Roaming Rome

Time to escape the UK again for some Italian sun! On Friday 10th October after work for one of us and football club for the other, we drove to London Gatwick ahead of our flight to (drum roll...) Rome!

We drove 1.5 hours from Bordon to park at 24 Forge Place, Horley with JustPark for £29.98 (6pm Friday to 7am Monday), arriving at the parking space at 7pm. I'd chosen this location as it was very close to the Travelodge where we were staying upon our return and there was a public shuttle bus which was a 2 minute walk away. We simply walked out of Forge Place, turned right to up the road (away from the Travelodge) and then crossed the road to get the 100 bus. This was so cheap at £2 for me and 75p for Tiger and goes 24 hours a day up to 4 times an hour! This was versus the return leg (i.e. the bus that takes you to the Travelodge) with the Hotel Hoppa bus which is £4.50 for adults and £2.50 for kids. Top tip!

http://9.am

Our bus first went to the North Terminal and then to the South which we needed. It dropped us off by an air bridge and we walked straight in. It's been a while since I've spent any time in Gatwick but it is enormous compared to all of our Luton trips. Tiger picked up a great Relaxeeazzz travel mask/pillow which was £19.99 in the airport but a very cool thing and worth buying in advance on Amazon where they are £10-£13! Our flight was with Wizzair and, having booked this ten months beforehand in January, was £75.96 for the two of us! Obviously arriving at 1am was late for Tiger and we had a bit of grumpiness (not surprising) as we landed at 1am and got our car transfer pick up at 01:40 (transfer was 25 euros). We were heading for "Sweet dream Rome airport rooms" (£68) - this worked well in the end as it was around 5 minutes drive away! Our room which had a private bathroom and a little outside space was perfectly comfy for a nice night's sleep.

The next day, aiming to check into our Airbnb for 11am, we took another transfer for 50 euros into the centre of Rome. This was a 50 minute, 38km journey so quite a way. We left at 9.30am and actually checked in for 10.30am. Our Airbnb called B&B Rione Monti was at Via della Madonna dei Monti 59, literally around the corner from the Colosseum and cost £95. Check in was super smooth, and honestly you could not beat this place for location! We had all we needed - bed, bath, fridge, tea and coffee - and I really liked our window so we could look down onto the cobbled street from the first floor.

Having checked in we walked to the Colosseum for a one hour-photoshoot at 12:00 with Antonio. This was a photography company we'd used before in Florence and was very cost effective at just £33.81 (we'd booked early and got 20% off on Airbnb Experiences). We went to four different locations, received over 100 photos and 25 were edited for us!

Then we had our Vespa tour with Angelo and Massimo which I had booked via Airbnb for £218.04. This was literally THE BEST thing we did!! Whizzing around Rome with a Vespa each - often through crowds of people and over cobblestones. The guys were so entertaining. I was mildly worried Tiger would fall off the back as there were points where I could see her dozing off but we tried to keep it high octane for her and we didn't have any accidents thankfully. Angelo told me how he had started his business on his own and has now expanded to having 38 "pilots". Here are all Angelo's details on instagram.

For dinner, we didn't venture very far but ended up in a restaurant near our hotel, Wanted Il Posto Ricerrcato. We had another simple pasta meal for just 35 euros!

On Sunday 12th October, we got up and headed over to our Porta Portese market tour using the Roman version of Uber called "Free Now", an app. This took 10 mins and was 20 Euros. We got dropped off at Hostel Trustever because we could drop our little pull along trolley there for the day via Stasher for just under 7 Euro which was definitely far easier than taking it with us! We'd booked this on Airbnb Experiences for just £23. We met Debora at Piazza Ippolito Nievo, where the entrance to the market is located and really enjoyed our time with her. We picked up all kinds of treasures - all small to fit into the hand luggage!

After our time with Debra, we walked about ten minutes to the heart of Trastevere and had lunch at Osteria der Belli. This was such a brilliant Chatgpt recommendation as there was a huge table of kids colouring which Tiger joined in with! And the food was good too - 32 euros for coffee, sparkling water and pasta for us both.

We then walked back to the Hostel Trustever to get our bag and onwards to the Roma Trastevere Station to get the train to Rome Fiumicino Airport. I'd booked the tickets on the Trainline app for £7.32 and this was a great call as it only took 30 minutes to get back to the airport. Once there security was a breeze - liquids stay in your bag and you can take up to 2 litres!

Our return flight on Sunday 12th October was 18:55 - arriving 20:40 from Rome Fiumicino Airport's Terminal 3. The kids play areas were quite plentiful throughout the terminal. We had a bite to eat as the flight was 20 minutes delayed but the highlight was Tiger playing Old MacDonald on the piano. She got lots of claps and people singing along!

Once we landed at Gatwick South Terminal we took the Hotel Hoppa bus bus to the Travelodge but had to go and get our bag of work/school clothes from the car which was still parked up. Quite funny walking back and forth in the dark but all well and good! The Gatwick Central Travelodge was £66.99 this time but we had a Super Room.

On Monday morning, we got up at 05:30 which is not too different to our normal Monday mornings, left the hotel at 6.15am, walked back to the car and were off shortly afterwards. The drive to Tiger's school is 57 miles about 1h10 mins and we were on time for breakfast club at 07:45! Ciao Roma - we had an awesome time!