Upon arrival we started looking for WiFi, it seems McDonalds can no longer connect iPhones to their WiFi, and other open networks also fail or require paying.
We went to a tourist info inside the train station and some bloke approached us asking if we wanted a hostel he then showed us on a map I asked for others too he shrugged his shoulders and said ‘you will like it is the best one €20 a night’ and left us, I instantly thought he was a rep, rather than a hotel advisor but we took off anyway in search of hostel.
When we left the station I was a little daunted and worried, lots of beggars, gypsies, busy crowded streets, cars, buses and motorbikes driving everywhere without care through red lights, whilst people are crossing, overtaking each other, weaving about everything was pointing to mugging or serious injury or death.
Anyway some time later we arrive to discover it is a hotel not a Hostel at all, we both jump onto our phones and use some cellular data (our wallets cry a little) to look for hostels, but find very few all v expensive €30-40 each in shared accom. and miles away, fuck that. We take a look inside this hotel as we are there and it looked empty the man showed us to the student room and initially looked ok, not great but ok. Thankfully phil loaded up some reviews, all terrible and say bed bugs and stuff so we made excuses and left.
We jump on phones for internet again and look around, nothing at all, I quickly give up bit Phil stayed on and used something like 36MB of cell data, I think theres a £10 cut off point max charge per day so shouldn’t be so bad… Fingers crossed, he found and booked a room at the Family house hotel on last minute for €40, normally it is €90, €40 is probably just over acceptable price for quality + area (which is a grubby and a bit shady) €90 is way too high!
After another broken shower (however they did supply soap and shampoo, and the shampoo managed to clean all my hair great!) we later then went out (this being about 11:15PM) to find a Pizza restaurant, we did at the end of our road, Phil had a thick base buffalo mozzarella and cherry tomato pizza (no tomato sauce on this one) and I had a thin base spicy salami pizza, just had soft drinks with these.
They were nice pizza’s we paid up and went back to the hotel for bed and chargeable’s.
In the morning we went to we set off to another country, Vatican City, My watch was stolen from me on the metro, yes my piece of shit, found in the mud of Rage Against The Machine last year, cheapest in Argos watch, was stolen, not upset just damned annoyed to keep looking at an empty wrist for the time day an date!
We arrive at Vatican Station stop and we laughed at the queue size and then went around the small free museum for pope paul II, which had no queue, we took some photos, cursed the church and then Phil got his tourist tat fix of a pope coin.
We the headed for old Rome and the colosseum to play Zombie dice games so we can say we played in games at the colosseum. We then left for the hotel and then the train station, another €18 booking fee later and we were en route to Switzerland, via Milan. We had a coffee, there. Before stopping at some random town between Italy and Switzerland.
Weighed our bags on some dog scales, i have 9KG, phil had just under 17KG, what the fuck has he brought???
Have been writing this in advance of WiFi and need to catch up on all the other posts too!
