While waiting at Frankfurt airport however many days/weeks ago (and after our Paris experience of missing some attractions by not booking in advance), Luke decided he did not want to miss a tour of the Colosseum so booked us all in for an 8.45am tour on the final day of our trip.

Nine years ago our trip to Europe started in Rome (via Hong Kong) in early December on a day that was 0 degrees. Today is our last day of this trip to Europe, and in mid-January we are finishing our trip on a day that is 0 degrees!

The bus to the Colosseum was a shorter trip from our apartment than yesterday, so we were there in plenty of time, but it took some nagging to ensure some of the kids understood they had to be fully packed and out of their rooms by 8am. Check out here is 10am, but because the apartment didn’t have anyone coming in after us, they were happy for us to leave our luggage there for the day, thankfully.

Our tour guide was an archaeologist who talked and taught us about the ruins of and the history of Rome for three and a half hours. She took us through the Colosseum and Roman Forum, and when she finished with us after 12pm we climbed Palantine Hill for an even better view of the Roman Forum and surrounds. (I have been taking ibuprofen for two days to get ready for today, and have a physio appointment booked in for early next week, so I was ready for lots of stairs and lots of walking today!)

From there it was definitely lunchtime, so we wandered some streets looking for a restaurant for our last lunch all together on tour. Ross and Luke don’t like to be hassled by the men on the door though, so a lot of potential lunch spots were rejected (including one where they yelled at us they would give us free champagne!) before we came across a pizzeria where we could examine the menu outside in peace.

The owner didn’t seem to speak English, so once he greeted us he left us to his sidekick who was a lot like Manuel in Fawlty Towers. The majority had pizzas but I had my last Italian pasta, a tortellini Alfredo. We then walked in the direction of our apartment promising to find gelato for dessert along the way (our LAST Italian gelato on tour….).

We all enjoyed some scoops from The Gelatist, a franchise gelato shop we have seen several times, and then walked on to our apartment. We retrieved and rolled our luggage in single file (for the LAST time…) to the train station, where we had our first real problem of the trip!

Ross, Luke and Tom went to buy tickets, paid for 9 (the maximum available in one transaction), and only 4 tickets printed from the machine. Ross then lined up for ages to ask how we rectify the situation (the train they had booked had gone in the meantime), only to be told once he reached the front of the queue that he had to go the ticket office. I went with him to play the card of needing help because we were running out of time to get to the airport on time, only to find another line similar to the RMS at home – we were given a ticket and told the wait would be 20+ minutes and they couldn’t do anything else. We did learn we could apply for a refund online, so we left the line, bought 11 tickets on the Leonardo express (one stop to the airport on a fast train), and headed to the airport.

I must remember to apply for that refund asap – it was $AUD119 for the first lot of tickets! We are not sick of each other yet and feel we could keep travelling, but we also are looking forward to seeing our people and our puppies! 😊