The Metro Project at Rome

In this post, I bring to you the Metro Project in Rome. My sister Alka and I were in transit in Rome while we were on our way to Budapest. While I indulged in the Metro Project in a more comprehensive way at Budapest, I had a short tryst with it in Rome too! I document my tales with #themetroproject on various social media platforms.

Our Metro story of Rome is intertwined with the Colosseum and the Leonardo Express. As we were transit passengers we took the Leonardo Express to Termini, the City Center. Colosseum is close so by we wanted to go there by hopping on to Line B at Termini. But there were a few twists in this straight forward story.

When we arrived in Rome, we were tired as we were flying thorough the night. Even though our Alitalia flight was comfortable I always look crumpled and tired after a night flight!

Yet the excitement of being in a new city wins every time, bleary eyed, we marched ahead in Rome. All went well till we reached Termini. Our original plan was to buy metro tickets on Line B to Colosseum. But the queues at Termini for the metro tickets defeated us. At the automatic machine there was a long wait. At the ticket counter there was a token system and another long line.

Feeling clueless for a while, we simply decided to take a walk near Termini. That is when I encountered the tram! I regret I did not had a day pass, or I would board it for fun.

While going to Budapest, we settled to eat pasta near Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. We went inside the Basilica too. Then we turned back to the airport to catch our flight to Budapest.

On our return we had a night and half a day in Rome. We initially thought we would go to the Sistine Chapel but after doing all the calculations we realized we didn’t had enough time. So this time we were determine to reach the Colosseum.

Reaching Termini was not a problem at all. As the mobile data I bought in Budapest was still working in Rome, I happily switched on the walk directions of Google Maps. We reached Colosseum without any problem.

It is no fun to explore a monument when at the back of the mind you have to worry about a flight. At Colosseum we thought we would not go in as it would take time to walk to Termini.

Then we spotted it, the Colosseo Metro Station! The next challenge was to buy the ticket to Termini. We entered the station, looked at the automatic machine and hey presto a gentleman appeared and asked us if he could help us with buying the tickets. Thanks to him we had the metrotickets to Termini within no time.

Now as we didn’t need to walk back, we could go inside and explore the Colosseum for an hour. We bought the tickets to the Colessum from a third party at the Metro Station itself. That is what happens when you are in a hurry.

It was a hurried walk inside the Colosseum for us but it was better than not going in at all. And our date with Sistine Chapel still remains!

After a short tour of Colosseum we headed to the Colosseo Metro stop. Termini is two hops from there. Our metro ride to Termini was unadventurous. But it was because of this metro ride we were able to spend time inside the grand historical monument!

So, this is my short tryst with the metro in Rome. I hope we will go back one day and explore Rome for days on end!