When in Rome.... Don't even think of driving!

Trip Start May 13, 2009
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9
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Trip End Jun 04, 2009


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Flag of Italy  , Lazio,
Friday, May 22, 2009

They say that Rome wasn't built in a day. But we sure tried to see it in one. We arrived in Rome at about 6am on Thursday and walked to our hotel. Then, we left our bags at the hotsl even though we were uncomfortable doing so. The town itself just seems really sketchy. Next we decided to look for some breakfast so we went to a restaurant nearby and ate some pastries and drank some bottled water. We haven't really drank any tap water on the trip except for when we were in London.

Then, we picked up a brocure for a scooter rental place and saw that it was on the way to where we were headed to see the monuments. But, we still had't decided how we were going to see all of the monuments since they were so spread out. We decided to check out the scooter shop though. It was about 730am and it was already getting hot. We made it to the shop and waited for it to open. As we watched traffic go by we realized that this may be a little different than driving in Barcelona, but thought No big deal...

So we rented two scooters (50cc this time) with Chace and Justin on one and me on the other. Well, as my travel book puts it so eloquently, "don't drive in Rome unless you have to. The local drivers, especially motorcyclists will be doing things constantly that you thought were only possible in movies." Well, this was definitely the case. It's actually hard to describe but all day, cars and two wheelers are in a constant battle to gain that extra 5 feet and get in front of the vehicle in front of them. So, we decided to adapt to the local style and do it ourselves. We did all day and Justin got some pretty good video of it on my camera.

Welll, in the process of our driving we did manage to make it to the Coleseum, The Vatican, St. Peters Basillica, and many other ruins and monuments. But, because of the nature of the streets in Rome, we were unable to locate the Pantheon after much searching.

In conclusion, we saw some of the sights and had a lot of frustrations with the city overall: the expense, the dirtyness, and navigating it. So, we decided to cut the visit short and leave after one night. We are boarding a train today at 250 to go to Florence, Italy where we plan to stay for one night before heading to Interlaken, Switzerland for a couple of nights.

Ciao,

Aaron
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