Roma day 1 - the perfect, imperfect day

Today was a travel day so felt like it wasn't going to be much fun - but it was! Because of my two wonderful men. 

Don decided to come to Rome with us - yay! I get 2 more days with him. So we all had final hotel Augustus breakfast, drove to Rimini and dropped the car back, walked to the station and killed 2 hours before our train.

Steve and I opted to take the slow route thinking the opportunity to see Italian countryside would be awesome. Well it was and wasn't. Don was in 1st class from Rimini to Ancona, we experienced the predictable seat debate and settled into a crowded 2nd class 1 hour journey. The coast line was beautiful. I dozed off so lucky steve didn't. 

Ancona to Rome stops at every station so is slow. 2nd class is unallocated seating. We got air conditioning but it barely did anything so people had windows open. Don slept a lot, I dozed. 

There were beautiful villages in cliff tops - every single one had a crane - and fields of olive trees or vineyards. There were also rundown industrial towns and train graveyards. I was expecting more tunnels - most were just before Rome. All up given Don and I slept not sure the time spent was worth it. 

It was hard to take photos from a moving train too. So Roma! Yay. Termini is completely different than 25 years ago Mike! Which is awesome. Packed with people. Police visible. Taxis easy to find. No gypsies.  Don walked off in one direction to his hostel - and has since been moved to another apparently. Will see him tomorrow morning which makes me very happy. 

We took a cab to our hotel. Glad we did the drive was awesome. Near misses constantly. People everywhere. So much happening. 

To the second wonderful man in my life. Steve has let me stay in the most beautiful hotel. It's right by the Spanish steps. Only has 9 rooms (that we can tell) and everything is exquisite. I can't stop smiling. Mario de Flori 37 comes with everything. The building dates back to 1658 and comes with this beautiful hand drawn guide book. 

Walk outside and it's wall to wall people! Here are some pics. The steps are about 70m from our hotel - amazing location. 

So excited about our room we went and bought the perfect dinner of melon and prosciutto and are drinking the cianti we lugged from the villa listening to music. Perfect evening. 

Last night I had €3 Aperol spiritz at the English bar, outside they are €10 and looking at them light on the Aperol!