Day 10: Florence to Rome

Since we only had one night in Florence, we packed up and headed to the train station less than 24 hours after our arrival. We took our (slightly delayed) train into Rome and were very pleased to discover that our hotel was a block away from the Rome train station. Our room wasn't ready yet, so we left our bags at the hotel and went to explore the city. We quickly learned that the Roman Metro was not our favorite way to travel. It was confusing to navigate, it was very crowded, and it was not the cleanest of underground railways. We braved the Metro anyway and made our way over to the Colosseum area.

We were pretty hungry after our morning of travel, so we did our best to find a restaurant away from the overpriced and touristy area around the Colosseum. We found a little side street with a tasty pasta restaurant and made sure to refill our water bottles before heading back out. Rome was in the middle of a heat wave, and walking down the street was exhausting. We kept our visit to the Colosseum and Forum brief, since the weather was so difficult to maneuver in.

The Beehive in Rome was the most fun and interesting hotel we stayed in on our trip. Hippies should feel right at home there. It's filled with bright colors, cheery paintings, natural soaps, and reusable towels. They try to preserve water and their cafe is entirely vegetarian and organic. The cafe menu has no set prices or portion sizes, you pay what you feel is fair. One of the most memorable aspects of the hotel was the resident cat, Ingmar. He has lived in the hotel for many years and is quite old. We often found him sitting on couches or curled up on bathroom rugs when we walked around the hotel.

After a settling in at our hippie hotel, we once again braved the Roman Metro for a trip to the Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain. We ate dinner at a restaurant with 100 different pasta dishes and had tiramisu for dessert, which was very satisfying and delicious.