Day 9 is here and today we wake up in our lovely apartment in Rome, you would have no idea that such a lovely space existed behind the tall wooden closed doors.

We were checking out today and would yet again be packing our suitcases as bags ready for a new adventure and destination, Sardinia.

However, we still had the morning and early part of the afternoon in Rome. I shall try and resist the saying " when on Rome " or Rome wasn't built in a day, although regards the latter Alex questioned why this was a phrase as from what she could see they were still building it, which made us laugh .

Today we were going to visit one of the most famous of all Italian landmarks, and if you can remember back to the comments made regards the pictures hanging up in the Reception of our Milan hotel, Hotel Pomo we would today be ' completing the set '.

However, we still had all of our luggage with us after having checked out of our accommodation earlier in the morning. There was an option to leave luggage in a cupboard under the stairs, in the hallway leading up to our apartment however on closer inspection the luggage store was totally insecure, but if left there it would also have meant wasting time and money collecting it again.

The solution therefore was to take everything with us but leave the suitcases in a secure luggage deposit area at Rome Termini station. The cost was only 6€ per item and includes up to 5 hours storage.

So luggage deposited we made our way via 2 stops on The Metro to The Coliseum, which is an awesome piece of living history and incredible to see in real life.

As you may expect there were crowds of people around The Coliseum, including the usual enterprising Italians this time dressed in Roman Gladiator fancy dress and offering a paid for photo opportunity. They must be very hot in their outfits as today the temperature was again in the early thirties.

The queue to enter this magnificent structure was needles to say, very long and it would be around 45 minutes before we were at the front buying our tickets. The total cost for the 5 of us for entry (also including The Forum) was 31.50€. 12€ for 25+ 7.50€ for 18-24 year olds and under 18 go free. Proof of age will be needed at the ticket desk.

Part of the queue took you inside in the outer quarters of The Coliseum so we could already get a flavour of what lay ahead inside. Of course, the building looks incredible from the outside too but I would recommend going inside to get a real feel for the history of The Coliseum, and to see the relic, remains and architecture which is very interesting.

If you are willing to pay extra you can get a guided tour amongst other options. Plus if you buy a ticket in advance your queuing time will be significantly reduced.

We were on a tight schedule today as our Terravision bus (pre-booked) and taking us from Rome Termini station to Campigno Airport where we would board our plane to Alghero in Sardinia would leave at 3pm. Therefore we didn't have a huge amount of time to spend at The Colesium, but managed to find around 30 minutes to spend there.

The views both inside and out of The Coliseum were incredible especially from the upper tier where the best view points lay and it's true to say we were snap happy even taking the odd selfie or two. This was by far the most impressive of anything we had seen in Rome especially in view of the disappointments of the previous day.

Lunch today was back at Rome Termini at another old favourite McDonalds, not really ideal in my opinion but we didn't have a great deal of time finding an alternative and we knew roughly how much it would cost, as it happened about 35€. The chap serving us was quite friendly and explained that he had been to Kingston and Croydon.

It is unlikely we will rush back to Rome, the City felt very dirty with graffiti everywhere not helping and somewhat reminiscent of the way New York was before it decided to quite literally clean up it's act which is exactly what Rome needs to do in my opinion. On the positive side generally speaking the people are quite friendly although even then you can't be sure if it's because there maybe be something in it for them of which the following incident is a classic example.

Once our luggage had been collected we needed to make our way to the Terravision bus stop which is easier said than done. A lady who at this point appeared to be an official member of staff with an Italia (banner) around her offered to take us there. Rome Termini station is very big and on various levels, there are also numerous points of access and exits, so this help proved very useful... However, once at the bus stop she started asking for money - not happy with what she had been given she insisted on 5 Euros for here troubles which needless to say she did not get.

Whilst we were by baggage collection a lady asked us whether it was possible to travel on the trains with large luggage, we explained it was and why we had decided to put our own luggage in storage for a short time. The lady was obviously seeing everyone putting their luggage into storage and assuming that no luggage allowed on trains. That's the one of the things we have found on our travels, people help you and you help people, nice really.

So 3pm came we loaded our luggage on to the coach and made our way to Campigno Airport, a 30-40
minute journey which Cost only around 4€ each if booked in advance.

However upon arriving at the airport the huge sign emblazoned across the front of the airport said Aeroporto G B Pastine. No mention of Campigno here so for a few moments we were seriously concerned that we were at the wrong airport.

Our fears were eased upon speaking to a German lady who confirmed it was indeed the correct airport.

By strange co-incidence one of the books I have been reading since away is the brilliant What you see is what you get by Alan Sugar.

It turns out that the famous business man really did land at the wrong airport in Sardinia, having made an incorrect assumption that there was only the 1 international airport on the island - in fact there are 3. Fortunately for Mr Sugar & Co. he was in his private jet so was able to simply jump on board again and fly from the south to the north of the island where his 'luxury ' accommodation was waiting (although if you've read the book you'll know that luxury was not quite the word Mr Sugar used when recounting the experience).

Unbeknown to us at the time this was the least of our worries, as one of our suitcases was to go missing.

Campigno airport is relatively small and exactly the kind of airport that the budget airlines fly in and out of. It's pretty compact and with the exception of an Easyjet A320 the only other aircraft on the Tarmac were Ryanair Boeing 737s.

After a couple of hours wait in the departure lounge and passing some of the time watching one or two earlier flights take off, we were on our way to Sardinia well all of us less one suitcase not that we knew it at the time.

The flight from Rome to Alghero is only around 40 minutes long. The interior of a Ryanair plans is quite hideous, and basically a sea of yellow headrests. There is also no criss cross basket on the back of the seat to place personal items etc.

Anyway, those details were to prove minor compared to what was about tzu happen on arrival at Alghero when only 4 out of the 5 pieces of luggage we put in the hold arrived on the baggage reclaim conveyor. Millie's suitcase was missing and at the point of writing this blog has still not arrived in Sardinia.

This situation caused considerable inconvenience and would mean we would not leave the airport in our hire car until gone 9pm at which point it was dark.

Eventually after queuing for our car hire for some time because of a large queue in front of us which would not have been the case had the luggage all turned up we were able to collect our car (a practically brand new Peugeot 2008) which was in fact very nice.

It was now dark and therefore reading a map would prove fruitless as it was too dark to read it. Thankfully we were able to use our iphone 5 as a Sat nav which was brilliant and quite honestly without it I really have no idea how we would have made the journey to our accommodation which was some 2 hours away to the North West of the island.

The journey initially was quite complex made more difficult by the fact that we were now all quite tired, it was late, dark and we were having to do everything in reverse due to having to drive on the right side of the road.

At times the journey was quite nerve-wracking and towards the latter end of the journey the road had more twists and turns than a crime thriller, although conversely the driving was made easier by the fact that the road (SP90)was continuous with no roundabouts or junctions to negotiate.

Anyway we only managed to take one wrong road on the entire journey which was quite an achievement to be honest. Note to self - don't drive in the dark again in Sardinia.

We finally arrived at our accommodation La Lumuni at at just after 11.30. Around 20 minutes earlier we had called ahead and spoken to the chap at the apartments that would let us into our accommodation which was quite impressive given the late hour.

We were given a choice of a large apartment without air conditioning or a smaller one with. The former option sounded better so we went with that. At around midnight we all finally turned in for the night, the only black mark being the missing suitcase and wondering A) where it was as Ryanair had no idea and B) whether we would ever see it again. Watch this space for updates.

It was in fact quite fortunate ( although not for Millie) that it had been her suitcase that got lost because it was the smallest of the lot and only had her clothes in it, whereas Alex would have had a fit if it had even hers that had gone missing and Josie and I had various other items in our suitcases such as toiletries etc. Millie to her credit was very good about it given the circumstances.

The only other plus point was that our car would only fit 3 suitcases in the boot space anyway as it turned out so desperately looking for positives at least the girls didn't have to spend 2 hours with a suitcase on their laps. Hopefully tomorrow will bring some news of where the suitcase is and when we may see it again.