Roma Day 1

The plane from Madrid to Rome was scheduled for takeoff at 7:05 at gate D71. The responsible Hurley children gave themselves plenty of time and security was a breeze - around 20 minutes. So, we were sitting at the gate for some time, waiting on a plane to arrive. About 30 minutes til boarding time, and still no plane, we heard an announcement in Spanish - closely followed by a mass exodus of the other passengers waiting at gate D71.

Investigation ensued.

I left Rachel manning the baggage while I walked to the nearby screens to search for info. Madrid airport decided to move our gate. The new destination? C57. These aren't exactly neighboring gates. About a 7 minute walk and we arrived in a much more crowded area of the airport with others waiting in line to board our plane. Still no sign of our plane mind you. We stood in line for what seemed like forever and it eventually became clear that this plane was not taking off on-time. Finally the line began to move and we made our way to the front, were scanned in, and entered the jetway only to realize that we are being shuttled by bus from there to where the plane sits - elsewhere. The shuttle bus ride seems way longer than it should be. Why was our gate not close to where the plane was? A mystery.

Finally getting on the plane

We finally take off - about 60 minutes late. None of the flight attendants seemed too hurried or concerned by this.

Ciao Roma! We waited at one carrousel for about 15 minutes for Rachel's checked bag - containing about 2lbs less than it should have (I suspect she covers that part in her blog). But, that was not the right carrousel. Next we tracked down and waited at the correct carrousel for another 30 minutes, which is where we discovered our 2nd character of the trip, "the Unabomber." It looked just like Ted Kaczynski. I swear. Only this guy looked meaner, wore a cowboy-style hat and spoke Español.

Don't you dare go in there...

We joked about that guy a bit, until he removed his sunglasses and revealed a stare that belonged in a Wes Craven film. Couldn't wait to get out of there!

There it is! Rachel's bag! Thank God. Now to the next adventure. Locate the prepaid shuttle that is to take us from airport to hotel. There were probably 70 people waiting for the arrivals as we all left the secure area. Of those 70, probably 20 were guys holding signs with names of who they were supposed to pick up - most of those names ended in an "i". I was convinced we were never going to find this shuttle. But, we did. Lucky occurrence #4. They piled us into a van/bus thing - about 12 people in all - and we tooled around Rome dumping 2 at a time at their respective hotels. Of course, we were 2nd to last to be dropped. We did get a nice tour of the city, albeit without knowing what we were seeing, and with a lot of unwanted motion sickness included.

2:00pm

Safe and sound at the Royal Court Hotel. Checked in and on the WiFi. That's when you got a flurry of updates from us - probably around 5:00am on July 31. The hotel was cozy, but very adequate with a kind, helpful staff that spoke excellent English. And Rachel was so concerned that we wouldn't be able to communicate.

After a 2-hr siesta we set out for food - had not eaten since the granola bars and generic gushers at the airport. Recommendation from the guy at the desk was to grab pizza at the little joint down the street.

Whenever I return to Rome, I will definitely stay in a hotel in the same general location. It was perfect for travel by METRO, as we were just 100 steps from Termini - a huge train station that doesn't have an American comparison. It is closer to the likes of a small airport in the US than a train station.

TERMINI STATION in the background

Back to the food. After bland and underwhelming Spanish food - big things were expected in Italy. Quoting myself to Rachel, "if they don't have the best bread I've ever tasted, I'll be disappointed." In this case, "they" was all of Rome. Lofty expectations... We ordered pizza with spinach and garlic; and bruschetta with garlic and olive oil - no tomatoes. First bite was amazing.

Our Pizza and Bruschetta

No disappointment here. It was an excellent little family-run pizzeria with a great staff, one was the eldest daughter of the owner, or so we figured out. She was quite attractive and spoke excellent English.

We asked for some advice on our way out, as we only had a partial day left. She pointed us to the Spanish Steps...

The huge crowd at Spanish Steps

Us at the Spanish Steps

She also mentioned wandering down Corso (something or other), which was a shopping area with very expensive stuff, but interesting to see. We meandered our way from that area over to a roundabout with a nice fountain and a Basilica (one of 900 churches in Roma). It was Sunday, and we entered the Basilica - with many others - and mass was going on. We didn't stay long, but it was cool to see. We grabbed some holy water and made the sign of the cross.

The Basilica

Took a bunch of pictures. You have already seen most. And we walked through the roundabout and peaked at little shopping carts on the street.

One was really cool and had a copy of Hamlet from 1912. The condition was terrible, so I decided against buying it for Mom. Oh yeah, and it was in Italian.
We found our way back to the METRO and home to Termini with one thing on our minds - dinner.

We had read that Italy is much the same as Spain with late dinners - around 9pm. What is largely different from Spain is that dinner is an event, not just a small snack. Dinner is antipasti, primi piatti, secondi piatti, dessert, and/or coffee, and for the bold, even a liqueur. Well, we were feeling quite bold, and the 70 EURO bill shows that. We ordered prosciutto and fresh mozzarella with oil for our bread - Antipasti. I had spinach and cheese ravioli with a tomato, basil cream sauce - fresh pasta and the ripest tomatoes for the sauce - primi piatti. You're drooling on your keyboard.

Now you see it...

Now you don't

A beef filet would soon arrive as my secondi piatti. Like I said, bold. By the way, we are already on drink #4 of glass #2 of house red.

Beef Filet and mixed veggies

No dessert for us, but we inquired with our waiter about Grappa. I was curious. Have you heard of it? Have you tried it? I had heard, but never tried. The waiter told us that he doesn't like it, but he wanted us to try it.

Grappa and Limoncello

And it arrived - one shot of Grappa and another of limoncello for Rach - on the house. Grappa is strong, and tastes somewhat like scotch to me. I think I sprouted about 20 new chest hairs on the spot - the last thing I need. The limoncello was very strong too, but after one sip of the Grappa, it seemed like lemonade. And these sips were like the size of a large raindrop. Key takeaway, Grappa is not for everyone.

Arrivederci!