A City Break: Rome

For anybody who has been keeping up with my blog for the past goodness knows how long, and has seen me pop up on social media this week, you will know that I have spent the past 5 days in the beautiful city of Rome. With the amazing food, constant hustle and bustle of locals and tourists, as well as the majority of the city’s population racing around on Vespa’s, I ask you, what’s not to love?

As neither of us have a heck of a lot of money, this year we decided to take a city break opposed to your typical beach holiday; it’s not that we didn’t want to do that, but on the budget that we had, the thought of sitting on a sun lounger all day came second to exploring such an exciting place. Being somewhere that was on both of our bucket lists, we decided on Rome.

The moment that you type the words ‘cheap holiday’ into your search bar, you are bombarded with websites offering the best deals. Having never flown by ourselves before, and being told by almost everybody that British Airways offer the best service, we decided to take a look; much to our surprise, finding a last minute package (if you count 2 months in advance last minute!?) that suited our budgets whist giving us a relative amount of spending money to go with it. Although it would have been nice to go for a longer period of time, there is only so much that you can do in almost 40 degrees. We did 5 days, 4 if you take out travelling, and that was perfect. We fit in as much sight-seeing as we possibly could, from the Colosseum to the Trevi Fountain which were equally as amazing (despite the fountain being in the process of restoration), as well as having plenty of time to relax and stuff ourselves silly with every flavour of gelato that you could possibly imagine. When it came to attractions that you had to pay for, some people told us to book ahead, and others told us to wait; we contemplated visiting the Vatican, however after seeing the 4 hour queue outside we decided against it, but did spending hours Rome-ing (get it!?) around the Forum and the Colosseum. We didn’t pre-book our tickets, deciding to risk it on the day, and thankfully found that we didn’t have to wait very long at all.

In terms of accommodation, we couldn’t fault the hotel that we stayed in. The Morgana was located right in the centre of the city, a few minute walk away from the main train station; this was perfect as it offered connections to an array of places, although when travelling to the airport we opted for a taxi as we couldn’t face being pressed up against other sticky travellers! The hotel itself was amazing; all of the buildings in Rome are huge, however despite its modern interior, it felt cosy and almost homely- perfect! The staff were friendly are were more than willing to provide recommendations for restaurants and places to see; we did a lot of preparing beforehand, but were definitely open to suggestions, with the restaurants we visited serving classic Italian dishes, which is exactly what we were hoping for- large helpings of meat, pizza, and gluten free pasta for me! Despite having a limited amount of money, we found budgeting to be surprisingly easy, with the average meal costing around 15 to 20 euros each; we ate out every lunch and dinner time, finishing each evening meal with the traditional Lemon Cello- I’m not too keen!

We walked for miles throughout the duration of our holiday; this was much more exciting than sitting on a tour bus all day long (although we did that on our first day!), and burnt off all of the food that we were eating. In terms of clothing, for the large amount of walking around that we did shorts and a cami were my go-to, although my top tip would be to invest in a bum bag; that is my biggest regret. I bought a lovely leather cross-body number before I went away, but found it sticking to myself something terrible; luckily I managed to turn it into a makeshift bum-bag, although for our next trip, I am definitely going to invest in a boldly patterned ‘fanny-pack!’.

I’ve tried to make this post as short as possible, although I have so much to say! I’m sure that another Italy related post shall make its way on to your screens soon, but until then, happy reading and if anybody has any city travel top tips, please comment below. Ps. If anybody is considering heading to Rome, I cannot recommend it enough. If tanning is your main goal then it may not be for you, however if you want to inject some culture into your summer hols and gain some exciting life experiences, just do it!

-M xxx