Grosetto to Rome

Yesterday Wednesday 18th October I didn't bother to blog since all we really did was drive from the Cinque Terre, grocery shopped in La Spezia and avoided tolls making it an entire day trip to Grosetto. We had decided to stop here for a night since it is directly half way between the Cinque Terre and Rome and we didn't think we could drive the entire way in one day. In hind sight we really should have since it would have only been 4.5 hours drive and we could have made it a "driving day". Plus where we stayed at the Marina of Grosetto which was really weird in a complex of apartment and the place was basically deserted. It did have a large flat sandy beach and I had seen photos of it with sun umbrellas as far as the eye can see so I can imagine it is a popular place in the summer. It's not even cold yet and this place had quite clearly shut down for the season already. The apartment had a kitchen and a very ancient washing machine which is probably why we went for it since we hadn't had a washing machine since Nice in France. But when our host showed us in the place reeked of mould and sure enough inspecting the place a little better later on the curtains and wall surrounding the main windows were mouldy. It was by far the worst place yet and I really wanted to sleep in the car in my clean sleeping bag despite us paying $113 NZD a night for it. Poor Lew tried to make a hot chocolate but the microwave wasn't anywhere near a power plug so he had to move it onto the table where the TV sat just to find a plug! Anyway we had dinner which had become our usual easy dinner of salad, sausages and potatoes and finished off booking all the accomodation for our time in Italy. We just have Switzerland to sort out now!

Thursday 19th October

I was pretty keen to get out of the place early and woke at 7.30am. I guessed it was a bit early to wake Lewis and it was looking pretty foggy outside which wouldn't be the best for driving. Instead I watched an episode of Orphan Black ON Netflix and finished off the Cinque Terre blog. We had some interesting politics news back in NZ today as the Labour Party leader Jacinta Ardern will become NZ's new Prime Minister due to a coalition being formed with Labour, NZ First and Greens parties. This was always a potential to happen but we really though National wiht Bill English had it in the bag. Oh well I'm interested to see what kind of effect it will have on the country watching from afar. There are certainly lots of areas I can think of that need to be addressed- healthcare funding, mental health, suicide, poverty and family violence. Comparing our rates of these things to other countries we rank very high which we should be embarrassed about. Crossing my fingers for some positive impacts but so far the only thing people in the UK are talking about is the NZ $ dropping so they are all transferring their money back home! Anyways back to the life of a couple of Kiwis and their small car in the middle of Italy! I packed up everything I could whilst Lew got ready to go and I was feeling very keen to get out of the disgusting place. Our plans for the morning was to drive 1.5 hours inland to a place called to Saturnia which is some natural hot pools in a terrace formation. I tried to google some information about potential entrance fees and it was telling me it would cost us €25 ($42 NZD) each! We almost skipped it out due to this bit figured we would go check it out anyways. It was certainly pretty driving within Tuscany and we were pleased we were coming back through this area on the way to Venice. There were so many old stone building surrounded by olive groves and grape vines nestled in the hillside it looked just like the movies. Rounding a corner Saturnia came into view below us and we pulled over to take a look. It was very untouched and just had one building next to it but didn't appear to have a gated entrance or anything that would indicate you would have to pay. We drove past a private spa on the way down and Lew though I was probably looking at the prices for that. Even parking was free and we thought this is so like NZ and not like Europe at all! There wern't any changing rooms so most people came in their togs with a dressing gown and crocs on or they changed in/by their cars. Safe to say we caught a few glimpses of body parts we really didn't want to! Iv found there are a lot of Italian women who despite being a little more overweight and older they still wear bikinis! You would never catch a NZ women of the same build or age doing such a thing. We were able to walk down the gravel entrance seeing the beautiful natural terraces in front of us or "terme" as the locals call it. Terme meaning a natural waterfall where the water heated by the hot springs cascades down the waterfall into different sized pools of varying depths.

Leaving our clothes and bags close to the waters edge we got in! It smelt strongly of sulphur but no where near as bad as some of the pools in Rotorua. The water was luke warm since we were down the bottom of the terraces but the perfect temperature for a warm day. People travel far and wide to visit these pools as it is rumoured that the sulphur and other minerals are beneficial for the skin making it soft. The ancient Romans were also a big fan of these Termes for this reason. There were these strange small red worms all through out the water which we had no idea where they came from and later learned that they were ephydrid fly (shore fly) larvae and harmless. We stayed for about 45 minutes before heading back to the car to change since we still had a 2.5 hour drive down to Rome.

We decided to take the toll roads since it would already be a long day driving and we were feeling pretty tired. When we started to get closer to Rome there were more and more signs and exits and it was pretty busy and Lew reminded me that this is the biggest city in Italy. Probably the worst part was when we got off the motorway to get through the neighbourhood to our Air BnB. Lew was driving and still neither of us understand the round about rules in either France or Italy and it's more of a stick your nose out and go scenario. No one indicates and there doesn't seem to be any designated lanes in Italian roundabout, reminding us very much of Indonesia. At least in France the French occasionally indicate but still not like we do in NZ and I find they often get it wrong and I don't bother trusting the indicator. Surprisingly as we entered into Rome Lew and I didn't have any yelling matches despite having to navigate multiple roundabouts, one being particularly large with so much traffic in it. We had to go right round exiting out the third exit which we found the hardest thing since you have to push your way into the center of the roundabout so you don't get cut off by people taking other exits. Then so you can take the correct one yourself you have to push your way back through to the exit cutting numerous people off along the way. Lew said it was the closest he has ever had cars come to him and quotes "I swear I was going to get touched" haha!! By that I am guessing he means he was surprised no one ran into us! He even tried to use his indicators to let the drivers know where he was going but some old men wound down their window and we couldn't tell if we were getting abused or laughed at. Thankfully this is really the last big big city we have to drive through and we leave on a Sunday so fingers crossed the roads will be quiet. Our Airbnb was tucked behind a reasonably large family house with a vegetable garden and even some chickens! Our place is a self contained unit and they even allowed us to leave our car in their driveway which was key code access and felt pretty safe. The bedroom and bathroom were combined with very stylish hexagonal tiles on the ground. The tiny kitchen behind a couple of wooden shutters that looks like a shed was outside and included a fridge and some hot plates and everything you would need apart from a microwave! The lady had to go out and get her kids from school so we were left to potter around unpacking our stuff. They had two cats which kept us company a moggy and a rag roll kitten called Nina (pictured above). We spend a lot longer getting ready to go out since we had to give a very needy kitten some cuddles 😍. Plus we were both feeling exhausted and Lew thinks he's coming down with a cold. We brought all our wet washing with us from the last place and despite hanging them out over night and also all over the car on the drive they were still soaking. We hung them up around the apartment and headed out to see the Pigneto area or other wise known as the Brooklyn of Rome. 

Where we are staying is quite far out of town in the neighbourhood so it's good to see how the people of Rome live and they certainly like to bike a lot as we saw numerous fixies and even a cool bike shop selling Brompton bikes which are foldable bikes from a company based in London. We had been warned that Rome is filthy and sure enough it makes Queen street in Auckland city look clean! It is an up and coming area that used to be full of the mafia, crime and drugs so I'm sure it will change over time. But currently different colour graffiti paints the outside of every building, cigarette butts litter the grounds and the communal rubbish/recycling over flows. Every person to us looks dodgy but they all mind their own business and don't even blink an eye at us. There is a single piazza area with tonnes of local restaurants but alas it is only 5pm when we walk through which is much too early for the locals to be out eating dinner. The restaurant we have been recommended by our Airbnb hosts is called Magari Pizzeria and is considered the one of the best pizzeria's in all of Rome. We walked to it so we would know how to get back in the dark since they don't open till 7.30pm. Luckily we did since they had a sign on the door stating they only take cash and we were forced to track down a bank with a machine. Since it was still only 6pm and we didn't have anything planned for our two days in Rome we went back to the house and set about making a game plan. Most blogs said two days in Rome is quite a stretch to get everything done but if your organised enough you can do it. They also recommended doing a guided tour on the first day but they were super expensive and we had a pizza making class (booked through Airbnb "Experiences") at 4.30pm tomorrow so couldn't really do any of their big 9 hour tours. Finally 7.30pm came around and we were starving since I hadn't had lunch and Lew had eaten the small amount of pizza he had left over from yesterday. It took us three minutes to walk there and I have never seen such an extensive pizza menu with far too many options to choose from! The pizza was top notch and well worth the money since in total it only came to €18.50 ($31 NZD) which includes two sodas. I could eat here every night whilst we are in Rome!  We walked back to the house and really set in stone our plans for the next two days: tomorrow we could start at the Spanish Steps, Capuchin Monks church and crypts, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, Piazza Navona and Calpo Di Firo before taking the train out to the pizza course. Can we fit it all in is the major question?!