I woke up this morning at around 6:00am, very thankful for a good nights rest. FortySeven Hotel has an outside courtyard located in its center where they serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It sorta of reminded me of the courtyard of the Pershing Hall in Paris. I had an enjoyable breakfast and found myself completely recharged for another long day of touring in Rome.
First on the agenda was to hit the train station (Termini) to get my ticket to Florence for tomorrow. I walked the entire way down the Via Cavour. While at the terminal I picked up a phone and a prepaid sim card. This is several blog posts by itself…and I do not feel like going into right now.
After a beer at a cafe off of the Piazza dei Cinquecento, I made my way East to pass through the Piazza della Repubblica (which unfortunately dons a McDonalds) and then strolled down the Via Nazionale towards the Mercati Traianei. At this point I headed back to the Hotel to drop off the purchases I made at the Termini and headed out again to "Urban Hack Rome".
Urban Hacking Rome…..by that I mean telling the map to fuck off and just start walking a particular direction that appeals to you. In my case, I headed West. Rome, at the core of it, is a pretty easy city to navigate. There are too many damn historical reference points to lose your bearings. I decided the best thing to do was to keep a general sense of where the Tiber River was in relation to where I was headed. This worked out well. I ended up seeing the Campo de Fiori, Piazza Navona, the bridges Ponte Sant’ Angelo and the Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II, the Castle Sant Angelo, and finally the Vatican.
Rome is also a great city to meet people. During my walk I met two BU exchange students (yes they were hot), a couple from Germany (they were not), a mother/daughter pair from Pennsylvania, and three couples my age (San Diego, Philly, and New Jersey respectively).
I had dinner at Circus Bar, on the roof of Forty Seven Hotel. The atmosphere was incredible, the view spectacular, and the entertainment….lets just say only in Rome. While I was up there, I got to enjoy watching a "protest" (by that I mean RAVE) assemble at the foot of my hotel and of the Temple of Hercules to make a stance against Starbucks (so I was told). While the Rave was in full effect, across town the Vatican started to light up the sky with fireworks. Surreal. I have video of both events and I plan to provide them on my blog the minute I feel like uploading them to YouTube.
I have added new photos to the existing Rome Album. Enjoy!
Off to Tuscany in the AM. Until then Ciao!
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