Arriving in Rome

Joe, Matt, and I left Cinque Terre real late and got to Rome real early the next day. In the train station, we tried to rest until everything opened (but the police wouldn't have it), we got some pastries and coffee, and we sat outside the closed tourist information booth watching people get verbally abused and turned away because it wasn't quite 8:00 am. The two women behind the desk were cold as ice, even if there was an emergency and you were visibly dying and it was 7:57 am, they would yell at you and ask you if you could read the sign that indicated their hours of operation. At 8:00, we got in line and asked if they could help us get to our camp site outside the city somewhere. The woman wasn't warm and friendly but she was now doing her job, at least she seemed confident enough in telling us where it was. We left the station (a place that we would later deem hellish) and tried to follow her chicken scratch directions. She had given us a bus number, and street name, "8 stops," and a map that was zoomed in so close that it didn't help at all. We counted stops on the bus and asked tried to get help from italians but most of them couldn't figure it out either. When we had reached the last stop for the bus the lady had told us to ride, we got off and asked the other bus drivers around if they knew where our camping site was and we finally got some help. We got on another bus that took us further out from the city and eventually to our home for the next couple of days. We couldn't get into our "room" yet because it was too early, but at least we had found it. Plus, they explained to us the best way to get in and out of the city, a route that used both bus and metro and saved some time. We stored our packs with them and headed back into Rome. When we got back to the camp site that night we were given the keys to this beauty:

Our own super sweet bungalow/trailer

Traveler's note: Camping sites are pretty sweet (at least the ones we used) and they are much cheaper (this one was 10 euro a night) and if the public transportation is alright it's not too shabby. Good weather can be important as with most camping.