After escaping from our pretty terrible American Airlines flight from Dallas, we made our way to baggage claim. In the baggage claim area we found a foosball table. We assumed it would cost something, but it was completely free!

That's cool! @AeroportidiRoma has a free foosball table. I pulled off a comeback to beat @katieGenter 10-8 😁 #AirportMatch pic.twitter.com/mkaREQP7Tx

— JT Genter (@JTGenter) October 1, 2017

We had planned to catch a Leonardo Express train from Fiumicino airport to Rome Termini – but a quick search as the plane was taxiing in Rome showed that there were airport buses that were substantially cheaper. While the Leonardo Express train would have cost us €14 per person each way (so €56 for both of us round-trip), round-trip Terravision bus tickets were just €9 per person (so €18 for both of us round-trip).

We bought our Terravision round-trip ticket on board – there was no surcharge for buying on board instead of at the ticket window.

We caught the 7:45am Terravision bus. Although this bus was scheduled to arrive at Rome Termini at 8:40am, it arrived about 20 minutes early.

We decided to not pay €6 per bag to store our bags at the airport left luggage and instead carted our bags to Stow Your Bags, a storage center near Rome Termini that rented large lockers.

We chose this option so that we could leave a daypack and some additional belongings in the locker in addition to our larger checked bags. However, this service ended up being more expensive than expected at €16.99 for a day.

After locking up our bags, we started to wander the city.

We stopped at a cafe for a quick €9 breakfast before walking to Piazza di Spagna.

We had planned on attending the 10am Rome Free Walking Tour, but when we reached the meeting point in Piazza di Spagna we found that the company couldn’t find a guide to lead the tour! Instead of notifying potential attendees on social media or having the Spanish-language guide host a tour in both English and Spanish, we were told we were just out of luck.

This was a big disappointment for us since we had planned on going on the tour and visiting the Coliseum. We had to improvise and instead wandered to a bunch of different sites in Rome.

We lucked into finding a little sandwich shop – Il Panino Ingegnoso – for lunch. The sandwiches were delicious and filling – the bread on the sandwiches was heavenly. Our lunch cost €12.

The Pantheon was very crowded on this Sunday. It should be a calm, quiet and peaceful place – but this time it was a bit overwhelming due to the crowds.

One place Katie visited on her last trip to Rome that made a lasting impression was the Torre Argentina Cat Sanctuary in Largo di Torre Argentina. We stopped by for a quick visit – it’s a must visit if you like cats. They do a lot of work to spay and neuter stray cats in Rome and help the stay cats that do exist live as safely as possible.

We were both tired by the time we reached the Colosseum. The touts and ‘guides’ were out in force today. As the first Sunday of October, it was a free admission day, which resulted in very large crowds and long lines.

We decided we didn’t have time to wait in line, so we just enjoyed the Colosseum from the outside before taking the metro (€1.50 each) to Termini station.

Katie paid €0.50 to use a self cleaning toilet in the metro station – but the toilet was disappointedly out of toilet paper.

We traveled a few stops on the metro to Termini Station and the hurried to get our bags from the storage locker and make our way to the 4:10pm Terravision bus to Fiumicino airport. Unlike our morning bus, this bus was almost full! On the positive side, the route back to the airport had substantially less bumps. We arrived at the airport at 5:05pm.