In April 2009, we decided to travel to spend some time in Ireland whilst visiting my wife’s sister and her family in Clonmel. From Ireland, we managed to book our vacation to Rome from Ireland, sporting flights via Ryanair and hostel in Rome. We started our journey as early as 1 am from Clonmel to Dublin which took about 4 hrs via bus, which costed about 18 euros per person. Our Flight to Rome was at 6 am and we reached Dublin airport at 5 am.
Arrived early. Airport Incident. Ryanair and its incompetence, never again.
We were stranded in the airport, 12 Hrs of doing nothing. After much hassle with the airline, they reluctantly got us on the last flight to Rome at about 6 pm. We had lost a day to spend in Rome as we arrived just before midnight. On the first night we arrived, we decided to proceed with the sightseeing even though it was 12 am. We had proper Italian pizza at the terminal station, then we started to walk from the terminal towards fountain of trevi. I managed to take this shot during tour.
Piazza della Repubblica
The ancient Baths of Diocletian.The Fountain of the Naiads sits in the center. Naiads are the nymphs who protect rivers, lakes, oceans and the underground.
Fontana del Tritone
The fountain was commissioned by Pope Urban VIII.
The Triton Fountain is composed of four dolphins whose tails mesh together to support an enormous shell on which stands a muscular triton blowing for all he is worth into a conch.
Street of Italy
Fontana di Trevi
The Trevi Fountain (Italian: Fontana di Trevi) is a fountain in the Trevi rione in Rome, Italy. Standing 25.9 meters (85 feet) high and 19.8 meters (65 feet) wide, it is the largest Baroque fountain in the city.
Our last destination was the Fontana de Trevi as it was already 3 am, getting lost in the streets of Italy. Despite the rumours that the streets can get rough at night, on the contrary it was rather safe as there were plenty of people still sightseeing even in the early hours of the morning. We went back to the hotel to rest.
On the next morning, we started early and had our breakfast at a small Italian cafe just around the corner from our accommodation. We had a cup of ‘cappucini’ each and croissant. Following the advice of our hotel owner, Mabry, we headed out to Palantino, which is part of the most famous site in Italy, including the Colosseum. However, by entering Palantino first, we were able to follow shorter queues as most people would start out at the Colosseum. There are some things you just have to see it to believe it. The architecture in the city of Rome, the ruins in Palantino, the Colosseum, they were so breathtaking. We spent half a day in there, in the extremely hot and sunny weather in Rome. Luckily there were plenty of spring water around the city which are accessible for free – cold fresh spring water, nice… We kept refilling our drinking water bottle.
Foro Romano Palatino
The Forum Romanum was designed to be the center of social, political and economic life in the city. The innumerable remains include the well-conserved triumphal arch of Emperor Septimius Severus, with reliefs depicting his victories and the base of the Temple of Saturn with its eight columns and their splendid Ionic capitals
The Colosseum is an elliptical amphitheatre in the center of the city of Rome, Italy, the largest ever built in the Roman Empire. It is one of the greatest works of Roman architecture and Roman engineering.
Photoshop using HDR treatment , added cloud layer, high pass, vivid light, unsharp mask, reduce noise, dodge, burn and saturate tools.
The view of the interior arena showing the hypogeum. The wooden walkway is a modern structure.
The Colosseum
We headed out to the Pantheon and had more pizzas at the cafe around the area. We went to get souvenirs as we walked around from one place to the other. We had gelatos, Italian ice cream at an art market area, which I could not recall the name of. From there we went and spent the afternoon sitting on the Spanish steps along with many other locals and tourists from all over the world, overlooking a huge Dior boutique which my wife was excited about. The evening became even more interesting when a couple arrived in their wedding attires to get their pictures taken at the Spanish steps.
On the last day in Rome, we went back to Fontana de Trevi during the day, which was crowded with people from all over the world. It was the romantic place, where couples come to be in love. However, it was somewhat disturbed by flower vendors, selling bouquets of roses to couples, by simply giving the flowers to the ladies and asking for ridiculous amount of euros for the flowers. The worst part was they were simply chasing after people and handing them out flowers only to ask for money afterwards. There were others selling various stuffs, one of them was relationship bracelets, which consisted of some cheap strings, tied together for 10 euros – do not be fooled by these people.
Lovers at the Fontana di Trevi
A traditional legend holds that if visitors throw a coin into the fountain, your wish will come true. Well I guess we know what are the couples wished for 
We headed to the airport on the bus after packing up our stuffs in the hotel. We had a memorable time in Rome after such eventful journey.
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