Amy and Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2019 Edition – Day 0 and Day 1

It’s hard to differentiate between Day 0 and Day 1, because Day 0 actually never seems to end. We get in the car at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday and show up at a hotel in Rome some extended period of non-sleeping time later.

The flight was easy; there just was no sleep to be had. I did watch the two “Ant Man” movies, which filled in a couple of gaps for “Avengers Endgame”.

I had fully anticipated having to stand in some atrocious 90 minute line to get through passport control once we landed at the Rome airport. Visions of last year’s experience in Prague kept popping up. Amazingly enough, passport control was automated for a bunch of countries, including the US. Super easy, super fast.

And our luggage didn’t take long to surface.

We walked off the plant at 10:50 a.m., and we were in the arranged-for pick up car at 11:30. I don’t recall ever exiting any airport that quickly, ever.

The driver drops us off in front of a nondescript door labeled “Caesar House”. We were looking for “Colosseo In”. The driver told us (several times) that the hotel was “inside”. So we went inside. The entrance looked like this:

Major lock system on this door. Serious security.

At the end of the hall and up 3 steps, we did see a door with a guy sitting at a desk. He told us to go up to the 2nd floor.

Cute little retro-fitted elevator.

The second floor had two doors. We announced ourselves at the “Caesar House” door and we were buzzed in. Apparently we were in the right place – it just didn’t look like it.

And of course we were way too early. We stashed the big bags and made our way back down the gauntlet, toddled down the street to a recommended restauran and had lunch. We ended up having a great conversation with an American woman sitting at the next table.

By 2:30 we were both beyond tired. The hotel staff (seemingly consisting two people), took pity upon us and checked us into our room. We were escorted up to the 5th floor – which we eventually figured out was the entirety of the Colosseo In.

The room is beautiful, as is the rest of the floor. There is a terrace with tables and chair s (and ash trays), where we could sit and enjoy the view. This is a hint:

Tomorrow I’m going to try to take a panoramic shot, because there was more landmarks off to the right.

After listening to all the instructions for all the layers of security (key to the street entrance), keypad code to get into the 5th floor, card keys for the room) and how to put our order in for breakfast (basically what time did we want it to show up), we passed out for a couple of hours.

It was the usual struggle to get up and get moving, but we knew we had to. I took a shower and noticed I had managed to leave behind something from my bathroom bag. Fortunately there was a little grocery store (?) a couple of blocks away and I was able to replace it and also we bought some fruit.

And then to dinner. The first restaurant we tried required reservations (I think we knew that, but jet-lagged addled brains didn’t remember). We ended up at some random place; the waiter did a great sales job – I ordered the turbot that he recommended that was just fantastic. And also a bit more expensive than the sea bass I had originally wanted to order.

And of course, everything was accompanied by the typical eau-du-cigarette-smoke. There were two guys at the next table who were virtually chain smoking the entire time. Yum.

Of course, the “if in Italy, then gelato” rule was in effect. A perfect ending to the day: dark chocolate gelato.

One thing I love about Rome is how random old things pop out of nowhere. While waiting for Andy to scout out the restaurant situation for dinner, I looked up and saw this at the end of the street:

No idea what that is, but it’s obviously old.

Tomorrow the adventure continues. We have a one hour Segway tour – don’t remember what we’re seeing considering it’s only an hour, but it’ll be interesting. After that the current plan is to visit the Jewish Museum inside the Great Synagogue of Rome. Hopefully that plan will hold.

Until tomorrow!