The Scroop's European Holiday: Rome

We started today by walking from our apartment up to the main train station, Termini, to catch the B line train to Ponte Mammolo station which is about a 15 minute ride. On our way to the station we come across the urinating homeless woman and her homeless woman friend pushing their trollies full of homeless women crap back to their spot in the middle of the intersection. As we pass them I snap a few pics and we cross the street. When we get to the other side one of them (not sure if it the same one as yesterday) starts up with the urinating again. I've come prepared this time and I start the video up as soon as I see her back up against a tree. Even though this was funny, what we were witnessing was absolutely disgusting and what gets us is this must be happening all day every day and no one does anything about it. We have spent a total of about three minutes looking at this intersection and twice seen a woman urinate and discard her toilet paper (or newspaper as was the case today) out on the street. This is out the front of an international train station where travellers from all over the world start there Rome experience. We have seen a dramatic change in Rome in the two years since we were here in 2011 which leads me to our next experience. Once we make our way on the train to Ponte Mammolo, we then need to catch a local bus to Tivoli. The bus rocks up and it looks like an old coach liner from the outside. There are more people waiting for the bus than there is seats and this is very clear because as soon as the bus driver opens the doors people are like animals trying to get on first. We manage to get a seat but it is at the rear of the bus next to a bloke who looks and smells like a homeless man. The rest of the bus is packed and people are pushed up against the back door. The seat Mia is sitting on is broken and is pointing down at a 30 degree angle and there are other seats on the bus that don't have backs, that is, they only have a spot for your arse but you can't lean back because the backs have been removed! Other seats are missing head rests, others have burn marks and holes in the back of them and the bus stinks. We are sitting there in utter disbelief. This is one of the major cities of the world and we've travelled better buses in Phuket and Bali over 20 years ago. The bus gets moving and were thinking, oh well it's only a short ride, we can hack it. WRONG, 50 minutes later we finally get there. The scenery on the way was also third world. The suburbs from the train station to Tivoli looked like Phuket. We were stunned and shocked and quite frankly, disgusted. Had we known this is what we were in for we would never have done this trip. We get of the bus at Tivoli and the Tivoli town centre looks a bit better but was still pretty ordinary. We find our way to Villa d'Este, we pay our entrance fee and we wander around. The place is very nice with amazing fountains but it looks as though it is not being maintained. The gardens have a lot of weeds and the hedges don't look as though they have been trimmed in months and a large number of the smaller fountains are not in operation. Now we're not sure if this is what it always looks like or if they just haven't been maintaining it. One thing we do know is that if this was Paris these gardens would be immaculate. Once we've seen everything we just want to get out of this stinking hell hole so we make our way back to the bus stop. A bus comes along that says "A24 Roma" which we assumed was heading back to where we wanted to go but it is was jam packed. We squeeze on but the only available space for the four of us is up against the windscreen in the opening of the front door. The bus gets moving and he is driving like a maniac. We are hanging on for dear life and my only thought was, if we have an accident the four of us will be shot through the windscreen. We had to stand in that position for the entire 50 minutes because the bus stayed packed. We even went on the freeway (the A24) driving at about 100km/hr. it started to rain and the driver didn't put the windscreen wipers on and the only reason I could think of is because they didn't work. We make it back to Ponte Mammolo train station and we were seriously relieved. The kids had an absolute ball up the front of the bus and we later explained to them that even though it was fun it was extremely dangerous......but they didn't care. We catch the train and eventually get back to the apartment. We made ourselves some lunch and had a breather to try and regain our composure. Without exaggeration, that was the worst experience on any holiday I have ever had. The people in this city need to have a good look at themselves and they should be embarrassed with what's happening here. This place has gone downhill in a hurry and I will never come back to Rome and I'm sure Kris feels the same. After a breather we had to get back on the bike. There were some things we still wanted to see today and one of them was Chiesa Del Gesu (The Church of the Gesu). Everyday at 5:30pm the story of the life of St. Ignatius is told. The service tells the story in Italian, complete with music and a small spotlights to highlight different areas of his tomb during the storytelling. At the end, the large painting is rolled down to reveal the statue of St. Ignatius and that is the only time of day when you can see it. We arrived just after 5pm and took a seat in the pews. This church is one of the most amazing, if not the best church we have seen. The adornments are beyond belief and the good thing is there are not many people that seem to know about it so there are very few people there. At 5:30 the service starts and for a non churchy guy I was moved. If this is what church was like back at home I'd go more often. This was a real highlight for Kris and me and we are so glad we came down to have a look. After leaving the church our plan was to continue on to Trastevere for dinner but we feel like we have used every ounce of energy we were allowed to have on this holiday and we have very little in reserve. We think the hiking has finally hit us so we decide to make our way back to the restaurant we ate at last night and then go and see Valentino for some gelato. Again, the restaurant and the gelato were amazing, seems its one or the other in Rome these days. After that it's an early night because we are all shagged.