Simon and I caught the overnight train from Munich to Rome. Not a bad way to travel, although our train had no bar cart, and although we toughed it out without a beer for the whole night (I think the Germans have rubbed off on us - sorry Joergfried, I meant Bavarians!), it meant we had nowhere to sit, so we were in bed at 9pm. We arrived bright and early, found our hotel and went to meet up with Nugget.
Poor Nugget, I think our hotel in Rome was a bit of an eye-opener for her! Pretty standard backpacker stuff, but the shared bathroom threw her a bit. She toughed it out though - we'll make a backpacker of her yet!
We only had two days in Rome, so we had to hotfoot it a bit to get around to see all the sights. On our first day we went to the Coliseum, the Imperial City, Spanish Steps, Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain. The second day we went to Vatican City (timed it beautifully, although not on purpose, and arrived in time to see the Pope whip around St. Peter's square in his Pope mobile!), the Sistine chapel, Castel Sant Angelo and Piazza Navona. In between all that, we managed to fit in some shopping and eat a shitload of pizza and pasta! When in Rome.... (I took up the challenge and used this saying as many times as possible while there - and drove Nugget and Simon nuts!)
We packed as much as we could into the two days we had, but we could easily have spent a week in Rome and probably still not have seen everything! It's a cool city, a little shabby in parts, but a million and one things to see and do. Even just walking around we found lots of great little streets, restaurants and shops tucked away in narrow little cobbled streets, and of course pizza, pasta and the world's best gelato on every corner - I was in heaven!
