Explore the World

  This is a holiday in Italy – Ferragosto or Assumption Day (The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven at the end of her earthly life).  But our car rental agency at the train station should be opened.  This is also a Napoleon birthday (1769). We woke up at 10, left the hotel at 11:30. For 4 nights in Rome we paid €314. We bought the bus tickets at 11:46 (€3).  When we reached Termini – the train station (12:45), our rental agency (Maggiore Rent) said that it is too late, and our car is gone, rented out.  So they knew how to make a reservation, they just did not know…

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  It was a late, late wake up for us this morning.  We left the hotel around 12 noon. It is still 6AM in America. We slowly retraced out steps from Sunday walk, and I even bought a paper map of Rome (€7.35).  With an international data plan on iPhone, role of paper maps going down.  They are nice, but not a vital necessity anymore.   It is 12 noon in Rome.  Who is turning 40-something soon? Very detailed map of the whole Forum is inside the gates, so you need to purchase a ticket to review, what you want to see.   We were planning to have our first meal of…

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  Today is Monday, 2012-08-13, and all attractions are closed in Rome. Today is a good day to visit Vatican. We ate breakfast across the street from our hotel in a place called “Il Lunch” (€16 – 11:42).  We are slowly gaining strength against the 6-hour time difference. Monday – 11:47 – The best day to visit Vatican (€15).  This is not a Vatican, but very close indeed. Vatican – public entrance.   Lines are reasonable -10-15 minutes, but credit cards machines are always broken – bring cash   Few more paces (about 1 km), and we are now in Vatican (€30 cash only as credit card machines are down – 12:36). …

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  We arrived to Fiumicino Airport in Rome at 4:30AM on Sunday morning. Temperature outside was +28°C.  It is 83°F. We got our luggage at 05:18AM.  Lira’s first experience was a smelly bathroom at the airport.  We wondered around a bit, and found a train station. First train (05:31 €8×2 = 16 AmEx) was scheduled at 05:56AM.  We arrived at the secondary transportation hub in Ostiense at 06:30AM.  I had some €25 and change with me from our previous trip in August 2010.  So we bought 2 ATAC (Rome transportation) tickets (€1.50×2) from a machine at 06:40.  These tickets are good for 100 minutes after initial validation. While waiting for our…

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  August 10, Fri It is Saturday morning, August 11, 2012, and we are having our breakfast at OMNI hotel in Boston.  Why? We did not fly to Rome yesterday.  Our flight got cancelled. Friday, August 10-th turns out to be an extremely intense day.  As it happens, at work I had to an emergency code fix and test.  Plus, my domain account got switched to a new platform, and I had to do an emergency re-pointing and re-arranging all my domains due to upgrade at Service Provider.  Plus, the buyer for one of the domains suddenly woke up and deposited money on ESCROW.COM, demonstrating that he is serious about the…

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  I am starting this narrative [2012-08-06 MO 15:40] a few days before the actual trip.  The idea is to place here all the itinerary materials that I prepared in Excel to be available online (instead of paper).   Gather your Things – Stiamo andando a Roma (we are going to Rome) First, let me present a sequence of preparatory steps: May 2012 – Picked a destination – Hot Rome instead of an Olympic London 5/21/2012 – Request a long vacation at work 6/15/2012 – Rosetta Stone Italian (Level 1, 2 and 3) 7/8/2012 – Bought direct tickets to Rome – kill me now! – $3,473.20 7/12/2012 – Rick Steves guide books…

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