Europe Travel Diary: Rome

Our Europe Travel Diary is an informal rundown of our day-to-day activities while backpacking Europe, starting with Madrid. This travel diary entry is based on our three nights in Rome. If you are after recommendations for Rome instead, we have a Rome Travel Guide coming soon!

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Day 19: Florence to Rome

_22/10/2021

We eventually got to Rome and luckily our hostel was only a 10-minute walk away. Unfortunately, check-in time wasn’t for another two hours. Thankfully, the hostel let us leave our bags and advised us to head to their bar over the road. As we’d eaten a lot of pizza and pasta over the last few days, we were incredibly happy to see poke bowls on their menu. Mine wasn’t the best but Alex enjoyed his and the other half of mine; no change there.

When 3pm came, we lugged our backpacks up several flights of stairs having opted not to use the tiny, old-fashioned lift. As soon as we entered, we were shocked as to how basic the rooms were for such a highly-rated hostel; nonetheless, as a whole, the hostel was very cool.

We then freshened up and headed to the metro for some sightseeing. We walked around the Piazza di Spagna area and saw the Spanish Steps. Unfortunately, the restaurants in this area were incredibly expensive so it took quite a while to find a place that was both affordable and had gluten-free pasta; we eventually found somewhere and we both enjoyed our respective pasta dishes and glass of wine.

After dinner, we decided to wander to Piazza del Popolo to have a nose around the area. The street sellers were a bit intense here and even though we knew we were being classic tourist scammed, we still ended up having to buy a rose, much to Alex’s dismay.

We then walked back to the hostel and noticed it was quite busy in the hostel bar opposite. We agreed to stay for what we thought would be a couple of Aperol spritz; little did we know it would be more than a couple!

It’s safe to say we fully enjoyed our night. We had a great time making friends with other travellers, drinking Aperol and dancing until 3 am. Unfortunately, it ended with me being sick in the middle of the road; sorry to the poor man sharing our dorm.

Day 20: Rome/ Vatican City

_23/10/2021

Due to the previous night’s antics, we didn’t wake up feeling the best this morning. It didn’t help that the cleaner insisted on hoovering and cleaning the bathroom pretty early. We eventually made it out of bed, albeit in the late afternoon, whoops! Despite feeling very worse for wear, we decided we should tick the Vatican City off our list. Thankfully, we ended up going at a really good time as there were hardly any people there. Our late start did mean that we got to see Rome in the beautiful evening light and it was absolutely stunning; we even managed to get a patch which was pretty exciting for us.

We then went to Mama Eat for dinner; I was super excited about this as it’s a fully gluten-free restaurant and I had been following them on Instagram for a while. Alex and I shared some ham and cheese croquettes before each having another pasta dish. It could be my hangover talking by Mama Eats was slightly underwhelming as they didn’t have their full menu available. We then headed back to the hostel to continue feeling sorry for ourselves and get an early night.

Day 21: Rome

_23/10/2021

To make up for how little sightseeing we did yesterday, we woke up very early and were determined to see as much as possible. We hopped on the metro to visit the Giardino Degli Aranci for a vantage point over the city; as with the majority of activities in Italy, this was again incredibly pretty.

By this point, I realised I had made a big mistake with my outfit choice, a woollen, long-sleeved turtle neck; as you can imagine, I was absolutely boiling hot. It was also at this point that we discussed buying a Colosseum ticket before got to the gates; for some unknown reason, we (Alex)(stupidly) decided not to and that we’d get them on the door. This would turn out to be a stupid mistake. Not knowing our mistake, we grabbed a coffee and headed in the direction of the Colosseum.

As soon as we were in the vicinity of the Colosseum, we were approached by waves of men attempting to sell us tickets. Our plan was to buy them from the main ticket office; unfortunately, it ended up being closed due to Covid. Now, this seemed like a classic tourist trap to us and we really didn’t want to fall for it. Whilst we were hesitant at first, we ended up walking with a random seller to the gaggles of others in the same boat. We were then shown to the tour coordinator who quoted us €35 EACH for a ticket; it was safe to say we weren’t interested.

After finding a quiet point on the street in the shadows of the Colosseum, we managed to go onto the official website in search of tickets. Finally, we managed to get tickets for €16 each but this was not for another 3 hours. Having settled on this, we went around the corner in search of lunch. The moral of the story was to always book in advance and that I was always right.

Lunch was another pizza for Alex whilst I had some very average gluten-free pasta; I still can’t get over how so many of the little restaurants have great gluten-free options!

Once finished, we strolled back to the Colosseum and waited a bit longer before going inside and seeing the exhibit. Words cannot describe how much we loved the Colosseum; we both found it so interesting and really enjoyed ourselves. If we were to ever visit again, we’d book a guided tour as this would make for a better experience. There are signs you can read but it’s quite busy which makes reading much more difficult.

My poor outfit choices started to impact me once we’d finished our trou; the Colosseum unfortunately didn’t have much shade. As a result, Alex had to run into the gift shop and buy me a €20 colosseum t-shirt so I didn’t pass out! It was a really hot day and the Apple Weather app wasn’t my best friend that day.

If you’ve ever been to Rome, you’ll know that its public transport system, and metro specifically, was quite useless. This meant we set out on foot in search of the Trevi Fountain; I was quite glad we did walk as we got to see so many other beautiful sites along the way.

After 15,000 steps, we decided we deserved some well renowned Italian gelato. The closest place we could find was Piazza Novanna which doubled up as a great people-watching spot.

Once our feet had stopped hurting and the weather was getting colder, we agreed to head back to the hostel via the nearest metro station; which was basically halfway to the hostel. We then packed our stuff as we had an early start the next morning.

Given our frivolous spending habits, we decided that we were going to make use of the kitchen facilities at the hostel and cook our own food for the first time on our trip. We subsequently went to the local Pam shop and bought GF pasta, pesto, Mozzarella and cherry tomatoes so we could whip something up.

We then got to the hostel and whilst we were getting our ingredients ready, we got told that none of the ovens or hobs was working. Apparently, someone had trashed the kitchen the previous night which left all the appliances useless. As you can imagine this was very frustrating as we’d have to waste most of the ingredients because they wouldn’t survive our bus journey. This was really frustrating as we had to waste half the ingredients we’d just brought as they wouldn’t survive the following day’s bus trip. More disheartening was the fact that we just wasted money on food we could no longer eat.

In a grump, we realised we needed food quickly so basically ran around the corner to a restaurant for some GF pasta and another pizza for Alex. It was then back to the hotel to chill before a travel day tomorrow.

Day 22: Rome to Venice

_24/10/2021

We both ended up having one of the world’s worst night sleeps ever; Alex was up every hour on the hour whilst I kept waking to the sound of Alex’s snoring. Eventually, we rose at 6 am to make sure we got the 15-minute train that took us to the departure location of our 7.5-hour bus journey to Venice.

Once at our departure location, Alex found a local Pam store and (smartly) bought himself two sandwiches for the journey. On the other hand, I didn’t fancy anything which proved to be a massive mistake; with the bus failing to stop, apart from dropping people off at various stations, there were no opportunities for me to grab any food. This ended up me being very hangry and potentially taking it out on Alex. It didn’t help that the bus journey took an extra half an hour due to multiple road traffic accidents.

Rome Summary

Disclaimer: we probably would’ve enjoyed Rome more if we hadn’t gone out on our first night, drank Aperol Spritz and then proceeded to be hungover for the next day meaning we only had 1 full day to do everything in Rome BUT
The food was okay, not as good or as cheap as other places in Italy.
The hostel was okay albeit a bit far out from everything but there was literally no accommodation in or around the centre of Rome which meant we had no other choice.
The worst bit about Rome was the transport. Whilst the metro was there, it only had 2 lines and nothing went into the city centre at all meaning you had to walk and getting places took ages.
In all honesty, we found Rome slightly…. overrated… it was extremely busy considering we went in October. Maybe we missed out on some good spots due to not being there for long enough.

Let us know in the comments if we should give Rome another chance and if we missed out on some of your highlights!