We will be riding in one of the higher speed trains today, and IC to Rome. for 45€ we are able to make the trip in one and a half hours.. Not bad compared to a plane ticket. The world flies by, I catch up on some Rome tour info and Lauren writes her blog both for the trip and some brainstorms on usability inspired by the excellent design of our railcar, then suddenly we have arrived.
I had read in my book that an area near where we are staying should run about 10 € so we mentioned that to the man at the taxi stand. He grumbled, then another man came up, then another as they are all speaking animated Italian and apparently deciding what to do with us. The one man tells us to go over there, to the other lane, and we get into a car and drive off. This driver speaks no real English, but actually tries to communicate anyway, and point out some sites as we go flying through the streets. It's interesting to see all the crazy speeding and horn honking. The horns are actually a communication, like "on your left!" "on your right!" and somehow it seems to all work.
Our landlords are actually waiting for us as hop out of the car, and apologize that we ended up at 16€, but I was actually glad it was under 20€ with the language barrier and big city risks of being taken.
We have seen beggars, but nothing too aggressive at least not yet. We do keep our bags close at all times though. They prefer to deal in cash here, so I will have to head to the ATM yet again to survive the rest of the week.
We are staying in a lovely somewhat residential area, just a few blocks from the city sites, and yet it seems much further as you suddenly move from tourism to the local cultural feel.
We had a nice lunch at a small cafe nearby with salad that had seafood and fruit in it, meatballs and grilled vegetables.
We are located near Piazza Novona in the Pantheon neighborhood, and with the advise of landlord Geoffe we look for the Tourist information booth. They are out of the Roma Pass that we want to be able to get into exhibits for less and bypassing lines, but we find a couple at one of the museums down the street.
We stroll past the Pantheon and through the Piazza Venezia, watching out for the endless tourists, mopeds, flying cars, and bikes.
We head back up towards our new home along the Tiber River, which seems peaceful and relaxing in contrast to the craziness a few blocks away. There are places we see that we want to know mire about, but that needs to move to another day.
We return to the Piazza nearby our apartment, have a lovely but expensive dinner and watch all the people gather around the vendors, the sidewalk entertainers, and mimes, and plan our day tomorrow.
We decide that the rest of the trip we will eat with the locals within our little neighborhood, save some money, and soak up the local culture, then head off to home, after the ritual nightly gelato.
I finish the night typing here again, staying up to late for the early morning we are planning in order to try for Vatican tickets. We have agreed we will need some rest after our vacation at the rate we are going. I call home, feeling happy to connect via Skype, then wrap things up for yet another day.
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