The City of Rome - A Travellers Review
The Colosseum, Rome.
With Summer coming to an end and the cool nights of Autumn swiftly approaching, it's time to look back on Summer, and a popular holiday destination for city breaks, the historic City of Rome.
I visited Rome back in July with my girlfriend Tali and we enjoyed every second of it. I am writing this as a long form review of the city and highlighting both the good and bad parts of the trip.
We booked this holiday through Jet2 City Breaks - and no, this isn’t a sponsor! They couldn’t have been more welcoming at Manchester Airport on both departures and arrivals. Booking was also easy. I would highly recommend this stress free process.
Upon arrival, the airport was a nightmare. Rome Fumicicino Airport, also known as the Leonardo Da Vinci Airport, didn’t have the best organisation on both the arrivals entrance to Passport Control, or when it came to claiming our baggage. As expected, the line to Passport Control was long from all of the arrival flights coming in and the fact it is Rome’s biggest airport. With this, you’d also expect better queue management however that wasn’t the case and people were pushing in left, right and centre.
Once the queue got moving and we headed further to the front, more queue management measures were put in place and we were able to get through quickly with the help of their friendly staff.
The anxiety levels had risen when it hit the one hour mark before our baggage hit the conveyor belt. In fact, we had waited that long - the conveyor belt where we should have been had brought out a whole new flight of bags before we were able to reclaim ours with no staff around to ask for advice.
Luckily, this didn’t affect the taxi we had waiting for us - which only waited for an hour after our landing time, as per our pre-arranged taxi booking. Luckily, the company was understanding as others had the same issue - otherwise this would’ve caused more headaches on our trip before we even reached the hotel.
Rome as a whole was tidy and well maintained. There are also regular water fountains across the City which were extremely welcomed given the 35+ degree heat each day we were there.
Via del Corso was one of the main high streets for shopping - and at night, one of the untidiest. One evening, while walking back to the hotel, we noticed that all of the shops keep their empty cardboard boxes outside rather than in any recycling bin. I never saw where any of this went, so it would be safe to assure it's all collected overnight and taken to a recycling centre.
Cardboard boxes piled outside shops on Via del Corso, Rome.
While staying in Rome, we travelled down to Pompeii and Mt Vesuvius through a day trip organised by GetYourGuide. Here, we were able to climb up the volcano, had a 3 course meal at an authentic Naples restaurant and visited Pompeii with a guided tour.
The day trip came to just over £200 for 2 people and with everything I mentioned included, it was well worth the money. Our tour guide for the day was extremely knowledgeable, he made what was a long 14 hour trip more exciting.
The view from Mt Vesuvius.
Despite there being public transport access all over the city, we never really used it and decided to walk everywhere. This was for no other reason than we are outdoorsy people and fancied walking everywhere to properly take in the city. By doing this, we also got to explore all of the little side streets and came across some nice authentic and less touristy eateries along with small businesses that sold some authentic Italian souvenirs. By doing this, we were able to explore more and it made our days out in Rome even more enjoyable. This is something we would’ve avoided on public transport and definitely some of the best experiences we had in the city.
Looking through the trees at The Palace of Justice, Rome.
It is quite easy in Rome to be pulled into the Tourist Traps. An example of this was on our first day, after travelling from Manchester and a day of exploring - we needed food and fell for the first place we saw. It was on a busy street which made us believe it would be a popular restaurant and we bought 3 slices of pizza. Compared to the one we ate on the Day Trip, I can safely say this was a Tourist Trap as the pizza had a thick, crunchy dough and flavourless toppings.
Street salesmen can also form a part of the Tourist Traps. During the holiday, we were harassed by many different salesmen offering things from: fans, hats, water, flowers and wristbands. Not necessarily all, but most of them are after selling over priced goods or just scamming people out of money.
The wristband salesman stands out to me because when we refused to buy his wristband and engage in conversation, he became aggressive with explicit language and spitting at us as we walked away. This didn’t dampen the spirits of the trip and was quickly forgotten about. This is mainly a warning to those who may be going to Rome - don’t fall for the tactics of any street salesmen and keep your valuables safe at all times.
While on one of our many adventures through the streets, we were surprised by a spectacular visual exhibition of what we interpreted about the situation in Gaza. This was implied by some of the words in English we could make out on the artist statement. It was nice to see that artists in Rome are able to express themselves and have the most amazing places to display their work. Seeing work like this presented somewhere so public was certainly a turning point in how I viewed this City - especially with it being a touchy subject in the current news. It was a project that everyone seemed to respect and for the time we were there viewing the work, many others had shown the same gratitude.
The Gaza artwork light up display.
The tourist tax was a bit of a shock. We were expecting it to be per room, per night however it ended up being per person, per night. It was 7 euros per person, giving us a grand total of 70 euros to pay at the end of our stay for 5 nights.
The airport shenanigans continued on our return journey to Manchester. It seems that the same baggage issues affected the next inbound flight to Rome as the ones we had. We had spent a good 30 minutes on the plane before being told that the baggage still hadn't been unloaded. It quickly became clear that the issues started from the ground team at the airport. Our return flight ended up being delayed by 2 hours.
Rome has always been described as such a beautiful place to visit and this trip has proven to me why. There is so much historic culture, so much to explore and learn. You will never be bored when visiting Rome - and it's a gateway for many Italian adventures while you enjoy your stay!
I hope I inspired your next adventure!
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