Teresa and I escaped for a few days in Rome.

I had originally planned a work trip to US in mid October. However, that was pushed back to November, and therefore we decided that with a week in my calendar with no meetings, we would make the most of it and take a trip to Rome.

I had been to Rome before, taking Rachel when she had finished her GCSEs (back in 2012!) However, Teresa had never been before and was keen to visit St Peter’s.

We had a very early start to get to Stansted for our flight to Rome Ciampino airport. This is one of two main airports in Rome, and is the closest to the centre of Rome. However, there is no direct train from the airport to the centre of Rome, and so we had to take a shuttle bus to a train station, and then had a bit of a wait for the train to take us to the main Termini station in Rome. It was not too bad on the way to Rome, but on the way back we decided to take a cab rather than try and work out which train station to get off at and where to get the shuttle bus. It was a long journey and the cab driver was not at all happy about going on such a long trip away from the centre of Rome with the resulting loss of profitable business! The other airport in Rome is Leonardo da Vinci - Fiumicino airport, and that may be a better option next time!

Once we had checked into our hotel (the Argentina Residenza which we would recommend as a simple, clean and well positioned hotel), we headed off for some food (remember not to order the same as Teresa as everywhere we went, her portions were far too small) and then on to the Trevi fountain (which like most of the rest of Rome was very crowded). I even got up early and was at the fountain about 7am one morning, and there were still quite a few people.

Our first full day in Rome was spent largely at the Colosseum and in the Forum. We had a tour booked for the Colosseum, which certainly saved some time queueing. The tour also included entry into the Forum, although not straight after the Colosseum. Our tour went round the lower parts of the Colosseum and we were then free to walk around the upper parts (up in the cheap seats since the important people who went to see the games got arena side seats whilst the general public had to sit much higher up and so probably got to see very little of the action). We spent quite a long time walking round the upper parts of the Colosseum, and so missed the first trip to the Forum. We then had a bit of a wait to try and get food - and certainly to top up our water - before the next trip to the Forum. The tour was just for entry into the Forum, and so once we were in, we have the rest of the afternoon to explore - right up until kicking out time.

Next it was an early start to the day to get over to the Vatican for an early morning tour of the Vatican Museum and onto St Peters. One of the reasons why we wanted to get an early morning tour of the Vatican was to get a picture of the stairs in the Vatican museum gift shop! When I was last in Rome, we saw the stairs and I tried to get a photo, but always got people in the picture. Even with my best Photoshop efforts, I was not able to clone all the people out, and in the best version of the picture still had one person there. By getting there early this time (even if it was still like the train station in rush hour), at least there was no one leaving via the stairs, and so I got my photo with an empty staircase. Not sure the picture was worth it, but it did make sure that we got on with our day early, and so gave plenty of time in St Peters after the museum.