A very early morning - the villas arranged a transfer for us and 3 others at 5:45am, so that we would be on time for our 6:50 flight to Athens, and from there we had an hour's stopover until our 8:40 flight to Rome. The flights were fairly uneventful, as the first was so short they had to rush the drinks service, and the second had passably good food for breakfast (cheese pie, a bread roll with strawberry jam, and a natural yoghurt with honey).Once we landed, and after an excruciatingly long wait for the baggage (made worse by a guy who had first pushed in front of G on the plane, and then again at the baggage carousel), we took the Leonardo Express to Roma Termini, and walked what seemed like miles to get to the right exit of the train station for our hostel.From there, we crossed into via Marghera and had no trouble finding the building, but there was no signage to indicate we were in the right place. G volunteered to run up the two floors to see if it was there, and, as luck would have it, he ran into the owner, Marco, who let us in.After sussing out the accommodation (more like a share apartment than a hostel - 3 rooms, with the other 2 holding around 3 people each), we went for a walk to acquaint ourselves with the neighbourhood, armed with a map on which Marco had pointed out the key things to see. We took photos in front of the Santa Maria Maggiore church (sadly closed), had a very nice lunch in a hole-in-the-wall en route, made our way to the Colosseum (where G had a photo with a Roman gladiator and I couldn't stop laughing the whole time), walked past the Arce di Tito to the Palantino, and then on to the Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II.We had a lovely dinner at It Capitello, a restaurant right near the train station, which I can't recommend highly enough (he had the best carbonara ever, the bolognese was delicious, and the Torta Della Nonna (almond and custard cake) definitely hit the spot). After the excitement of such a long day, we decided to turn in early so that we could pack in a day at the Vatican the next day.