Rome; Friday, 10 November, 2017

It was an early flight, so I’d stayed overnight near Heathrow, but it still meant a pre-dawn exit from the hotel to get to the airport in time.

It was a smooth journey through the airport, the flight and onto a train into town before I found out that the last part of the journey wasn’t going to be so smooth as the local public transport in Rome was all on strike for the day, meaning getting to the hotel and then on into town was going to be complicated. Thankfully the first leg wasn’t too bad as the train station I was headed to was only one stop on the metro from the hotel, so it was barely a kilometre walk, I just hadn’t realised from the map that was mostly up the side of a hill.

I arrived at the hotel slightly more puffed out that I was expecting and had a little rest there before heading out to go into town. I’d originally booked the hotel as it was a little way away from the city centre, but located very close to a metro station so I thought it was going to be easy to get around. Now I had the choice of an hours walk into the city centre, or an expensive taxi ride. I opted for the taxi.

Rome’s traffic is never great at the best of times, and when the public transport isn’t running that doesn’t make things any better, so it took nearly 40 minutes to drive over to Piazza del Popolo where I’d asked to be dropped off.

I had a wander around the square before heading further in towards the centre of the city, stopping off at the Spanish Steps, and then just round the corner for a pre-dinner drink in a nice café hidden in a side street by the steps which had the advantage of being able to people watch, but not being ridiculously priced.

From there I continued walking through the centre and eventually found myself at Piazza Barberini where there were several good restaurants, so I stopped there for dinner.

The public transport workers had a suspension of their strike pencilled in for 17:30-21:00 to allow Roman’s to get home from their offices, but it also meant I was having to eat to a time frame and had to rush dinner a little to try and get away in time to be able to get the metro back to the hotel.

Unfortunately, the restaurant didn’t have the fastest of service and by the time I’d asked for the bill, been brought a complementary limoncello (which was very kind of them and on any other night would have been a welcome gift, but not when you’re on the clock for the last metro) and then finally the bill I was very close to the time of the last service.

From the restaurant it was a short walk down to the metro station and onto the metro back towards Termini where I needed to change onto the metro line out to the hotel. Unfortunately, the delay in the restaurant was enough to ensure that I caught the last metro from Piazza Barberini, but that also meant I’d missed the last metro at Termini, so I had a long 30 minute walk back through the university district to the hotel.

By the time I got back to the hotel I was feeling knackered with the combination of the long walk (which despite coming from the opposite direction also included a hefty bit up hill) and the early start, so I had an early night.