Roman Holiday
About two months before my 23rd birthday, I had the idea to go on a holiday to Italy.
I was torn between Rome and Venice, and started to plan a two week hoilday that included both locations. A few days in Rome, a train to Venice, stay for 5 days, then return to Rome for the last few days.
However as I was planning to traveling alone, I changed it to a single week in Rome.
While planning the trip, I found that British Airways had tailorable city break packages. So I booked my flights, hotel, taxi transfers and excursions.
I booked three excursions:
- Monument Tour
- Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel Tour
- Visit Pompeii
The flight was from London, Heathrow to Rome, Leonardo da Vinci International Airport, my family had offered to drop me off at Heathrow.
The flight was early as I wanted to make the most of my time in Rome. While waiting in the departure lounge, I had a look through the shops. While looking a books I found Angels and Demons by Dan Brown, it jumped out because had enjoyed reading The Da Vinci Code. Angels and Demons is the first in the Robert Langdon series. It also features a lot of places in Rome that I intended to visit. So this was a prefect hoilday read.
When I landing at the airport, a driver was waiting with a card with my name on. After checking into the hotel and unpacking a few things, I had to go find where I joined the first of my pre-paid excursions.
A walking tour of some of Rome’s monument’s:
- Piazza Navona
- St Peter’s Square
- Temple of Hadrian
- The Pantheon
- Trevi Fountain
- St Peter’s Square
The next day was my second excursion, a tour of the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel.
On the third day, which was my Birthday I had to get up early as I was going to get on a coach for my final excursion, Pompeii tour.
The coach trip was very long and stopped to unload a few passagenr for a diffent tour at Naples. I could clearly see Mount Vesuvious on the drive towards Pompii.
It was a very long day, when I got back to my hotel room I found that the mangement had left me a small bottle of champange as a birthday gift.
The fourth day, I wanted to see the Colosseum. I found it on one of those little tourist map and set off walking, as I got to the end of the street I looked right (nothing too interesting), looked left, and there is was, even though I knew it would be somewhere here, because the buildings obsucted it, I was taken aback when I saw the Colosseum. I found a tour guide and paid to join a combination tour: the Colosseum and the Roman Forum.
- Arch of Constantine
- Arch of Septimius Severus
- Arch of Titus
- Temple of Vesta
The rest of my time in Rome was spent reading my book and enjoying the food and drink that Italy is famous for.