The beautiful city of Rome! As every place you live, it has its good side and bad side. Let`s start about the neibourhood where the six of us live in. We live in a quiet place where there is access to everything we need. We have a supermarket five minutes away, we have Chinese shop near us and farmacy about 10 minutes away. They all are in walking distance so it is easy to reach them even for people with disabilities. Also the bus stop to reach the office is near. Of course there is always problem with traffic as the drivers don’t stop when you want to cross the road, but after a while you just get used to it. In first days it`s going to be a though challenge, but later on, you will understand the drivers.
If we`re speaking of public transportation then the metros and trains are no obsticles. The buses are though. First of all some of the times the buses are full of people and you need to squeeze and that is a big problem if you have two dogs. Other problem with the buses is schedule, first there are no graphics on the stops, so you can find the information on their schedule only on internet and the other thing is that they are not always on time. Sometimes you need to wait 20 minutes for the bus to arrive. Other than that at this point we have good experience and no problems with buses. Good thing about the bus stops is that the poles on them are yellow and easy to spot when you are trying to find them. That is a good thing for visually impaired people who still have a little bit of eyesight left. Both of our volunteers who have guide dogs, have said that if you get used to the distances and daily life it is not that hard for them to do stuff on their own. You just need to get used to it.
Of course Rome is one of the oldest and most beautiful places in the world and there are many historic and incredible things to see here. Some of us have done it some of us haven’t. We`re not going to list all the things we`ve seen, but we can say, that Rome is one of the cities you need to visit at least once in your life. As for problems in Rome center and the places you want to visit – there are no signs! If you want to go from Piazza del Popolo to Fontana di Trevi you need to find your own way or ask someone for directions. And usually the Italian people, who actually speak a little English, will help you. They are friendly and open to tourists, also if they don’t speak English, there’s always hand gestures. The distances between these attractions are not so big, so if you like to walk, you can walk around 20 km and see the most beautiful places. Also, of course, there is public transportation which can drive you to the locations.
We haven`t visited yet some cinemas or theatres, next time we`ll probably write our experience on those spots, but one thing we can say for sure – there is pizza everywhere!
Thanks for reading and hope to see you soon!
Adrian and Toms – Volunteers of “ Moving out of Circles”