When in Rome

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In a previous Blog post I mentioned that I had just come back from my holiday to Paris. I was fortunate though to travel to Rome with the same friend back in June this year. We went to Rome for a few days and had such a brilliant time exploring and seeing the tourist attractions. I thought I would share some photographs and some stories from our time in Rome.

Our hotel was not in the best of locations but we couldn't grumble because the price we paid to go to Rome was very good especially since it was school holidays too. Our hotel was sort of near The Vatican however to get around we did need to use taxis. We did try to use the Metro stations however the time we went to Rome there were strikes on so that made it harder to use, so we gave up on using it.

One of the best things we discovered was the citysightseeing bus. This enabled us to get around Rome so much easier because all we had to do was get a taxi from our hotel to The Vatican and hop on the bus. We bought the two day pass for the bus which was really good value. I would recommend getting on the sightseeing bus to get around cities when your tourists.

On our first day we decided head to The Vatican. It was so busy and the queues to go inside were so big and the weather was really hot too so we decided against queuing up but had a good nosy around the outside taking lots of photographs.

One of my favourite places in Rome which probably is going to be a lot of people's favourites is the Trevi Fountain. From seeing it featured in various films to actually standing right near it, it was amazing. The detail that has gone into it was fascinating. Many people had told us prior to going to Rome to throw a coin into the fountain, this is a tradition as it means the visitor can be ensured a return to Rome if thrown using the right hand over the left shoulder and make a wish. So we did this!

 Ready to throw the coin into the fountain.

One night we went out for a walk and came across the Trevi Fountain, it wasn't dark but they had put lights on and the Fountain looked so pretty. It is worth a visit.

Before we went to Rome my friend and myself were on the internet looking at places in Rome to go at night. It was on TripAdvisor were we stumbled across an ICE BAR in Rome. Ice Club Roma was a bar which was made of ice which meant that with the entrance fee you got a free coat to keep you warm and unlimited drinks (open bar) for 20 euros on a Tuesday for the night. I will the link the websites for it below if you are interested. I have always wanted to go to an Ice Bar the nearest to me in the UK is London but is very expensive which is why I was shocked how reasonable the deal was which we got!
The official website for it is:   http://www.iceclubroma.it/
And the Facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/IceClubRome?ref=br_tf

One lesson we did learn from going to this Ice Bar is to dress sensible, wrap up it is going to be cold it says it in the name really ICE BAR! But stupidly two blondes (my friend and myself) went in flip flops and did not wrap up, we dressed for the summer which was a HUGE mistake. We just had to keep drinking and walking about the bar to keep warm until we couldn't actually feel our feet or hands. (They said that gloves are given free however you had to pay on the door for them which we didn't).

One of our next tourists stops we made was at the Colosseum. We had decided that we would like to go inside, however the queue to get in was so big! Then a woman from a tour guide company approached us and asked if we were under 25 years old. We said we were and we had to show our driving licence to prove it and we were able to get a tour guide a tiny bit cheaper which meant we would be able to skip the massive queue. 

Once inside which took ages to actually get inside the Colosseum because the tour guide was over loading us with history and facts of the Colosseum. Don't get me wrong it was interesting to hear the history behind it, however it would have been nice if he would have given us this information once inside.

When we did finally get inside the Colosseum we decided after awhile we wanted to do some exploring of our own as it was nice to get the information from the tour guide however he didn't really give us chance to take photographs as he was talking so much!! So we ditched the tour guide which one of the lessons we did think of the trip to Rome was to pay to tour guide to get into places quick and then just ditch them!

 

One night we managed to stumble across the Colosseum, it was really nice to see it lit up in the dark!

The Spanish Steps.

If you have been to Rome I would love to hear your thought on it in the comments below! I think I would definitely visit again in a few years as we didn't get chance to do much shopping which I would love to have done.

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