What a longggg trip to get here but we made it! We left Brisbane on Saturday afternoon at 245pm and it was an 8hr flight to Singapore. We flew Singapore Airlines and the plane was really impressive. We each had our own TV with heaps of TV shows and Movies to watch, we spent the whole 8hrs watching this. When we got to Singapre it was about 9pm local time and we had 4hrs till we got to board the next flight so we just had a wonder around the shops and had a coffee to try and stay awake. We boarded at 1215am and then had a 12hr and 40min flight ahead of us. The plane we were on for this part was older then the first one and not as nice but we'd planned to sleep for most of it so it didnt really matter. I think i probably got about 2-3hrs sleep on and off but im sure Dad got more then that. As we started our decent to Rome we had a really pretty view over the snow capped mountains, they must look amazing in Winter. When we got off the plane we went through ''immigration'' and i say this because all they did was look at you and compare you to your passport - there was no entry form to fill out or anything, and then went through ''customs'' which involved us walking thru the lane that was for Nothing To Declare - again no forms to fill out. I was really suprised with the lack of paperwork etc, especially compared to the USA!
We got our shuttle bus to our hotel and checked in, luckily we were able to go straight to our room and didnt have to wait till 2pm. Lets just say our room is very small. There's 2 single beds, no room to walk between them and just enough room to put a suitcase on either side. Theres a little desk with a TV and then a small bathroom. We have a window but it looks into a courtyard of nothing. But the room is clean and we dont plan on being in here very much anyway!
Temperature wise it was quite cool when we got out of the airport, about 12ish degrees but it warmed up pretty quickly, the day was sunny and about 22degrees so a t-shirt and jeans was fine.
After we settled into our room we were off - we went and got a ticket on a Hop on Hop off bus (there is at least 10 different companies that operate these) but we got a 48hr pass with Ciao Roma that includes headphones and there is a recording that tells you a little about each place we pass. There is about 18 stops and you can get on and off at any of them and the next bus will only be about 15mins away. Having said that we've already learnt that Italians arent all that punctual with time...
We spent about 2 hrs doing a lap of the bus, we started off downstairs as all the spots upstairs on the open topped bus were full, it made such a difference when we were able to get up the top and see everything from there as it was so open. Its really amazing to realise how long all these buildings have been around for. What we were suprised with though was the amount of graffitti on the buildings... there was so much, however most of it was on the shutters of the closed shops (it was Sunday) so maybe we wont notice it as much today.
After that we got off at our stop (less then 5min walk from our hotel) and went in search for lunch...We found a cute little restaurant with about 10 tables on the footpath and ordered a Pizza Parmagiana which had eggplant, tomato and cheese and was delicious. We shared it as it was big and we werent that hungry. We then ordered dessert - dad had a trio of mixed gelato and i had a lemon one that was served in half a frozen lemon which I thought was cool.
After lunch i was in desperate need of a nap so headed back to the room for a shower and nap. Dad did a bit of a walk around the streets near our hotel.
At about 730pm it was time to head off to dinner. We had planned to simply walk across the road to a cheap restaurant that looked really nice but it turns out they were closed on Sundays... so we plan to head there tonight instead.
We found another restaurant about 10mins walk from our hotel and went on in. I had a Spagetti al pomodoro which was just a simple tomato sauce and basil pasta and Dad had the Veal and salad, we started with a simple Brushetta of tomato and herbs and it was soooooo yum.
After dinner we headed back to our Hotel for an early night, not before getting in trouble with the man at reception - turns out when we leave the hotel we are suppose to leave our room key with them and then get it when we come back which the other guy didnt tell us when we checked in... well now we know!
I've uploaded the first days album however am not going to label everything as it was the stuff we saw from the bus, today we are actually going to the sights so i'll make it more detailed in the next one.. xo