Roma
We arrived in Rome without any problems the bikes were still in their boxes and it appeared that someone decided it would be too much trouble to open them up for inspection.
Our next hurdle was finding a place to stay for the night. We agreed on a hotel since we would be coming in late and who knew what kind of shape we would be in with regards to jet lag. Unfortunately, nearly every hotel room in the city was booked! We ended up paying way more than planned for a hotel near Vatican City. We also weren't planning on staying so close to the city but we didn't seem to have much choice.
Now that we had a hotel room we needed some way to get there. A small Italien man approached us and said he could carry us and all our boxes. He wanted 90 Euro, the shuttle with the same company that booked our room wanted up to 39 Euro - better, but we had just missed the shuttle and would have to wait over an hour for the next one (it was around 2000 by that time). We went to the shuttle company next door and they could take us for 9 Euro each but couldn't take us to the door. The address number for our hotel was 617 and the shuttle could drop us off at 660. Jon said no problem - we could carry our luggage the rest of the way. I wasn't so sure. It seemed like an awful lot of numbers between 617 and 660 but they were leaving in a few minutes so we paid for the shuttle tickets. Turns out we were the only ones on the shuttle bus - they probably lost money on our trip. Thankfully our hotel was just about 3 blocks from where we were dropped off. Now, if you haven't seen how our bikes were boxed do go back to the photo gallery in order to appreciate my description. I had the backpack on and Jon had the SAS duffel on his back using the handles like backpack straps. Both bags were pretty heavy themselves. We were at opposite ends of the boxes which were sitting parallel to each other with the box containing our seats lying perpendicular on top of the two bike boxes. We had one end of each bike box in each hand, our bags on our backs and the seat box on top of the bikes. We were literally walking between the bike boxes as we carried them. Thank goodness Jon reinforced the handles on the boxes. It wasn't too bad carrying the boxes for the first fifty feet then the cardboard starting cutting into my hand and I began losing feeling in my fingers. It felt like a long three blocks but we got there and the hotel was very nice with an incredible pool which we never got to use. The bathroom was utilitarian and had a bidet and I think Jon did partake of this amenity. There was a 13 inch TV that we kept running into and that Jon would hit his head, shoulders and back on several times the next day. There was a nice balcony with a view of the pool. It came in really handy for drying clothes and setting up the solar panel the next day. Once we checked in and dumped our stuff in the room we were back out on the street looking for food. We were pretty hungry. We went to a great café nearby and had pizza and spaghetti with eggs and bacon (Jon ordered this dish). That was really good pasta (the pizza was too)! We likened it to something Denny's would have on their menu if they were in Italy. We were both in a carbohydrate stupor in addition to our jet lag but it was late enough to go to bed and that's just what we did.
