Ciao from Rome! It’s currently 8:45pm and we’ve been chilling at our hostel pretty much all day. We really needed to recharge after a whirlwind trip around Italy before we head to Spain.

This morning we had a huge sleep in. I (Aimee) was feeling pretty rotten after last night’s festivities so we skipped breakfast and just stayed in our hotel room until check out. We had the opportunity to book extra nights in the Contiki accommodation but we wanted to be closer to the city and we’re actually paying less for that. Our accommodation for tonight and tomorrow night is a hostel called the RomeHello. Ronnie and I aren’t usually keen on hostels but we found this one through TripAdvisor and it is honestly the nicest place we have stayed at in Italy. We have a huge private room with it’s own spacious bathroom and the wifi and air conditioning actually work!

We arrived at the hostel feeling very hungry but didn’t want to venture too far in the 35 degree heat so we found a pizza by the slice place just at the end of the street. We got three different types to share but they didn’t heat it up so we microwaved it at the hostel kitchen. It was very average pizza. Pizza here is very hit and miss. Most that we’ve had haven’t been as good as the pizza we can get at home. So don’t travel to Italy just for pizza! And if you do you have to go to the Bay of Naples. It’s excellent there.

We bought Milka cookies from the vending machine and they made up for the crappy pizza. Yummy chocolate filled chocolate chip cookies were just what we needed. We chilled in the room watching the new season of the Handmaid’s Tale but were in dire need of more laundry. This hostel has a laundry on site so we headed down there too do our washing. We do not have good luck with holiday laundry. We had our clothes in the dryer for an hour and were still very wet. Still not the worst we’ve dealt with while doing our holiday laundry though.

After we finished our washing and hanging it all around our room we settled in for more Handmaid’s Tale until dinner time. We decided to go to the onsite bar and grill as we are getting our fill of Italian food tomorrow on a food tour. We ordered a deep fried combo (chilli cheesy nuggets, mozzarella sticks, onion rings and fries) and it was supposed to come with homemade sauces but we got Heinz-made sauces. It was okay but nothing great. We also ordered a burger each and they were huge. Ronnie got a classic cheeseburger and I got the fish burger. The fish burger had a fish patty on it rather than a piece of fish so I didn’t really like it. That’s what I get for not venturing out for better food. We were going to do dessert but decided to head out for gelato.

We went down the street to Via Nazionale. This is a huge wide and busy street with tons of shops and food places. We grabbed the closest gelato at a place called “Verde Pistacchio Roma”. It is a tiny little gelato place that is shaped like a Van. You order the gelato (pistacchio flavoured of course!) and then she walks into the drivers seat and you pay there – its pretty funky – good gelato too.

That is about all we did today. It has been relaxing and nice. Tomorrow is our last day in Italy and we have quite a lot of stuff planned, it will be a busy day!

Itemised spending:

• Taxi – €13
• RomeHello Accommodation – €140
• Pizza lunch – €14
• Laundry – €12
• Snacks – €10
• Dinner – €34
• Gelato – €5
• New hat – €26