Roma

Rome…where to start… I suppose at the beginning is best place to begin. And the beginning begins on the airplane ride. Flying into Rome I saw the old aqueducts and lots of fields and the city was really cool from the sky. Touch down in Ciampino was smooth and we got off and promptly bought bus tickets to city centre. I was expecting Ciampino to be like all the other aiports the Ryanair flys to aka in the middle of no where and an hour from civilization. So it was surprising when we got to Termini bus station in less then an hour. And the fact that we came into Termini made finding our hostel fairly easy. So we took a few turns and were on the street of our hostel it was a cute street with lots of nondescript doors. The doors were so nondescript that we walked past our hostel and had to walk back to spot it on the second go.

The front door to the hostel

Then the climb of 6 flights of stairs like this

Then down a long hall

To get to this

Our room was quite nice actually. A little sketchy but the door locked and I sleep with my backpack in bed so I wasn’t worried. The view from our window was… well… lacking.

We were a little tired our first day to actually care about the window view. So after a nice Italian pasta dinner we crawled into bed and snuggled up for sleep.

The next morning when we went to reception for breakfast we were handed paper bags and informed we could eat in our rooms or on the roof. The roof sounded like such a nice place. So off we went to the roof. It was quite a hike and I was nearly out of breath by the time we got all the way up. So we broke out our paper bag breakfast, which was actually yummy.

And we took in the views…

See that stone looking line, yeah that’s the Colosseum… no big deal right? Oh and yes that's the Vatican there in the far distance.

The only plan we had for Rome was to walk around ad see as much as we could. So we walked, and walked, and walked. We saw lots of squares and fountains.

^Santa Maria Maggiore^

This was the square right by our hostel.

^Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II^

^Foro di Cesare^

^Colosseo^

^More Colosseo^

^Arco di Constantino^

^Fontana di Trevi^

^Scalinata Trinita del Monti^

^Piazza Navona^

^Pantheon^

^Pantheon Ceiling^

^Castel Saint Angelo^

^Basillica Saint Pietro^

^Santa Maria degli Angelli^

^Piazza della Repubblica^

^San Carlo Quattro Fontane^

^Fountain 1^

^Fountain 2^

^Fountain 3^

^Fountain 4^

^Fontana del Tritone in the Piazza Barberini^

^The very boring...Villa Medici^

Now that you’ve seen cool pictures you want some cool facts? Of course you do!
-Sometimes gladiator blood was recommended by Roman physicians as an aid to fertility
-On the day the Colosseum officially opened, 5,000 animals were killed. During its history, it has been estimated that over 500,000 people and over a million animals were killed there
-Roman days were divided into 12 hours, measured by a sundial
-At its peak, Rome included more than one million people. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the city’s population fell dramatically to less than 50,000 people.j In 2007, there were over 2.7 million people living in the greater Rome area

On our second day in Rome we got up bright and not so early to go to the Vatican. Now we’d heard that it was smart to get there before 10 to beat the lines. We didn’t wake up till about 9:30. What we did know was that you can buy tickets online. So we did just that. After printing the receipt we were off to the Vatican. It was a nice walk from our hostel only 45 minutes. When we got there we were in for a huge surprise.
The line was gigantic! Like totally enormous. We guessed that we skipped a good 1000 or so people. And it was the ultimate line cut when we presented our online receipt and entered without waiting in line! And bam just like that we were in the Vatican and walking around before even half the people we passed had gotten in.

I don’t know what I was expecting of the Vatican… probably churchy things with churchly importance. Instead I found a ton of epic ceilings and lots of cool statues. I could go on and on about the history and the other such fun stuff about the Vatican but I’ll spare you most of it and stick to some super cool facts.


We all know that Vatican city is it’s own country. But did you know Vatican City issues its own passports; the Pope, cardinals, members of the Swiss guard and clergy being the recipients.


The Vatican museums are over 9 miles (14,5 kilometers) long, and it is said that if you spent only 1 minute admiring each painting it would take you 4 years to complete the circuit. I sadly did not take 4 years.. But that would be quite a lot of art to take in. my brain may have exploded of I looked at thoroughly. My brain nearly exploded just looking at it casually.


To be a Swiss guard one must be: at least 1,74m (5'8.5'') in height, Male, Catholic, between the ages of 19 and 30, have completed basic training in the Swiss military, and of course, be Swiss. There goes my future job…. Oh darn


The Vatican was one of the coolest parts of my Rome visit. Another cool part? Gelato and pasta and pizza… I’m drooling just thinking about the pizza! We found a cool pizza shop close to our hostel. It was cheap and beyond yummy!!


By the end of only 7 days away from Ireland I was beyond ready to go. I don’t know if I’m just weird but seven days away from my room in Plassey was horrible by the end. I was tired of sleeping in hostel beds that were uncomfortable. And I was tired of worrying if my stuff was actually safe in the hostel. But it was all worth it. I saw some super sweet places that I thought I’d never see and it was all on spring break…


Cheers,