We are up early. Our luggage is all packed and ready for pick up. I take some pictures of our room as I don't want any surprise extra charges on our final bill. I still don't understand the extra 50€ cash charge-what is it for? Hoping to get breakfast when we arrive at the train station in Salerno. The guy from the porter service arrives and brings our luggage down. We get to the waterfront by 7:30 am.
SITA bus Amalfi to Salerno. Tickets 5.20€ for both of us one way. On the bus by 8:00 am. At first things went well but as we're getting closer to Salerno we are at a crawl. Traffic?? Our time window we had to get breakfast is slipping away. We don't arrive at the train station as we had been told by Andrea from our Amalfi hotel. Instead we're dropped off by the ferry area! It's now 10:00 am!! Now we have to walk, rolling our luggage to the train station. Not fun. Our train leaves at 10:40 am so no time for breakfast. Bummer.
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| Leaving Amalfi |
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| Train station in Salerno |
Train Salerno to Rome. I booked this back in July before we even arrived in Italy. Trenitalia. Intercity 550. First class. We're in coach 2, seats 2A and 2C. Cost fare-Me & You 45.60€/$51.29. Departs Salerno 10:40 am. Arrives Rome Termini 1:32 pm. We get to the train station at 10:09 am. I'm not comfortable trying to find a place for breakfast with this short amount of time we have before our train leaves. We need to figure out which platform so I'll just have to hope I can buy something on the train. Finally the departure board shows our platform which is 3. We use the elevator to navigate our way to the correct platform. Scenery-nothing special. I do find a coach with vending machines for snacks and drinks. I get a small bag of Lay's potato chips and a can of lemon soda. Cost ?? Seats are very comfortable and to be honest this train was better for us than the other high speed trains we took.
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| Our train |
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| Our train's schedule of stops |
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| Scenery |
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| What I got from the vending machines |
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| Our train |
Rome. Capital of Italy. The Eternal City. Ancient history galore. Too much to go into here. One of the oldest and most well-preserved cities in the world. Founded in 753 B.C. Art, architecture. Churches. Museums. Tiber River. Home of the Colosseum. Trevi Fountain. Vatican city. We take a taxi to our hotel. Cost 8€/$8.55.
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| Rome Termini station |
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| Taxi stand outside train station |
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Taxis
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| Our taxi |
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| Our first glimpse of the Colosseum! |
Mercure Roma Centro Colosseo. We will stay at this hotel for 10 nights. I picked this hotel because of its location. Close to the Colosseum, close to a metro stop, has a pool for my husband, and has good reviews. I booked a superior room at cost of 2285€/$2460.26 through booking.com. When we check in we're asked how we want to pay the city tax-cash or credit card. I opt for credit card 120€/$128.29. Thank goodness this place has an elevator! We're in room #418. Very nice with a large floor to ceiling window with a small balcony. Has all the usual furnishings. Desk, TV, safe, mini fridge which has 2 bottles of water which we will get daily, coffee and tea making supplies, places to hang our clothes. Comfortable beds. Bathroom has hair dryer and toiletries. Shower. WiFi. A/C. Very clean. Overall a nice room.
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| Our hotel |
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| View from our room |
Pool time. The pool is located on the roof top of the hotel. Amazing views. OMG! The Colosseum! Water is super cold! Cant believe I didn't take any pictures of us in the pool or laying on the loungers! In addition to the pool on the roof top there is also a bar where you can get drinks and food. We spend several hours relaxing here. No sightseeing today.
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| View of the Colosseum from the pool |
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| Colosseum |
Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. I need to get the shot glasses for my step daughter and we decided we would like a change from typical Italian food so burgers and fries it is. Taxi as it's too far for us to walk. Near Borghese. The hotel reception staff calls a taxi for us. Cost 20€/$21.38. We go into the shop first. I buy the shot glasses and then decide to get a T shirt. Cost of my purchases 54.85€/$58.64. Then we enter the door going into the cafe. We don't have a reservation so we are told it may be a 20-30 minute wait. We should have checked out this before shopping but no big deal. We're ok with that. We're given a pager. In less time than we were told our pager lights up and we get seated. Menu is like most Hard Rock Cafes we've been to. But we normally always get the same thing. Drinks-beer and cappuccino. I also get an apple juice. I order the cheeseburger-cooked medium well-which comes with fries. Richard does the legendary burger-cooked medium-which also comes with fries. Delicious and a nice change from pasta. Cost 53.40/$57.09. Now comes the challenging part of the day. Getting a taxi back to the hotel. I've installed the FreeNow app on my phone but it's telling me all taxis busy. Ugh! But then I notice a FreeNow taxi pull up to drop people off. He can take us back to our hotel. Great. While riding along he tells us to always make sure the taxis we take have the meter running. Cost 8€! Such a difference from the first taxi.
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| Taxi from hotel to Hard Rock |
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| Hard Rock |
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| Entrance to HR shop |
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| Hard Rock Rome shot glass |
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| Hard Rock Rome T shirt |
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| Entrance to HR restaurant |
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| Menu |
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| Legendary burger |
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| Big Cheeseburger |
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| Taxi from HR back to hotel |
Back at the hotel we're ready to call it a night. I do check my computer for Colosseum tickets. I've been trying to get tickets even before we left to come to Italy and while here in Italy. I'm having no luck and getting nervous now. Tomorrow we have some sightseeing planned as I've booked us tickets for Domus Aurea.
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