Rome, Italy

There are as many as 40 roman ruins in Rome left behind today, caused by the battle and war. However, they are ruined beautifully and attracts so many tourists all over the world every year.

Home-made itinerary has accidentally deleted... and this blog is written almost 1 year later... trying hard to recall every events, laughter...etc

Fly in early morning (6am) to Rome Ciampino Airport, still in the condition of half asleep. Took a nap in the plane in order to be energetic when we reach. 

We took an express bus by Terravision from Airport to Rome city. Cost is EUR 5. Can either book online or purchase the ticket in the airport. Pro and con; Booking online will be sure that you have a ticket to board the bus of the specific timing that you want. Purchasing the ticket in the airport will not tie down by the timing. We do not want to be rushing around being tie down by the timing, so we chose to get the ticket in the airport, furthermore the interval of each bus is about 40 mins. We can take our own sweet time.

About 30 mins ride, we reached Roma Termini. You will be able to do some shopping, meal and souvenir. 

What are the common Italian food that will bring to your mind instantly?

Gelato, Pizza and Spaghetti... of course!

Wide range of Pizza of all favors for you to choose from.

Come to think of it, this will be our first Airbnb experience. We book an Airbnb apartment that was not too far from the main city and it is next to River Tiber, located on Vicolo Della Palomba. Easily found and we are waiting for the owner to deliver the key to us.

Some selfie while waiting...

Owner is very nice, reach in about 10 mins. After all the formality introduction, he bring us into the apartment. He is professional, he prepared all the brochures that a tourist generally need.

Map that shows which attractions to go and highly recommended restaurants that we should visit.

Even provide international converter for the power plugs.

Nice apartment, located on the ground level; which we prefer.

So to eliminate the baggages vs stairs problem.

A decent size living room and kitchen with whatever you need.

Also come with a backyard, just nice to be a smoking point for us.

It does have a proper bedroom that come behind the door.
A double bed under a mezzanine, and another double bed on the mezzanine.
Princess was so excited to have the one above.
So privacy!!!

After settling down the important accommodation, we headed out to the street to our first destination. Shops selling gelato are like so common and you will be able to find it in every 20 steps... A bit exaggerate though.

Nothing stops us... gonna try if the gelato in Rome taste differently.

It taste as good... LOL...

Walk while we enjoying the gelato. Its so near, and we reached the Pantheon...

The Pantheon; formerly is a Roman temple and now is a church.
The structure will be able to tell a lot of history.

As recommended online, our next attractions is Time Elevator Experience Roma. It was mentioned that one should visit this place before your visit in Rome, so as to understand the culture and history.

This is a 5-dimensional movie theater that feature the history of Rome.

There are several theaters in there, and several shows to choose from.

Each show generally last about 45 mins. Reasonable price though.

My comment; don't really need to visit this to understand the history of Rome, you can find it anywhere in google. The 5-dimension effect is entertaining though.

Left: Ancient Roman warrior suit.
Center and Right: Mouth of Truth; it is believe that the mouth will close if you are not truthful to the question asked.

Street artists filled the empty street in Rome. This is my first experience to witness this fantastic street artist who use spray-paint to create an art in just a few minutes. We are impressed and we bought 4 pieces of art at EUR10 each.

Impressive right?

All within walking distance, thanks to google map download. We literally do not need network to navigate around in Rome.

Trevi Fountain is the next attraction we visit.

Highly recommended attraction, as this fountain look just so majestic. This place is so crowded with tourists and locals, therefore my sixth sense tells me to beware of pickpockets.

The saying goes; Do whats the Rome do... so pizza for dinner... LOL...

Poor queen is not anti-social and having music on her own, she have been putting on the earpiece and talking to the air for the past hour - Teleconference.

Ordered princess' favourite pizza; Hawaiian pizza... with hot mushroom soup. This is something we really need especially in winter, around 12-15 degree celsius.

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Day 2:

Ancient buildings and ruins are everywhere. We are taking a slow stroll towards the world famous attraction; Colosseum.

Left: Altar of the Fatherland. A landmark that is not in the itinerary.
Right: Trajan Forum, Roman ruins & bas relief victory column.

Left: Trajan Forum.
Right: Forum of Augustus, Remains of 20BC imperial structure.

Colosseum - Iconic ancient Roman Gladiatorial Arena. It was once staged the glory of many gladiators, and also many failures betided.

It have been ruined so beautifully.

Background is too beautiful to have a selective focus shot.
Who has a better posture?  LOL

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Day 3:

Corte Suprema de Cassazione - Supreme Court of Appeal.
So beautiful structure standing across the river, facing bridge Ponte Umberto 1.

We always wish to tour the city with Segway,
but always been rejected because of either Princess' age or height.

Today's attraction will be Castel Sant' Angelo. I feel so blessed that I have chosen the location of our apartment. No doubt metro are well connected in Rome, we have not taken the metro on our third day in Rome. All attractions are within walking distance.

Castel Sant' Angelo look so huge externally. We did not visit the interior because the ticket queue is too crazy for us. Heard from the security, need to queue for 2 hours just to get to the ticket counter.
They are trying to control the number of people inside the castle.

So we decided to give it a miss and start to loiter around the city to admire the scenery and the bridges.

Altar of the Fatherland. A landmark that is not in the itinerary. Just step-in to take a look since its free.

Nice night view from the top of the steps.

Nice Ancient Roman Structures

Collection of sculptures and paints

We end our day in a restaurant recommended by the Airbnb Apartment owner; "Old Bear". Serving traditional local dishes.

It is located in the street next to our apartment, quiet street but the restaurant is crowded with people.


Ambient is nice. Walls are decorated with wooden blocks.


Food are delicious. Price is quite reasonable though.

Left: Mash potato with marinated minced meat
Center: Seafood spaghetti
Right: Dessert - Apple strudel

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Day 4:

We tend to adventured out of Rome to another city. We took a high speed rail from Roma Termini to Napoli Centrale, the city named Naples.

Completely not planned in the itinerary, we can only loiter around based on our gut-feel.

Can truly experience the local life in Naples, badly maintained residential buildings.

No fixed itinerary, we will just walk around based on google map. Just outside the train station, there are many street retailers selling "branded bags", shoes and souvenirs. Street retailers, as in, they just placed a big piece of cloth on the floor and display their goods. It looks illegal to me, as there are proper shops selling the similar items. We heard some Chinese shop owner shouting at us, " 小心钱包 ". So nice of them to serve this reminder to us.

We are stopped by a street performer from Africa, drummed in a nice energetic tune. We decided to take a rest, enjoy some snacks and coffee while enjoying the rhythm.

Suddenly, queen and princess decided to dance... LOL... I will never do that... LOL...

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Day 5:

Last day in Rome. We have a wonderful Italian experience in Rome. Beautiful country, Historical ruin... UNTIL...

We decided to have our lunch in Piazza Navona before heading to airport. Streaming around for what-to-eat... and finally we decided to take a seat in this restaurant named; La Torre (Address: Via di Tor Millina, 17/A 00186 Roma RM, Italy). We ordered a pizza and a risotto. Food is delicious. Everything goes well until we ask for the bill. I was called into the shop for the bill, instead of the server bring the bill to the table. Since I am going to the toilet, I complied. I was told that the bill was EUR 65, when I asked for the receipt, the receipt shows EUR 48. When I questioned, they are trying to convince us that the service charge for each person is EUR 5. Back to the table and inform Queen, Queen is in flame. After argue for a while, Queen called the police. Yet the shop owner told the police that they only receive EUR 48 from us. Beautiful impression of the country suddenly burst. We didn't pursued further as we are rushing to the airport.

After google the name of the restaurant, we discovered thousand of bad reviews on this restaurant. It just our luck, there are more than 50 restaurants in Piazza Navana.