After an uneventful flight to Rome, we arrived and took possibly the longest coach journey to Rome Termini station ever through rush hour traffic. At the start near Fiumicino airport, buildings were high rise or suburban but as we neared the centre, small illuminated ruins came into view as well as rush hour Italians determined to plough into the coach at high speed.
When we arrived at the train station, we were hungry… not just that “hmmm, i could quite do with a pasty or a bag of nuts hungry” but more of a “find anywhere, and demand food, before I waste away and 1) die, 2) kill my annoying new travel mates who have just become a new source of hatred”. So, in a haze of naivity and hunger, we stumbled across the worst restaurant in Rome. If this is what all the hype of italian pizza is about, Italy can bloody keep it… It was a doughy thing with heinz tomato soup and some plastic thing, which if you held it up in the correct light could be from the same farm as where cheese is produced. Ham was there too. One extortionate bill later, we trained back to PLUS camping Roma. This happened to be on the furthest platform which was half a kilometre walk from the ticket station. After a rather bemusing conversation which had a whole carriage debating if we were going the right way and a few panicked get-out-and-look-at-the-platform-name-as-its-too-dark-otherwise stops, we arrived about a kilometre from the campsite. The walk was in unlit back streets with discarded mattresses at the side. After 500m without seeing a soul apart from a few rats, we checked out receipts to make sure the mattresses weren’t ours when a prostitute pointed us in the right direction. The campsite was fairly nice. It took a while to get sorted and there was a local man sleeping in one of our tents when we got there (Later questionning at reception found out this man had simply kept one of the keys after staying two months ago, and occasionally fancied a kip in the tent. Up until this point, a few of our number thought this might have just been an Italian custom). I was also enlightened to find all tap water was drinkable as I was firmly under the impression that England was the only country in the world that did this. We then had a good nights sleep in a tent. Oh. No. Wait, there are some Americans in that tent adjoining ours. Oh. Goodie. “Yep, what was that about your virginity being lost at 12 years old”, “Very nice”. These cretins kept us awake till 4 in the morning, despite a rather passionate italian cleaner yelling “Silencio” and “Bastardo” at them, rousing every other tent in the nearby vicinity.
PLUS camping Roma tents – ours is smack bang in the middle. Notice the thin walls and glaring sun.
skinterrail 