My European Adventure: The Beginning

I recently took a month of work for a much needed (and anticipated) holiday. The destination: Europe. This trip was a long time coming - over 12 months planning with my sister, Ashlea who joined me for the adventure.

So with my work in the safe hands of the rest of the ineedhits marketing team, the 17th of May 2011 finally came around and we were off.

Ash and I flew out from Perth with Emirates and although the flight to Dubai was long (11 hours to be precise) we managed to get a few hours sleep. We arrived in Dubai to 32 degrees heat at seven in the morning and flying into the city was quite interesting - lots and lots of sand.

Dubai airport is absolutely huge and our 4 hour stopover was a good chance to hit the duty free stores to determine what we were going  to stock up on during our stopover on the way home (most likely alcohol and chocolate). The tranquillity garden within the airport was certainly a pleasant surprise. To get on our next flight (to Rome) we were put onto a bus and driven directly to the plane. This was our first taste of the Dubai heat and boy was it a shock when the doors opened and we stepped off the bus. The hot air was dry and stifling, so I was pretty happy to walk (run) straight up the stairs onto the flight.

Our flight to Rome wasn't as long as the previous but it was more painful. We firstly had to kick an Italian guy out of Ash's window seat. He was pretty determined to not budge but after 11 hours in the middle seat, Ash was even more determined to get into that coveted window seat. He eventually gave in and moved, but this meant that he was now seated next to me (oh the joy!). He insisted on putting his feet all over the seat in front of him and my seat also (grrr!). So after 6 (long) hours our arrival into Rome's Leonardo da Vinci airport couldn't come soon enough for me.

Instead of catching the train (Leonardo Express) into the city we opted for a shuttle bus which actually cost the same price as the train but took us directly to our hotel while giving us our first taste of Rome (and its crazy drivers). We stayed at Hotel Europa for 2 nights and while it did the job for us it was certainly nothing to write home about. It was located 3 blocks from Rome's main train station, Termini which was convenient but it was not the nicest area to be around at night time. After checking in we decided to not let jet lag set in and so we picked up a map and set out to explore the city.

Inside Santa Maria Dogli
Angeli cathedral

 Our first stop was Santa Maria Dogli Angeli which was a cathedral that when I walked inside took my breath away. The architecture and art pieces inside was simply stunning and having this as our first taste of Rome architecture we knew we were in for a treat over the next 3 days. Outside the cathedral was the beautiful fountain and buildings of Piazza della Repubblica. While we couldn't get across to the fountain because of the crazy Rome traffic we managed to get a couple of good photos. 

We ventured on to our next destination: Fontana de Trevi, however we were lucky to make it there as we found the traffic to be pretty crazy. We played chicken with our lives every time we crossed the road. Although we used designated pedestrian crossings, the Roman drivers simply choose to ignore them. There were huge crowds surrounding Fontana de Trevi but we managed to make our way down to the fountain only to realize that we didn't have any coins to throw in. Ooops! 

Beautiful Fontana de Trevi

The night was still young so we continued on to a number of sights including Templo Andriano, Pantheon and Piazza Navona. I have to admit that I was underwhelmed by Pantheon but Piazza Navona was brilliant. There were some beautiful fountains and sculptures. Ash and I were well behaved and didn't venture into the big market in the centre of the piazza, although it was very tempting.

We were pretty keen to eat some fresh pasta (when in Rome and all that), so we found a quaint little restaurant which was a good option in the end because the pasta was home made and pretty well priced. Ash had spaghetti and meatballs, while I had fettuccine with fresh tomatoes and scampi (which I had to peel myself!). We walked past so many gelati stores through our sight seeing that would have been wrong of us not to stop by at least one. So we ate chocolate gelati while walking back to the hotel and it was AMAZING!

When we got back to the hotel we noticed our phones weren't picking up any wi-fi (and our hotel wanted to charge us $10 Euro per hour for internet access!), so we found a little (dodgy looking) internet cafe to send the folks a quick email (we thought Mum would probably be already fretting that she hadn't heard from us). Early night to be for us because we were pretty tired - think the jetlag was kicking in.

Highlights of day 1:

• The great entertainment system on board our Emirates flights
• Surreal feeling of standing at Trevi Fountain
• Best chocolate gelati I have ever eaten
• Very comfortable hotel bed for some much needed sleep