my third and final post on our trip to Rome

The art of Rome, the beauty of Rome....they are fine but not nearly as interesting as the people of Rome.

When we first got there we were proud to have easily found the way from the airport to the center of town by way of the train. Then a short walk across the street to the bus station to pick up Bus 16 which would drop us off in front of our hotel. We asked at the information counter and were sent to a particular bus stop to wait for bus 16. And wait we did...................for 20 minutes. Several busses stopped to let passengers off and on but not that important bus 16. Wait....wait.....wait.....Oh, good, here it is....bus 16. We got on, settled in and watched the streets go by. But not in the right direction.

After a couple of stops we asked the driver if this bus would take us to via XX Setembre (20 September street). No, he said, that would be bus number sixteen going the other way. So......off the bus, walk back to the station and wait again......wait.....wait....wait....total wait time one hour. Finally we gave up saying, "it's only 10 euro to our hotel by taxi." (according to the hotel brochure) and walked over to the taxi stand (which lay between the train and bus stations)

Rick Steves' book on Rome said to make sure we took an official taxi with a taxi sign on top and a meter. Rick had never steered us wrong before so we were careful to take the white taxi with the meter. I asked the price to the hotel and was told, "It will be on the meter."

In the cab, I felt uncomfortable when the driver seemed to go further than the distance I had imagined it would be to the hotel. "This doesn't seem right," I said to myself. Sure enough the meter kept going up and up until, right in front of our hotel it was at 30 Euros. If that weren't enough the driver told us we owed him 40 euro because we had "packages". (we each had one carry on and no luggage). When Bob opened his wallet to take out some money we found out how quick that taxi driver's hands were. He had a fifty out of Bob's wallet and into his pocket before we even saw it. He said he had given Bob back a ten. Hah!!!!

We should have taken him into the hotel and called the police but..........
(it's really hard when you don't speak the language)

Oh, by the way, later we were walking and found the bus station three blocks from our hotel.



But....to make up for that, we met a man "in Rome for the fashion show" who drove up beside us in a semi-fancy rental car and had a nice conversation about Kansas City (long story short, here). Because we were from the Kansas City area and because we were such nice people (wink, wink) he gave us two leather jackets for only 20 euro each (because he had only credit cards and needed some cash for gasoline), yea, right. Were the jackets hot? I don't know, but I have to say they're nice jackets if not our style. To be honest, I didn't even think about the jackets being stolen until I was telling the story later. Am I a hick from Missouri?

Every day we were in Rome it rained. And there were umbrella vendors everywhere.

On the day we went to the Vatican we were sharing an umbrella and one of the many vendors offered us an umbrella for five euro. We said no thanks and kept walking. With each few steps the price went down until we agreed to buy for 3 euros---not a bad price for an umbrella (that will undoubtedly fall apart in a day or two).

Just as we got our money out and were ready to hand it to him, he looked out toward the street and started running away, dodging behind cars and carts. We looked around and there was a police car. Yep-----illegal vendor---probably illegally in the country too. Too bad....we could have used that umbrella. However, a few paces further on, we hear, "Lady...Lady, your umbrella." There he was, chasing us down to sell an umbrella for 3 Euro.

An all-around interesting trip.