Came back from Rome

Lately, I went holiday in Rome. It was just over 2 hours flight from London Stansted to Rome's small airport, Ciampino. (Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport is the largest one). And then, I took the shuttle bus from airport to Termini station, which is situated at the centre of Rome. I booked hotel near it.


Roma Termini, main rail station in Rome


Fiume Tevere (River Tiber)


Colosseo


Vatican square, next to Vatacan city


Pizza € 11, Red wine € 18 : Tourist area price

During my stay, I did site-seeing, shopping and enjoyed Italian foods. People are friendly. Not like in Paris, they answered in English, which is nice for me.But I think they smoke too much. Everywhere outside the buildings, they were smoking. Some people smoked inside public places like Termini station and at airport toilet. I know Londoners also smoke, but too much in Rome.


My new cap bought from Ferrari shop in Rome (€ 30)



A view from a famous church

One strange thing is graffiti works are everywhere across the city, which is tasteless to me. In London, we may see it along the suburb rail line. I suspect they officially allow to do so, but not sure.


Lovely flowering plants and ugly graffiti, which are normal for buildings in Rome


Graffiti place in Main rail station for public


A municipal police (For different types of police, see here)


A tram

I noticed that many orientals are running fashion and jewellery shops in Rome while they are mainly doing Chinese take-away shops in London. I saw a small number of Indians and Afro-Caribbean origin people.

Basically Rome is much less crowded and much less traffic congestion than London. Many people are using scooters like Honda Supercub popular in Burma. But here much bigger and more powerful, I think.

I can say the overall trip was nice and smooth except in last hours. The flight time was 22:30. So we tried to leave Termini station at 19:00 for airport, giving an extra one hour for shuttle bus which run a direct route between Termini staion and airport. But it did not appear until 25 minute past time-table time. So I had to run and get the rail ticket for the Ciampino airport's nearest rail station, from which a bus took me 20 minutes to get to airport. I was pleased as time was quite young.

But I leant that there would be 1 hour delayed flight. I did not care. Fine for me. Just need to sleep when I arrived in London.

One hour later, it was announced that flight "cancelled". All passengers ran to rebook ticket again. The next available flight was 10:30AM next morning.Time had been early hours of morning. So I decided to stay at airport. I slept on the floor like other passengers.

The plane landed East Midland airport at mid day. I had to go to Derby by bus, from where I took train to London Stansted airport. It took 3 and half hours, costing me £42 (my budget flight return ticket to Rome was only £40) . Finally I arrived in London Stansted at 6PM , where I left my car at long stay parking.

Added 18/2/09: Travel insurance would be a partial remedy. Better to buy one when we go holiday.


Here is the full set of photos:

• in thumbnails
• in slide show

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