Things to know

OK, here are some things to know if you visit Rome.  There are no Wal-Mart type stores.  All of the stores sell only one type of thing…the pharmacies (Pharmacia) only sell drugs and drug supplies (no groceries, tobacco, candy, etc) and the stores are on about every other corner and all have the same sign, tobacco shops (tabacchi) sell smokes, lottery tickets, bus tickets (huh?) and a few odds and ends, leather shops sell leather products, etc.  Markets sell food (but not peanut butter!) and little else.  There is no such thing as one stop shopping.  In the vicinity of where we are staying there are about 200 restaurants (that is a conservative estimate) and hundreds of single purpose stores.  The stores are tiny by our standards.

Buses are everywhere and if we ever figure out where they go, we will use them. 

Traffic is awful.  It takes a strong stomach to drive here.  There don’t seem to be any rules, except stop at red lights and allow pedestrians to have the right of way.  Most corners don’t have stop signs, so it is every man for himself and the feint hearted will have to wait.  If I were to live my life over, I would buy stock in motor scooters and Smart cars…they are everywhere.  I don’t understand why more people don’t die on motor scooters…they weave in and out of traffic and the auto drivers just seem to expect that and don’t run them down.  Smart cars don’t parallel park, they just back straight into a half a spot.

The roads are very narrow, but that doesn’t slow anybody down.  Park wherever; there is hardly an inch between parallel parked cars.  I watched a guy park in a space waaaay too small…he just backed in until he hit the car behind , then hit the scooter in front, backed into the guy behind again and finally got about 80% into the space and turned off his engine.  Just about all of the cars in the city have some kind of dent.

Dining is expensive.  If you go to a nice ristorante, expect to pay 70 euro (about $90) for a dinner for two (plus tip).  At the other end of the dining scale are the Bars…yes you can buy a drink, but they mostly sell sandwiches (panini), salads, desserts, but are closed by dinner time.   There are also tratoria, tavalo caldo, and other moderately priced places, but I haven’t had a meal anywhere for less than 20 euro for the two of us and that was today’s lunch…two Panini, two waters, one coffee, and two dessert rolls at a really neat bar.

Most of the people here will try to help you, even if the language gets in the way.  They go out of their way to be polite.  It is a pleasure to listen to them talk, even when I have no idea what they are saying.  They seem to sing the words.

Vatican Tour

I hope these posts are in English, because the directions here are in Italian!

The Pope says Buon Giorno.  We spent about four hours touring the Vatican and the Vatican Museum, including the Sistine ChapelI.  It was awe inspiring.  No pictures can do it justice.  It would take several days to see everything.  The tour guide rushed us through what she could in the time we had.  We were basically herded through like cattle for most of the tour.  We were exhausted at the end.

We are still trying to find our way around.  This place is gigantic.  We walked to Bernini Piazza.  It took about 2 hours to walk here.  We are sitting in a ristorante that has wi-fi and having a nice dinner.  Finding wi-fi is still a challenge, so we can't write as much as we would like.  Tomorrow we take a  hop-on-hop-off tour bus.  We aren't sure where we have to walk to get on the bus.  It looks like it will be quite a hike.

Next post we might get some pictures posted if we can figure it out.

Finally, we're here

We are finally in Rome, but not an easy time.  First, the flight from Cleveland to Newark was cancelled.  They assigned another plane for two hours later which was delayed a half hour, but we still got to Newark about 20 minutes before departure to Rome.  The luggage even made it.

Then 8 hours in a plane...finally in the Rome airport.  The service that was to pick us up at the airport thought the flight was cancelled, so the driver left.  Luckily, the service had a booth at the airport and called the driver back (an hour late).  Now we were supposed to call the apartment manager, but had no phone that worked in Rome, so the guy at the booth called for me...no answer, he left a message.

We get to the apartment, no manager.  A very nice woman who owned a cookie shop right down the street, but spoke little English called for me...no answer.  We dragged our luggage down town and bought cell phones...wouldn't work for two hours.  We went back to the cookie lady, she called and got the manager.  About a half hour later we were in.  We left looking for wi-fi.  No luck.

 Today we looked all over, finally, at dinner at RJ Numbs Ristorante the manager hooked us up and here we are!

 We will try to post later.

Ciao.

Safely Arrived

Dad called me this morning to let me know that they've safely arrived in Italy. So far, they're unable to find an internet connection, so they'll be delinquent in posting their adventures until they've found something.

Airport Blues

Here we sit at Cleveland Hopkins.  Our original flight was cancelled because of mechanical problems.  So we are leaving 2 and a half hours later...still enough time to connect with our flight to Rome.  We will have about 50 minutes to find the correct gate.

We'll let you know when we find out apartment (if it has wi-fi).

Final plans

Yesterday we visited Becky Donaldson of The Travel Connection in Aurora for our final details for our trip.  Amazing...our hole life for a month in one fat envelope.  We'll have to guard it with our lives.  She answered all the questions we could think of and explained what charges were still to be paid once we arrived.  Some of the taxes need to be paid in Italy and cannot be prepaid.  One of the tours we wanted was better selected on site because of frequent cancellations ( the tours don't always fill up).

One question we have is about cell phones.  Our phones definitely will not work in Italy.  She suggested www.callineurope.com.  We will try calling them Monday.

Our trip starts Tuesday, May 1 out of Cleveland to Newark.  Then a four hour layover and then an eight hour flight to Rome arriving at around 7am Rome time (1am our time).  I hope we can get a little sleep on the plane.  We get picked up at the airport and delivered to our apartment and then the fun begins!  

Getting Close

Two weeks to go.  Molly will be taking care of Max, Georgie (next door) will be cutting the grass, and Emma Lee will take us to the airport.  We are stopping the paper and mail, and all the bills are being paid through our banking service.  We have also bought some Euros to get us started.  We are planning to use credit cards for most  purchases and ATM machines for cash.   I will look into getting a phone in Italy.  If you have a better idea, let me know.


Passports are ready, and we are storing stuff we will be taking in the bedroom as we think of them.  If you have any suggestions, email them or post them here.