for dinner at one of the alleys near the fountain. It's a grave mistake as there are many tourist traps near to such attractions, I cant really judge whether our dinner place is one of those, but the food was really pricey. Anyway, it was our first proper meal in Italy, so we did not know anything about the prices. There was a friendly guy standing outside, trying to get customers into the restaurant and there were quite a few other patrons. We actually walked further to see if anything else caught our eye but we turned back to the same shop as P wanted steak and the shop offered that. The bill was more than $100SGD for that meal if I remember it correctly, and later on from subsequent meals we realised that was really expensive.

Seafood risotto for me

Steak for P

It was still quite cold after dinner when we tried to walk back to Zefiro Home, so we really hurried along. At the same temperature, Italy was colder than Japan at night so I could wear jeans in Japan but that was not warm enough in Italy. I could feel that my legs were really cold, but unfortunately, I only had a fleece lined pants from Uniqlo and another set of winter clothes we bought for our wedding shot.