Return to Italy - Rome, Naples, and Sorrento Part 1

Hello everyone, welcome to another one of my travels. This time we are visiting Italy again, but we going to the City of Rome so lets begin. Also this post will be in two parts as this trip was over a week long, so I thought I would spilt it up.

On the 14th November, we arrived in Rome in the afternoon after a two hour flight on a Ryanair plane from Stansted airport. We then caught a bus to the centre of the city, which we had to queue up for cause a lot of the buses that day were on strike apparently. Once we got to the city, we had to walk to our apartment which was through a park. This park had lovely little green parakeets flying around it, like the ones you see in London.

Parakeet in Rome

Once we had walked through the park we got to the other end, you could see a nice view of the city and down below was the Piazza Del Popolo

The place we was staying for 2 nights was just down from here near a tram line, It was an apartment called, Rome Studios Apartments. It was very nice, we didn't get breakfast and had a shared bathroom, but the room overall was great, including a comfy bed, which is always good.

Later that evening we went back into the city to have some dinner. Can you guess what we had?

Yes pizza of course! It is Italy. We also had mojito cocktails, the food was all very nice.

Pizza for dinner

With Mojito cocktails.

After dinner we found the Spanish steps wondering about, they are a very nice structure. Below is a few more photos of around the city.

On Saturday the next day, we went to visit Trevi Fountain, which we thought was going to be pretty amazing to see but unfortunately it wasn't very great to view as it was covered in scaffolding.

Saw people dressed up as Romans, they would let you take a photo with them, but they wanted money afterwards so if you don't want to go giving your money away, I'd stay away. We did have one guy come up to us by the Piazza Del Popolo. He wasn't dressed as a Roman but he was giving people roses, he would tell you information about the area and then he wanted money for the roses, so again beware if you don't give your money out!

We also found a cool toy store, I love looking in toy stores at all the different things, one thing I'm interested in is Lego and this store had loads of it so I was really excited.

The store window.

The store front. Cool huh!

I bought a mini fig which was a little bit cheaper than in the UK. We then went on to find the Roman Forum. The area around there was really amazing. One building was huge, this was the Piazza Venezia which is just before you go around the corner to the Roman Forum and Colosseum. It was such a spectacular looking building all white with pillars, had horse statues on top of it. 

The Piazza Venezia

Round the corner from here was the Roman Forum and the Colosseum, there was also lots and lots of men trying to sell you stuff like selfie sticks and umbrella's. I managed to get myself one at a bargain price of 5 euros instead of the price they was trying to sell them for 15 euros, haggle with them, they will give in.

The Roman Forum you have to pay to get into, you can buy tickets online which I think is the ticket to the Colosseum plus you get entry to the forum too. It costs around £10.00.

Being in the Forum is strange you have to imagination what is was like all them years ago it's rather hard. There is books you can buy that have before and now images of the ruins which come in very helpful.

Even cats visit the Forum,

After walking about the forum we came out and went walked around the outside of the Colosseum, we didn't go inside till the next day cause it was getting late. Such a big ruin, amazing thing to see.

Arch of Constantine

The things that must have gone on in that Colosseum must have been mind blowing.

The last thing we went to visit that day was the Pantheon.

This building was another spectacular sight, sadly we didn't get to go inside as there was a service going on. So we didn't get to the see the hole in the ceiling. It did start to rain, lucky we went into a restaurant for dinner.

Here is a few more sights round the city

These fountains were really beautiful.

 The next day we went back to the Colosseum, but this time we thought we would try out the metro. It's a bit different from the London Underground, I would say it looks brighter, less crowded as well.

The Colosseum is huge and simply amazing. It's a great place to visit and will be a excellent experience. I for one was amazed by it and if you are visiting Rome it's the one place you must go and see. You can spend a good hour or so in there looking around, it was very busy and this was in November, so I dread to think what it would be like in Summer time. So if you do want to avoid all the crowds, winter time would be better. There was a small queue to get in, another thing which is better to do is buy your tickets online, otherwise you will be waiting in a huge queue to get in.

Once inside you can walk all around the bottom, and then there is stairs to go up to the top. You can get some stunning photos in there, as you can see below.

In black and white.

That was all we had time to do in Rome, after that we travelled down to Naples on train, then switched trains to Lucrino, where we were staying in this beautiful hotel called Villa Luisa. But there will be more about that in the next post. This is the end of part 1, hope you enjoy this helpful and enjoyable to read. Go to Part 2 <---

Thanks Aimee

Read More

To Spain!

Hey guys, so another adventure I went on back in June was to visit Blanes in Spain for another holiday. This time with my sister which was her first time on a plane so she was mega excited. We additionally had our crazy friend come along. We flew from Luton airport by Easyjet to Girona, and got a transfer bus to Blanes, the place we stayed. Our hotel was lovely it was called Hostal Bonvista, great lovely friendly people I recommend staying here if you want to visit Blanes. It's about 1 mile walk to the beach but easy enough to get to, also plenty of buses available. The number 1 (Uno) bus gets you down to the beach really cheap was about €1.85. I think pretty much all the buses around that area was the same price.  

Blanes beach

In Blanes

Places we visited while staying in Blanes, were Barcelona, Lloret de Mar, also in Blanes we visited the Jardí Botanic Marimurtra and Jardin Botánico Pinya de Rosa

The Jardi Bontanic gardens is a really amazing place to visit and a great price too, I think we got in for about €6 each. You get the tour bus from Blanes beach for €5 and it takes you up the cliffs to the gardens. There is a view point in there where you can see the beautiful clear Mediterranean Sea the view is stunning. There is lots of plants and flowers to see here, you can also have a photo taken with parrots and if you want to buy the photo you may.

Jardi Botanic

Clear blue sea.

Yellow Flowers

Beautiful blue flowers in the gardens

Jardin Botánico Pinya de Rosa I wouldn't recommend visiting I think we paid €2 to get in, again you can have your photo with a different parrot. Besides that there isn't much else here to see, it's all just catus, it's very dull and run down.

Barcelona, we took a very nice train ride down there along all the coast it was really amazing. The train line is right on the edge of the coast, It took a good hour and half to get there but the journey was enjoyable. Once in Barcelona you can visit many different places. We took one of the tour buses around the city it goes past many sites such as The Holy Family, Barcelona Football Ground, Casa Batllo. Down by the harbour you can see the Columbus Monument. Another great thing you can do while visiting here is take a boat ride up the harbour, which we did. It goes past lots of different boats including huge cruise boats. It offers the opportunity for those who wish to relish alluring and unorthodox views of Barcelona from a divergent perspective: the Mediterranean. It was really enjoyable and something we just across while walking down past all the stalls.

Barcelona Football Club

Another tour bus

Lloret de Mar the next stop from Blanes only a bus ride away is a great place to go for shopping, the beach, food and drink. We spent the day there, first visiting the Monument to the Fisherman's wife which is a bronze sculpture on a rock which is a walk up the side of the beach up this cliff. It represents the figure of a woman looking out to sea in greeting or welcome. Around that area there is lots of stray cats. I kinda felt sorry for them cause they had no home, but they seem reasonably happy someone was leaving food out for them. The shops here are lots of market types, where you can haggle for a lower price, my friend was pretty good at doing that. I manage to buy a few things.

Lloret de Mar Beach

Fisherman's wife

The beach is beautiful, warm and clean spent about one hour in the sea swimming around looking at fish, couldn't believe how clear the water was compared to England. We also went in this Scottish themed bar called Rob Roy, the staff were very friendly and it was a nice at atmosphere.

 Having a drink in the Rob Roy bar.

Here is also a few more photos from Blanes. As you can see we have an amazing time there, I would love to go back to the same place.

Having dinner near Blanes beach.

First time trying Spainsh paella

One of many stray cats.

Hotel Bona Vista was amazing and we became friends with one of the girls.

So that's another post finished. If you are interested in visiting Blanes it's a fantastic place to go. I definitely would like to go back, but I would also like to go many other places. Hope you enjoyed reading.

Please follow for more posts to be kept up to date with my Adventures.

Thanks
Aimee

Read More