When in Rome…

See the Sites– I made stops to the Spanish Steps, the Vatican, the Trevi Fountain, and the Colosseum.

Explore the City – walk the neighborhoods

Eat – Fresh pasta, seafood, pizza, and gelato! Let the foodie in you indulge in delicious Italian cuisine.

Party – with fellow travelers and locals. If you stay at a hostel they usually have nights where they take travelers out to bar hop and hit the club scene. Your hotel concierge can give you some recommendations as well.

Roma Travel Tips:

• Rome is a walkable city, but if you want to use the metro the Roma Pass is awesome. The Roma Pass is good for 3 days of unlimited use on the trains and buses, and you get free admission into two museums or sites and reduced admission into others (I used it to get into the Colosseum). Roma Pass can be used at more than 40 monuments, museums and archaeological sites and ofter allows you to skip the long lines. You can purchase one at Tourist Information Points in Rome including Termini, Fiumincino Airport, travel agencies, hotels, and news stands.
• Be sure to keep your belongs close to your body, don’t leave the zipper of your purse or backpack exposed to pickpockets, leave valuables lock in your hotel safe or locker of your hostel room.
• Remember that Vatican Museums are closed on Sundays. I totally spaced out on that during the planning phase of the trip, so I only had the chance to visit St. Peter’s Square because my flight landed too late in the day on Saturday to make it to the Vatican.
• Keep a water bottle with you to stay hydrated. There are lots of fresh water fountains around the city to refill your bottle.

Wishing you safe and happy travels! -xo AGT

Airline Review: easyJet

“The I can’t wait to go generation. The early risers for the morning cab, last minute packing, full of excitement generation. The head first into water, wine, or work generation. The I don’t want to go home, let’s stay longer generation. The we’ve been coming here for years, but still fall in love generation. The everyone doing it their way generation. The more places, more choices, more often generation. This is generation easyJet” – www.easyjet.com

I LOVE that quote! It definitely speaks to the traveler in me. I flew easyJet roundtrip from Paris to Rome to cutdown on travel times and to maximize my stay at each location. I’d read several reviews about cheap airline travel around Europe primarily focusing on easyJet and Ryanair, with most reviews shedding a negative light on each airline. I opted for easyJet because there was a direct flight from Paris to Rome.

I purchased my flight about 2 weeks out and managed to get a ticket for a total of 186,50 EUR ($252.20 USD). Which seems pretty good to me considering the timing on my purchase. I could have gotten it even cheaper if I’d booked sooner, but since I was flying Space A to Germany I didn’t want to purchase a ticket too far out. I’d read somewhere that some people incurred surprise charges on the backend of their purchases, but the only fees that I saw were an aviation tax and an admin fee, which were included in the overall total. So everything was pretty cut and dry and there were no surprises.

Getting to ORLY airport in Paris was pretty simple and took about 1hr and 15min from the flat we rented off of AirBnB. You have to purchase a separate metro pass for the airport, which costs 11,30 EUR and the train stops at the South Terminal. Perfect, because this is also where the easyJet check-in is located. I arrived about 2 hours early in case of long lines at security. Since I’d checked in for the flight and printed out the boarding pass before getting to Paris. I opted to travel light and not check a bag, so I made my way through security and with my carry-on a proceeded to the assigned gate for my flight.

During boarding there were 2 lines; a speed line (for those who paid to board the aircraft first) and the regular line, and from there 2 lines were created for those sitting closer to the front of the aircraft and those sitting toward the back. Everything moved rather quickly and before I knew it we were ready to take off. The flight crew was awesome and very friendly, and of course multi-lingual to accommodate passengers.  I actually scored a pretty sweet deal and had a whole row to myself :)

My Travel Buddies

Food and beverage service came through the cabin which costs an additional fee, but they had lots of options like soup, sandwiches, salads, quinoa, candy, alcohol, and non-alcoholic beverages. I went with the Tomato/Mozzarella/Basil Panini combo with came with chips and water for 8,20 EUR since I knew once we touched down in Rome I planned to hit the ground running.

On the return trip there were a few options for getting to Fiumicino Airport:

• Leonardo Express Train – 14 EUR
• Shuttle – 7 EUR
• Taxi – 40 EUR

Of course I went with the shuttle. Once at the airport and through security the terminal was provided, but there was a wait for the gate assignment. During boarding time everything went smoothly as it had the first time.

I would definitely flight easyJet if the opportunity to arise again. The service was great, the flight was easy, quick, and clean, and they have excellent deals on airfare even for last minute purchases.The biggest challenge for me was finding a bag small enough to use as my carry-on for the plane and large enough to fit 5 days worth of clothes.

Wishing you safe and happy travels! -xo AGT