B&B Ventisei Scalini a Trastavere, Rome
Sadly our Cilentan interlude had come to an end and it was time to head back to Rome. We explored a number of transit options with the hotel, including taking a cab to Paestum, Agropoli or a 3rd station whose name escapes me, then taking a train from there to Napoli Centrale before continuing onwards to Rome but it all seemed like such an exhausting hassle. In the end, we settled on trusty Franco, as he was willing to come down on the price sufficiently to make it worth while to just go with him from Acciaroli directly to Napoli Centrale.
We had a great chat with him during the ride about the region, how tourism has been developing, where they would like to take it, etc...and took his card when we arrived at the train, so if anyone finds themselves in this region and needs a driver, inbox me and i'll be more than happy to share his contact info.
At the station, my gf popped open the TrenItalia app and booked us two seats on the next highspeed train to Rome. We hopped a cab from the station and were on our way. I spoke very highly of the HT6 in my earlier post. When I was planning this trip out months ago, I thought "you know what, let's mix it up and try somewhere new, somewhere IN Trastavere." I would pay dearly for this. The cab couldn't make it to our street, so he dropped us nearby and we continued on foot. When we got to the address, there was an envelope stuck to the door with my name on it. The envelope contained a phone number. When I called, the woman first chastised me saying I was supposed to arrive later and come from the airport (uh, no...not sure where you got that idea as we were never set to fly back to Rome, also not sure WHY it matters whether I arrived by plane or train), then finally she gave me the front door code, and the code to a lock box inside that contained the key. This was not a hotel or a B&B as the listing had indicated. We walked up two steep flights of stairs, opened one of several doors on that floor and entered into a living room with two doors off of it. The other key opened the door to our bedroom. In essence, this woman had a 2BR apartment, she was renting each bedroom out as if it were a hotel room and using the living room as a common space for breakfast. This was more shared AirBnB than an actual B&B. At no point was the woman I spoke with on the phone or any "employee" present. We were told to leave copies of our passports (yea right) and $ for city tax in the room when we left for them to collect. I left them the $, but there was no chance I was going to leave copies of our passports for god knows who. Awful experience, would never return. I told my gf shortly after "check-in" to remind me "next time I say we should switch it up from HT6 and try somewhere new, just remind me of this please."
The ONLY good thing I can say about this legit sh*thole, was that it was directly across the street from Dar Poeta. With Da Ivo's recent brilliance fresh in my mind, we went to Dar Poeta for lunch, and I was ready to move Da Ivo to
#1 and drop Dar Poeta from it's long held top slot to 2nd place. Then the pizza came out and was as phenomenal as ever. I guess it'll just have to be a first place tie for now.
Lunch was followed by several more hours of wandering around the streets of Rome. The following day, I would leave for Algiers to undertake an absurd (to normal sane people) mileage run, and my girlfriend would return to London until I wrapped up the MR, then we would meet in Madrid.