Blog by Tony (Friday 16 August, 2019)
Up early again at 4:00am to ensure we are packed and haven’t forgotten anything.
Our plans were to leave our apartment at 5:10am so that we arrived at the bus stop around 5:30am…but we lost track of time Facetiming Kobie and we didn’t leave our apartment until 5:28am 🙁 With a brisk walk we managed to arrive at our bus stop with plenty of time for our 6am departure.
The bus driver was busy in his seat on his mobile phone so we placed our luggage ourselves into the storage compartment…and after Kellie tested several seats we finally found one that she was happy with 🙂
The roads out of Sorrento were very narrow, hilly and winding…and Kellie had that look on her face that she was about to throw up. Lucky we had an empty plastic bag that she could use if needed…but even luckier she was a big girl and did’ have to.
I had a bit of a snooze and a couple of hours into our 3hr 45min trip we reached a servo with a shop attached for a 10min break. Kellie went to the bathroom and I went to get us a quick bite to eat and coffee. The line-up was big and everyone in front of me looked as if they were ordering coffee so I pointed to a frapaccino on a card on the register…and ordered a nutella croissant (everything has nutella in it in Italy)…paid the lady and waiting in line for my frapacinno to be made. After 5mins I was handed a small plastic cup with milk and whipped cream on top. No coffee flavour (or any other flavour)…just milk. What a waste of time and money.
Kellie was waiting for me so we hurried back to the bus as our 10mins were well and truly up.
There was no need to have rushed though as the bus driver and a few other of the 25 passengers were having a smoke.
Soon we were off and the remainder of the trip to Rome seem to go by quickly. We arrived at the bus station in Rome and quickly grabbed our suitcases before the bus took off. Able to search our emails previously read (as we had no Wifi) we were able locate the address of our accomm. which appeared to be some 20+mins away. Just as we were about to make our way to the taxi stand a fella approached saying ‘Taxi’. We thought, here we go again…and already in our minds from previous experience we estimated that a 30min taxi ride would cost anywhere up to 50 euro….so when he told us that it would cost 25 euro we happily agreed.
He helped with our luggage and lead us to his small Mercedes hatchback. All our luggage wouldn’t fit in the back so I sat in the front and Kellie sat in the back with the rest of the luggage. We found our driver Vincenzo to be very helpful…from searching the address of our accomm. on his GPS to stopping by an ATM as he didn’t accept credit card. When we arrived in the street…we were unsure what number of the accomm. was as this wasn’t shown anywhere…but luckily Kellie had the phone number of the host which we gave to Vincenzo and he phoned our host for us. Within no time at all Lucia our host was waiting for us across the street….so we thanked our driver, paid him and got his business card should we need a driver again.
Lucia was a very posh looking lady in her late 60’s who was very friendly and helpful. We entered the main door on the street (which is always locked for security) and she showed us where the power board was (located just inside the security door) should we need flip the switch if the power went out. We then headed to the ancient type elevators where you first had to open an outer caged type door and then open two smaller doors that opened up in the middle and inwards. The elevator would not work if either of these doors were not closed properly.
Lucia showed us to our apartment on the 5th level which was the top floor. She used a long skeleton key to unlock the front door…which like our apartment in Sorrento required to turn the key 3 times as this is how many levels of deadbolts were used to secure the front door. Upon entering we were pleased to find that the apartment was just like the pictures we had seen when booking through AirBnB. There was a small hallway with a type of lounge room with table and chairs and a couch with a perfect view of St. Peters Station (S. Pietro) off to the right…which was for both buses and trains…and was conveniently across the road and just a 3 minute walk.
There was 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and a kitchen and air-conditioning to keep us cool. The air conditioning was ‘evaporative’ which meant you needed to keep a window or door open for it to work properly. The kitchen had all the amenities you would need….except for a toaster (as Italians don’t seem to eat sandwiches). There was no kettle but there was a coffee perculator which I hadn’t used for many years but was able to remember how to get it going….and which surprisingly made nice coffee.
So after showing Lucia our passports and paying the city tax (in Italy on top of your accommodation you have to pay a tax per person per night stay…which differs from city to city…with Rome being 2 euro per person / per night)…she left and we began unpacking for our 3 nights stay.
We had a lovely view of St. Bacillia in the Vatican City from our kitchen window and dad’s room. After unpacking and freshening up we decided to go to the local grocery store which was less than a 10min walk away. Kellie wanted to make a chicken carbonara so we set out to buy the ingredients needed which proved to be a challenge as all the labels were obviously written in Italian. We even had to ask whether the chicken was in fact chicken as it could have been turkey. I think the staff were glad to see the back of us as we were asking them where is their bacon, where’s the cream, where’s the soup?!?….
The ingredients proved to be right as Kellie cooked a killer carbonara 🙂 It ended up feeding us (mostly me) for 4 meals 🙂 She also cooked a mean scrambled eggs.
Lucky I brought my ‘fat clothes’!
By the time we did all of our shopping, finished unpacking and settled in it was late so we watched a show on Netflix and called it a night…ready for exploring Rome tomorrow!