Rome, Italy

The train ride from Trieste into Rome over the evening was relatively pleasant and I caught up on some much needed sleep. During the train ride I realized that I had not showered, slept in a bed, or changed my clothes in at least 8 days!

I arrived in Rome fairly early in the morning. I was able to find my way from the train station past the relatively vacant streets toward the Coliseum, using mainly my lonely planet guide book map, which I soon realized was practically indispensible. I was so early to the Coliseum that there was virtually no line ahead of me and it was only a few minutes from opening. I waited my turn, purchased my ticket and as always sped past the booth for the audio guides, ( I felt since I was on such a budget I figured I could take the time to read the signs and not listen to someone reading them for me).

Stepping into the Coliseum was like stepping back in time, I was immediately struck with awe upon seeing the massive structure, and once inside I could not help but marvel at what a spectacle it is and once was. I spent a good bit of time exploring the ruins of the Coliseum, learning that it once crammed in over 50,000 spectators, and had a canvas roof at one point in time.

Feeling like I had suitably exhausted my sightseeing of the Coliseum, I headed out towards the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill, I was pretty excited that the ticket price for the Coliseum included the Forum as well, for only about 10 Euro.

Indoor Sports Arena

The Roman Forum is referred to the “Dawn of western civilization”. Walking along the streets you pass ruin after ruin of old churches, monuments, temples, meeting places of the Roman senate, it was the political, religious and social center for Rome. I was astounded at how much history was packed into such a small area. Ruin after ruin everything was once something incredible, but now most of them are only shadows of the past. One very interesting thing on Palatine Hill was an Emperor’s home with his own indoor sport stadium.

Next I ventured on to the giant white marble tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Earlier when I had walked by it was closed, now it was bustling with tourists. I climbed the steps as far as I could and found great views of both the Roman Forum and the Coliseum, like most of the monuments in Europe this one was under construction, undergoing some sort of renovation work. I was very impressed with the quality construction of the tomb and what intricate detail there was all round it.

Oculus

Pressing on I wandered through the streets trying to find my way to Pantheon. This is a beautiful marble building with an oculus in the middle which allows in light. The inside is incredibly well preserved and pristine. Statues  and paintings line the inside walls of the Pantheon, for as old as this building was I was astounded by how perfect everything was about it. Part of the reason might be the fact that it closes at certain times keeping out thieves and vandals by way of its massive metal doors, some of the biggest I have ever seen in my life!

After being astounded by the Pantheon I headed to another Roman treasure, the Trevi Fountain. This fountain blew me away! Hands down, the best fountain I have ever seen! I don’t even know if you can call it a fountain. Its more of a series of statues with a pool and water spraying everywhere… I could tell that this was a very popular attraction though, there were hundreds of people standing around taking pictures of the fountain. I stayed there for a while marveling at the sight then headed to a nearby Gellato parlor to follow some advice from Lonely Planet. I headed to San Crispino and tried their famous honey sorbet, and it was indeed delicious. I was pretty impressed. Good work Lonely Planet Guide!

I headed toward two other squares with beautiful fountains in them, but none nearly as awesome as Trevi. Then I proceeded to wander around a bit, get lost and continue to take pictures of the beautiful city. It seems like every square inch of Rome is packed with ruins, and historically significant treasures. I then headed over the Tiber River twice, trying to figure out how to get to Vatican City.

I spent some time staring at the Vatican in awe of how beautiful it was. Since the Vatican is a separate country from the rest of Italy, I decided to finish seeing Rome before venturing into the Vatican. I kept walking around Rome, aimlessly for a little while, until I spotted an internet café. I headed inside to check my email and get the scoop on a Geocache I was supposed to find in Rome. I took pictures of the screen with directions and pictures of the cache and the area, trying to prepare myself for when I would try to find the cache.

Continuing to wander around Rome, I hopped aboard one of those sight-seeing busses to try to check out any important part of the city that I had missed. I saw a lot of the same stuff I had seen earlier, just from a different perspective, and with a narrator. I did get to see Circus Maximus, an ancient roman chariot racing arena. Throughout Rome you can see these guys dressed up as old roman soldiers, they stand by certain monuments and tourists take pictures of themselves with these men in costumes for a small fee. Being cheap, again I refrained from paying for a silly picture with some guy in a costume. But I did see them on their way home at the end of the day as I rode the bus around Rome.

The bus dropped me back of at the Vatican. Where I stayed to watch the sun go down and take pictures of Piazza di San Pietro and Saint Peter’s Basilica. I was very tired after a day of seeing practically all of Rome in a day. My feet were tired and I was fairly hungry. I think I had some food in my bag and I do believe I sat down in the square at night and began to consume.

After my rest in the square I started to head out and walk around toward the train station. Taking pictures of beautiful Rome all around me. I passed back through the squares I had been to earlier, most of them were rejuvenated with a wonderful energy, people were playing music, doing mime shows, dressed up in silly costumes hoping to get a tip. A very popular costume was the King Tut costume. These people would stand perfectly still, but when someone would give them a tip they would bow down. These were in a lot of squares, and unfortunately some of the least entertaining.

Rome is beautiful at night. Everything is lit up, and the streets are just as crowded with tourists and it is wonderful seeing the same sights in a different light.

I stopped back by the Coliseum to take another gander before heading to the train station.

Trieste, Italy

I arrived in Trieste a bit confused. The map in my book made me think that Trieste was in Slovenia and not Italy. I wandered around trying to find a suitable spot for me to swim. I asked a passerby in broken Spanish where the beach was, thankfully she understood and pointed me in the direction of the swimming area.

Greek warship

I got to a small organized area with changing rooms, lounge chairs and such. It was 3.50 Euro to get in and use their facility. Having taken a train all the way from Venice I wasn’t going to let 3.50 Euro get in my way of taking a dip.

After I changed, I realized that the area wasn’t a beach or even a shore line. It was a series of concrete docks and patios. There were various areas to jump off of and into the roped off swimming area. There were tons of excited children jumping off the docks, and I of course joined them. I love jumping off things!

I swam around for a bit and discovered two diving boards. Both were already elevated high above the water because of their relative position on the high docks. On top of that one was also a high dive with a nice big fall in store for whoever decided to climb up the slippery steps. Figuring that I better jump off the high one I ran up the steps and had an exhilarating time plunging into the sea.

After a great time of swimming and diving I laid out on the upper patio and probably fell asleep for a while. Taking a cold shower without soap, I considered myself “clean” and changed into my street clothes and headed out toward the train station looking for a grocery store.

The town was beautiful! There were hardly any tourists present as I strolled through. I certainly felt like I was off the beaten path a bit, which I enjoy.

 

I found a grocery store and got myself a bag of croissants, a can of tuna fish (in water), a package of cheese, and a box of wine which I had to get because it was only 0.89 Euro! I headed toward the train station and got my schedule for my journey to Rome and then headed back outside onto a park bench. I have become more and more accustomed to dining on a park bench.

Today I was in a beautiful park in Italy and certainly not alone. There were several other clearly either homeless and or mentally unstable joining me in the park. Some of them eyed me with curiosity and stared while others accepted me as “one of their own” and let me be. Due to my lack of personal hygiene over the past several days, the added spunk of salt water in my hair and my ever growing aptly named “homeless guy- beard” I was not bothered.

Because I had not eaten much over the last few days my box of 0.89 Euro wine started to kick in rather early. I staggered back to the train station chuckling at myself along the way, trying not to lean against the walls too much. I headed for the convenience store inside the train station and although I knew it was a bad idea at the time I still decided to buy a gigantic bag of potato chips, and 500 grams, roughly  a quarter of a gallon, of gelato.

Giant bag of potato chips

I picked a seat among others waiting for the train and started eating my chips, wine and cherry swirl ice cream. I ate the entire thing in about 20 minutes. When I was almost done I really realized that it was a terrible idea for me to eat the entire thing. Once I finished it I swore off buying 500g containers of ice cream… for a while.

Before I got on the train, I made sure to brush my teeth in the bathroom and try to “freshen up” a bit. It is at this point in Italy that I realized that my Italian journey was going to be absolutely insane. I had no couch surfers for my stay in Italy except my last night. Most all of the Italians on couch surfing were male and had only requested to have female visitors, of the small percentage that I could stay with, many were either busy or on vacation themselves. Being cheap, I knew I wasn’t going to spring for a hostel or hotel or anything like that, so I tried to plan my journeys at night and far enough away that I could sleep on the train ride.

Over the next few days in Italy I had a very hectic schedule of taking a train from one town to another to another to connect to a train to get to someplace else. Most of the time I didn’t really know where I was, I had to take pictures of the town I was heading toward on the schedule sheets so I could remember. I found myself in all sorts of places over the next few days.

Venice, Italy

The train ride to Venice was lengthy and required me to make several stops along the way. I stopped in Bologna for the second night in a row. The train station was clean enough, but I didn’t know the town well enough to explore at 1:30am, so I stayed in the train station and slept on the floor. The first night I was a bit nervous about sleeping on the floor near other homeless people, but they seemed pretty well passed out. Keeping my guard up while I slept I got a few hours of necessary relaxation. At 3:18 am I boarded a train heading to Venice (Venezia).

I snatched a room all to myself. I was excited about being able to fold the seats down and sleep for the ride. But just as the train started to move, one other passenger came into my area. She was a nice girl about my age doing roughly the same thing I was doing. After a bit of nice conversation with her I slept quite soundly for an hour or so. I awoke to her telling me that the train was splitting in two sections, one section going to the main city Venice and another one going to the old city of Venice. Thanking her I jumped off and boarded another section of the train. Unfortunately I had to sit in a crowded room, but they were all nice people, and surprised that I was traveling with only one backpack and for so long. Everyone else had huge suit cases and several other bags.

Arriving in Venice at around 6:00am it was still dark. The streets were bare and quiet. I took advantage of the solitude and grabbed several shots of Venice in the morning light. I wandered along the narrow winding streets, surprised to find travelers like myself sleeping in random areas throughout the city. Some were sleeping on stairways; some were sleeping in the streets in groups. Seeing them gave me confidence about my new practice of sleeping in train stations and on trains.

Venice is confusing. The streets and passageways are set up in no logical manner. Venice was built on 117 islands with 150 canals and 400 bridges. The addresses are meaningless as well, so finding your way through logical street signs and such is nearly impossible. Fortunately there are giant, although confusing, signs pointing toward large squares and attractions.

I spent the majority of my morning confused and looking at a simple map of the area trying to figure out how to arrive at some of the prominent squares. I led myself in circles and even found myself walking down narrow side streets that dead ended at a canal with no way to get across.

Taking pictures along the way drained my battery and I was yet again in search of a stray outlet. I found several in the streets that were inoperable. I finally found a small café that was just opening. Two men were setting up chairs and tables outside for the morning visitors. I ducked inside and asked the older gentleman if he had an outlet. I mainly used motions and pointed to my charger; he took it from me and plugged it in. While it was charging I read my lonely planet guide on Venice several times as well as some of the other cities I would be going to. For his hospitality I decided to buy a chocolate filled croissant and a small macchiato just as a way of saying “thank you.”

Leaving recharged from the coffee I continued touring myself through the winding streets to several of the squares (piazzas) and other historic markers. I wound up in a fish market along the main canal, it was full of people yelling and selling fish. It took me a long time of getting lost and turned around to find the main piazza, the one all of the pictures are taken from. It was magnificent. The beautiful ornate buildings surrounding the plaza were impeccable. There were hundreds of pigeons in the center being fed various things by the tourists. Several Asian couples holding food up had pigeons perching themselves on their arms and shoulders. The gondolas are just cool as you think they are, small boats with men in Venice-specific hats roaming the canals. Occasionally you can hear one of them singing, but it was a rare site to see.

Several people had told me that Venice was dirty and it smelled bad. I did not smell anything, other than the salty sea water, which if you are not used to can smell a bit unpleasant, but all in all I thought Venice was not terribly filth ridden or smelly. However there were some areas that did have a large quantity of trash in them, but they were being swiftly taken care of my city workers with brooms.

Because I was alone and I walk fast, I was pretty much done with Venice by the afternoon. I took a nap on a bench that was facing the water and away from the tourist section. Hot and tired, I decided that I wanted to swim, but the water in and around Venice was a little too heavily used to be anything I would want to swim in. I got out my trusty Lonely Planet guide book and searched for a nearby coastal city that the train went to. I found a town called Trieste, on the border between Italy and Slovenia.

I headed back to the train station and jumped on board a train to Trieste.