Day 69 Roman Internet

After a busy five days in Rome our final one was planned to be a bit quieter. The highlight was spending a few hours with our niece Amy and her boyfriend Graham who were in the middle of a 30-day bus tour and just happened to be in the same city as us at the same time. With the temperature climbing to about 35 degrees they enjoyed a cold coke, home cooked pasta and rockmelon, which we had bought at the markets. After they returned to their hotel we turned our attention to sending some blogs before we departed Rome.

We thought we might share a little of the challenge that sending this blog has been. In many of the hostels where we have stayed Wi Fi has been a feature. In some of the budget hotels we have also had access. But in many places we have needed to be more creative. In Bolivia, Burger King helped us out. In Copenhagen we enjoyed free Wi Fi at the city library and at a local pub ( as long as we bought a drink). In Bellagio, Italy, Richard sat in the street and tapped into a pay-by-the-hour network. But Rome was more of a challenge.

We tried a considerable number of options, but nothing worked. Finally in desperation we put on our best clothes (clean jeans and a clean shirt) and caught the metro to the flash, international hotel district of Rome. It was a treat to see this district, but our aim was cyber-connection, not tourism.

Firstly we searched for wireless signal on the street with no success. Then we entered a couple of hotel lobbies sitting confidently in the foyer but we discovered the net was for guests only and required passwords, no pay-by-the-hour network here. We even tried outside the US embassy, but that failed too. Eventually we found a park with a sign – Wi Fi Zone…bingo! But after many repeated attempts it seemed that you could only use it if you had an Italian mobile phone number.

After a couple of hours of trying, two metro trips and an eight kilometre walk we gave up in despair and headed back to our apartment. On the way home we unexpectedly came across the exquisite 19th century Piazza della Repubbica. As we enjoyed this wonderful place we noticed a McDonald’s on the other side of the square.

Now we need to confess that we have not bought one meal at this American fast food giant since leaving home but we thought we would just check to see if they had Wi Fi. After about 20 minutes of trying, which included us registering and having them send us a text message with the password to our mobile ( via Australia) we were finally (after about 2 hours of trying) able to send our blogs.

Relieved we decided to head home only to find that the metro was closed for the night. So on foot we headed for home. Embarrassingly just around the corner from our apartment we walked past another McDonald’s which, had we tried there in the first place could have saved us a lot of time, trouble, embarrassment and foot leather.

We have laughed a lot on this trip and most often it has been at our own expense.