When we arrived in Rome
our group had an optional visit to a vineyard and a meal included. I found this
was a waste of time since we were in Rome
for only 4 nights. So on our arrival to our hotel which was very comfortable
but located far from the downtown, I called the reception and they booked us on
a Rome by night
tour without a meal. The tour company
came to pick us up from our hotel by minibus, and we then stopped at another
luxurious hotel on our way to pick up more people for the visit.
The tour was very interesting with historical narrations and
anecdotes, and it allowed us to stop and visit some places on foot such as
Piazza Navona, Trevi fountain for example and then back on the bus to continue
the tour. I noticed we have lost some of the people.
Rome
was just incredibly beautiful with illuminated monuments like the Forums and
the Coliseum. At the end of the tour, the bus brought us back to our hotel. Our
guide had a good laugh when we mentioned our hotel and he sang us a lullaby: “Fai la ninna fai la nanna
pupo bello
della mamma”. Clearly
our hotel was very far. We had a good laugh.
Next
morning we had our visit to ancient Forum and Coliseum. I didn’t enjoy our
guide there as she was repeating all the time the same things without too many
interesting details. Fortunately I had a good guidebook. She was definitely not
passionate about Rome,
and it was a big contrast with the guides the day before.
In
the afternoon we wanted to visit Tivoli
with Villa d’Este and Villa Adriana. However we didn’t have time to take the
same company as the day before which we found excellent as their tour was
leaving earlier but we wanted to visit more of Rome. So, we had to accept the Cosmos
optional tour which included a diner and a visit to a Cameo fabric. I didn’t
like the fact of being rushed to a store with no interest to us and sacrifice a
part of a visit to something very interesting. I mean, I don’t need to pay
someone to bring me to a store, I can find the store myself if I need.
Most
of people didn’t want to visit the store, so we had to wait outside. We then
had our visit to Villa d’Este with its fountains and gardens. The villa was
beautiful and refreshing.
The
restaurant for the dinner was a real tourist trap as I suspected. The good part
was the fantastic view on Rome and Latium in the
sundown orange colors. So, at least we didn’t completely waste our money on the
included diner. Then the meal itself was ok, with lots of wine. There was some
music with accordion. Then after most of people had drunk enough they brought
us on the bus and another hoard of fresh tourists came in. This all seemed to
me as a big rip-off as a system, but just the views were worth it.
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