Ciao Roma: A Rome Travelogue

By Tom Kane

Ciao Roma is a travelogue and a quick guide to some of the main sites in the beautiful city of Rome. It's intended for those with limited time to go on holiday and see the city sights.  Organising a vacation can take a lot of time and effort, so when your time is short, you don't want to spend too much time wasting your efforts. This guide covers the Vatican, the Colosseum & Roman Forum, and sites such as the Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps. I've added a few more that we had never heard of. My wife, Jo, and I had never been to Rome and our stay in the city was brief. We arrived Monday and left on the Friday, so sightseeing was limited to three days, and we think we made the most of it. But to be honest, there is so much to look at in this spectacular and lovely city, that even two weeks would never be enough time. We found amazing buildings, piazzas, and views around every corner. Look upon this guide as an introduction to Rome, rather than detailed analysis. Please note this is written in English as opposed to American English. So, what you may think is a spelling error is in fact correct English. There's also a lot of references in Latin and Italian.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tom Kane
• Release date: Jul 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201088484

Tom Kane

As a child, Tom Kane's family always insisted he was born in the corner of the living room, behind the TV. That strange assertion, true or false, seems to have set the tone for the rest of his life.  Kane's mother inspired him to write. Science Fiction, in the form of Doctor Who and Isaac Asimov inspired his love of the genre. Monty Python inspired him to be silly and he continues to blame Billy Connolly for his infrequent bursts of bad language  In the corner or behind the TV, what is officially known about Tom Kane's birth is that it took place in England on a dark and stormy night.  

Book preview

Introduction

Abucket list is a list of things you want to do before you die. Number one on my list is ‘to live forever.’ Somehow, I doubt that’s going to be something I will ever achieve. But if you can’t live forever, maybe taking a trip to the Eternal City, Rome, would be the next best thing.

We’ve all seen the pictures of the ruins at the Roman Forum or the Colosseum and we’ve seen the Pope doing his thing for the crowd in St Peter’s Square. So, my wife Jo and I decided our next mini-break would be a cultural break, rather than sat on a beach knocking back cocktails. We’re both in our sixties and though not fit enough to run a marathon, we were sure we could endure the rigors of a break that would, by its very nature, mean a lot of walking. And there is a pertinent point right from the start – this break meant a lot of walking and if you follow in our path make sure you have comfortable shoes, trainers or walking boots. This is essential.

Plan Your Trip

We had to decide what we wanted to see in a short space of time. We were due to arrive Monday lunch-time, so by the time we had managed to get to our hotel we would only have an hour or two to wander around before nightfall. So, Tuesday to Thursday were the days for guided tours. Originally, we were going to book a tour of the Vatican one day, the Colosseum the next and then a day long tour to visit Capri and Naples. However, it didn’t take long for us to realise that two days of walking on tours followed by several hours on a coach was perhaps a little too much to endure. We decided to make the last day a floater. We would see what was available in Rome and decide what to do on-site as it were. We went ahead and booked the Vatican on the Tuesday and the Colosseum on the Wednesday. With hindsight it may have been preferable to make the Tuesday a Hop-on Hop-off bus tour of the city, just to get our bearings.

Transport in Rome

Flying to Rome was an easy decision to make as Ryanair’s flight from Paphos, Cyprus, to Ciampino airport near Rome was a ridiculous price at €155 return for the two of us. However, I had heard that Rome was an expensive city. But the reality was that thanks to the worldwide recession starting a few years back, prices for almost everything has gone down.