We set off at almost midnight from Milan's central station, taking an over-night intercity train (Train #1911) to Rome. In the middle of the night, Central Station was desolate, but in the train, it was full of life. My friend and I settled in our seats in the cabin. There are six seats to a cabin. There was one old Chinese man, and opposite me, a foreign looking black man. Obviously this guy didn't pay for his ticket, let alone his seat. He just took whichever seat available.
It was all quiet and peaceful until the ticket inspectors went around the train to check tickets. The inspector was accompanied with 4 armed police officers. Safer in numbers! The guy sitting opposite me went into a big commotion with the police and ticket inspector, they all shouted in Italian, which I had no idea what all that was about, but can guess it was about the ticket evasion. Then when the train stopped at Bologna, the rail police threw the guy off the train. Funny thing was that they threw him off the train at one cart, he would attempt to get on the train from another. And he was not alone! A couple of other guys did the same thing. An interesting cat & mouse game started, and it was really noisy. Many passengers were waken up from their sleep.
Anyway, we arrived in Rome safely the next morning. We didn't arrive at Roma Termini directly, instead, we had to take the metro to reach Roma Termini, the central train station in Rome.
Once we arrived there, we went to our hotel, Lucky Hotel. 70 Euros per night. The hotel is hidden in an apartment building, there is hardly any sign for people to find it. We found it because the owner happened to be at the gate! We went through two gates, then took a tiny lift, those you will frequently see in old European buildings to the 4th floor, I think. Then another door, finally reached the 'hotel'. There is no reception desk, nothing. It looks like somebody's home. As we were there, some Italian teenagers also just came in to stay for the night.
Ok, enough for the this first entry. Stay tuned.
You can find all the blog posts here.
It was all quiet and peaceful until the ticket inspectors went around the train to check tickets. The inspector was accompanied with 4 armed police officers. Safer in numbers! The guy sitting opposite me went into a big commotion with the police and ticket inspector, they all shouted in Italian, which I had no idea what all that was about, but can guess it was about the ticket evasion. Then when the train stopped at Bologna, the rail police threw the guy off the train. Funny thing was that they threw him off the train at one cart, he would attempt to get on the train from another. And he was not alone! A couple of other guys did the same thing. An interesting cat & mouse game started, and it was really noisy. Many passengers were waken up from their sleep.
Anyway, we arrived in Rome safely the next morning. We didn't arrive at Roma Termini directly, instead, we had to take the metro to reach Roma Termini, the central train station in Rome.
Once we arrived there, we went to our hotel, Lucky Hotel. 70 Euros per night. The hotel is hidden in an apartment building, there is hardly any sign for people to find it. We found it because the owner happened to be at the gate! We went through two gates, then took a tiny lift, those you will frequently see in old European buildings to the 4th floor, I think. Then another door, finally reached the 'hotel'. There is no reception desk, nothing. It looks like somebody's home. As we were there, some Italian teenagers also just came in to stay for the night.
Ok, enough for the this first entry. Stay tuned.
You can find all the blog posts here.
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