Roaming through Rome, Day 2 - 24/12/18 - Bus Tour Through Rome

Today was officially Christmas Eve. It felt different, but still had a definite air of Christmas about it. Today, we paid for a bus tour of Rome. These have never been my favourite way to see a city, but they can be good for getting to grips with a city for the first time! I also had my first Italian pizza, and a look at the Spanish Steps at night!

The hotel bought around one of these today a a present. It was a
small pannettone and a few chocolates.

I'll say this for travelling, it really does teach you how to solve problems. I'd managed to bring the wrong charger - the one for my old phone. So I ended up having to find a nearby electronics shop first thing and try and track down a new charger. The first thing I had to say was "Non parlo Italiano."

Breakfast was served on the rooftop restaurant today, and the hotel had a waffle maker!

So, like I said, bus tours aren't my favourite way to see a city, and this one wasn't very well-done. Green Line Tours, it was called. Many of the headphone sockets seemed to be out of order, and the buses weren't that frequent.

I liked how these oranges looked on the trees where the bus picked us up!

Here, I liked both the old-style building, and the new building with the 'bubbles' in the window.

A... fountain? I think.

And here's a big reason why bus tours aren't my favourite - there's no chance to ask for specific information on what you find interesting, and you go through everything so fast, too. It can be hard to match the spoken information to where you are without an exact guide. Plus, I much prefer being able to explore things at my own pace.

This is Termini station, where we were stopped for quite a while. I did enjoy seeing
all the comings and goings around this place!

Yep. That's the Colosseum 

I took pictures of this building without having any idea what building it was. It is the
Corti di Cassazione/Supreme Court of Cassation, the highest court of appeal in Italy.

We came back around on the bus and got off at the Colosseum, but we found out that it had already closed, closing early for Christmas. We took a small walk up part of Palatine Hill instead.

After getting back to the hotel and warming up, we headed out in search of dinner.

Pizza! This one was made with bresaola, a type of air-dried ham

We saw quite a few interesting Christmas lights in Rome, like these, spanning the length of the streets.

I saw someone on the Spanish Steps roasting chestnuts, so I bought a cone!
Chestnuts really are the taste of Christmas for me!