Andre and Wendy: Lecce to Rome

17,150 Steps

Up today and pack up for our last 3 nights that we will be spending in Rome. Back down the 60 steps for one last time from our apartment. Actually it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, but I'm really glad I didn't need to run back to the apartment ever for something we forgot, which happens often when we head out exploring.

Back in December we booked our 6 hour train ride tickets from Lecce to Rome. With these long train rides in Italy we have learned that you should book in advance to save money. We booked first class for 70 Euro for the 2 of us , we looked today ad it would have cost 114Euro each for the same tickets. We have never booked first class on a train that I remember. They came by with snacks, coffee and tea for free so far.

About a 2 km walk from the train station (which is huge) to our AIRBNB for the next 3 nights. It is just a room in a building, when they sent us instructions for how to enter and it said room 301 I should have known 3 flights of stairs to climb, again. Because of the Jubilee year everything was very expensive to book in Rome. We are not in the most convenient part of Rome for sightseeing, but not far from the metro to get around.

We walked to the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major, one of the 4 churches that have Jubilee doors (porta santa). This one is very close to our apartment. I had booked slots to go through the doors tomorrow, but there was no line up at all tonight so we got to go right in. The 4 Papal churches in Rome all have security that you must go through to enter, kind of like airport security but not as strict. This is an absolutely beautiful church, there is a service going on and our plan is to come back and visit some more on another day since it is so close to our apartment.

We next walked down to the coliseum. Funny that we ran into the family sitting across from us on the train near the coliseum, they were letting their girls run around to burn off some energy from sitting on the train for hours. Amazing to think you get your kids to run around outside the coliseum to burn off energy. We have on a tour of the Coliseum before, but I don’t think we could go to Rome without going to visit at least the outside. We have no tours booked at all, did those all last time, but we do have a free walking tour coming up that we always like. We had hoped to stay until dark, but started running out of gas so headed back towards our apartment.

Stopped for dinner at a spot on the way home, it is around 8PM so things are getting a little busier, dinner gets busy starting at 7:30PM, so much later than home.