A day full of trains, from Paris to Rome

Oct 21, 2014 • Rhiannon

Tuesday 21st October

This one will be a short post, as we spent all day on the trains!

Our first train was from Gare de Lyon in Paris to Torino Porta Susa at 6:40am. This meant a 5:30am start, and a taxi to the train station. Traffic was, unsurprisingly, very good at that time in the morning, as who in their right mind wants to be up that early? I know I certainly didn’t.

Our train arrived in Torino at about 12:25pm, then we waited in the train station for an hour for our train from Torino Porta Susa to Rome. These trains chug along at up to 300km an hour!

We then arrived in Rome at about 5:30pm. We caught a taxi (a legitimate one this time - they have signs saying not to catch illegal ones in Rome) and after a short trip with amazing sights from the windows, we arrived at our apartment for the next 8 days. Its tiny, but all we need, and its right in the heart of things, about 5 minutes walk from the Pantheon, and about 20 minutes from the Colosseum and Roman Forum.

Our first impression of Rome from just that short ride was awed. The history is so impressive, you just about can’t look in any direction without seeing some statue, castle wall, ancient church or beautiful fountain from 850, 1000, 1800 years ago. No offense Paris, but you just can’t compare!

We arrived, dumped our stuff, then went looking for food as we hadn’t eaten all day. The weather was beautiful and balmy, and we soon found a restaurant a few minutes walk away for our first taste of authentic bruschetta and pizza. We took it to go, and spent the rest of the evening watching NCIS: Los Angeles (the only thing we could find in English) before hitting the hay early. Despite having sat down basically all day, travel sure takes it out of you. I’m pretty sure we went back a couple of hours at some stage which didn’t help.

Tomorrow is our double tour day, so I promise a longer post for that!

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