2. Rome - Piramide/Via Ostiense district

Above: The Pyramid of Cestius (Piramide di Caio Cestio) which gives the Piramide district its name. It was built c. 18-12 BC as a tomb for Gaius Cestius Epulo, a Roman magistrate and member of one of the four great religious corporations of Rome. More at Wikipedia.

Above: Piramide metro station, on Line B of the metro system, and the most convenient way to move about the city. The Colosseum is two stations, Termini four.

Above: The street outside our apartment, Via Ostiense. It's one of Rome's ancient roads (heading towards Ostia Antica), and very busy. The apartment was double glazed and air conditioned, which meant street noise rarely bothered us. Lots of local shops along v Ostiense, including fruit & veg, gelato and bars. We shopped at local supermarkets in the vicinity.

Above: Ben sampling the Italian equivalent of Twisties.

Above: The living / dining room of the apartment - also sofa bed sleeping accommodation.

Above and Below: The extremely well-equipped kitchen.


Above: The main bedroom

Above: The bathroom, which also contained a very welcome washer/dryer.

Above and below: A couple of times we settled in to the cafe at Ostiense railway station for pizzas and coke! This included the morning of our arrival. Our flight arrived about 7am, and we were at the apartment about 9.30am....before the owner had a chance to clean and ready it from the previous guests. We dropped our bags and explored a little of the area. Amazing how you can keep going after a 24 hours with little sleep, with the excitment of "arrival adrenaline"


From 23 to 28 May we based ourselves in the Piramide district, at Via Ostiense 36. We booked an apartment through The B & B Association of Rome, which we found through Slow Travel Italy. It couldn't have been better. Everything went perfectly from the moment of first contact with the organisation and booking, through to the wonderful host contacting us afterwards to say we had left a couple of items, which we arranged to collect. The apartment owners have thought of EVERYTHING you could possibly need. It is one of the best equipped apartments we've ever stayed in.

We loved the feeling of staying in an authentically residential area of "un-tourist" Rome, yet so close to the hubub of more crowded, touristy sites. The gelato shop 3 paces from the apartment is sublime!

This was in sharp contrast to the UNREAL experience we had at the Hilton Cavalieri Hotel in Rome afew days later....