Last Minute to Rome

This is part three week trip that begins with a trip to Rome, followed by a cruise through the Mediterranean and ending with a train ride through Milan and Zurich before flying back home.

• Part 1: Getting to Rome
• Part 2: Cruising the Mediterranean
• Part 3: Milan and Zurich by Train

This trip began when I received a last minute offer for a cruise in the Eastern Mediterranean, leaving in less than a week. This close in, these bookings are non-refundable and they can get snatched up quickly. This meant I had hours, not days, to piece together a viable trip to Europe during peak travel season. 

The cruise offer was $509 USD with $200 on board credit, before gratuities.

12 Days aboard Carnival Miracle.

• Civitavecchia, Italy
• Katakolon, Greece
• Kavala, Greece
• Istanbul, Turkey
• Kusadasi, Turkey
• Mykonos, Greece
• Athens, Greece
• Naples, Italy
• Civitavecchia, Italy

The flight to Rome was the trickiest part. When I searched originally, there were very few options in business class and I ended up searching for anything to Rome, Milan or Naples from anywhere in the United States. My reasoning was that I could find connecting flights domestically if I needed to and intercity trains in Europe tend to be fairly easy. 

My initial booking was a suboptimal refundable  flight from Dallas to Rome arriving the day of the embarkation. This is of course a terrible idea for a cruise and you should always arrive the night before, ideally days earlier for a cruise on another continent. For me it was enough of a safety net to go ahead and book the non-refundable cruise. I was looking for possible, not perfect.

Afterwards, I was able to find a slightly cheaper itinerary leaving a few days earlier and including the connecting flight from Columbus so I booked it and cancelled the original. I think it was less than 72 hours between the time I saw the cruise and the time I was getting on a plane.

Even with a few days of cushion, I was a little worried when I realized two major weather systems were colliding in the North Atlantic. Below you can see the PredictWind chart. Flights usually fly well above the weather, but there was some risk if the airports themselves were to be shut down. However, everything turned out fine in the end.

I was only in Rome for two nights so it was something of a whirlwind.

Europe in August is an extremely difficult time to find hotel rooms last minute. All of the regular chains were booked solid, had no award availability or had rates off the charts. In situations like this, I often look for tiny rooms for solo travelers. Some US hotel chains don't have these rooms and American sites often default to searching for a room for two or more adults and these rooms don't show up in those searches.

Accor is pretty small in the US but huge in Europe and has loads of rooms for solo travelers. A few months earlier, Bilt had a huge transfer bonus to Accor and at the time I transferred all of my remaining Bilt points. As a result, I was able to get a room for 8k points per night when most traditional points hotels were going for $350+.

The Mercure Roma Centro Colosseo is in an amazing location. You can see the colosseum from the rooftop infinity pool just 4-5 blocks away. It's only a block or two from my favorite historical site in Rome, the Basilica of San Clemente.

That said, the room was indeed very tiny and the bathroom was so small you could only open the shower door half way. 

Mercure's breakfast wasn't included free, but Accor had a very good rate that included it with the room. Accor points work almost exactly like cash, with every 1,000 points knocking 20 euro off your bill. As a result, I could buy breakfast with points at a particularly good rate, so I did. 

As an aside, this cash-like Euro pegged trait of Accor points makes them a very, very good currency to have to hedge against currency fluctuations or to take advantage of arbitrage between currencies. IE, the points transfer rates don't change as often as real world currencies do and most hotels have semi-dynamic pricing which means the value of your points are closely linked to the US Dollar. 

When I took this trip, the US Dollar was down around 10% in the past year against the Euro and so my Accor points, which are valued in Euros, were all that much more valuable to me.

No visit to Rome would be complete without a few pictures of the Colosseum. 

When people think of Rome, they usually imagine the Colosseum first. However, the Roman Forums next to the Colosseum are in some ways even cooler and much easier to visit. I'd been there before and only had a day so I just enjoyed walking by them as I was seeing other sites.

I've visited the basilica before so I didn't go all the way down this time, but it's one of my favorite sites in Rome. There's four different churches layered on each other and you can go all the way down level by level, to the 1st century church and the 2nd century Mithraeum.

I walked to the Roman Baths but just missed the deadline for the last admission. So then I walked back, spending time in a Roman park called Villa Celimontana.

Cruises that visit "Rome" actually visit Civitavecchia which is an hour train ride from the city so I left early after my second night.

Continue on with the rest of the trip.

• Part 1: Getting to Rome
• Part 2: Cruising the Mediterranean
• Part 3: Milan and Zurich by Train