This blog is mostly about doing things alone and figuring it out. Sometimes figuring it out looks graceful. Sometimes it looks like standing outside the gates of Vatican City saying a word that would make the Pope himself wince.
This story is the second kind.
It’s October 2022 and I’m in Rome.
I’ve just come off the back of a four-day cycling tour through Tuscany - 145 kilometres (90 miles), thousands of photos and videos (2,346 to be exact…), zero injuries, and an absolutely unhinged amount of gelato - and I have a couple of nights in Rome before I fly back to Boston.
Life is genuinely great.
I book a day tour for my first day. What better way to see the city than with someone that knows the city, and also speaks the language. I’m so smart.
We meet early, right by a coffee bar. And I’m early. My itinerary says 8am, and because I hate being late, I’m there about 7:35am. So acting like the local I think I am (because I’ve been in Italy for 2 weeks at this point, and that totally makes me a local), I wander in, order an espresso with biscotti on the side, and then stand at the coffee bar sipping on it while I wait for my tour group…
…who were gathering on the street right outside and I nearly missed it.
Turns out, when they say the tour starts at 8am, they mean the tour leaves at 8am. Not “meet at 8am and then we’ll leave about 8:15am.” Lucky for me, the tour guide came into the coffee bar at 7:55am and asked if anyone was on her tour.
Apparently this happens all the time…
Sounds to me like maybe they should change their start time.
Anyway, Colosseum, Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, a few other landmarks, and then Vatican City. I am fully in my tourist era and I have zero shame about it.
The Colosseum alone nearly broke me emotionally. Did you know they used to fill it with water and have actual boat battles in there? I didn’t. I stood there like an absolute idiot with my mouth open while our guide explained it. I also learned about the people-versus-animals situation which I had sort of known about but not really processed until I was standing in the middle of the actual place where it happened.
Mind-blowing.
Anyway.
We got on a bus to Vatican City.
Now. I want to be clear, Vatican City is stunning. The Sistine Chapel ceiling - Michelangelo, absolute overachiever, we get it - is the kind of thing that makes you stand there completely silent because there are no words that do it justice. The Cathedral. The art. The history. Every single thing about it.
I was a fully present, fully appreciating, completely respectful and well-behaved tourist.
You probably know this, and if you don’t, you do now. The Vatican is its own country. It’s super tiny (109 acres), but is still it’s own country. I think that’s so cool. I had Googled “can you get your passport stamped” before I left, and Google said no. But I took my passport anyway (to be fair, I always have it on me when I travel, better on me than stolen), in the hopes that the internet was wrong.
The internet was not wrong.
Insert sad face. At least I had 2,346 photos to prove that I had been there.
When the tour ended, we were free to do whatever our hearts desired.
I wandered. I appreciated. And then, because I had been on my feet since approximately the beginning of time, I decided I’d had enough and started walking towards the gates.
I was hot. I was tired. I was hungry. And I wanted a glass of wine with an almost violent urgency.
On the way out I stopped to buy a bottle of water and a small snack.
With what I did not yet realise was the last of my cash.
I got to the gates, flagged down a taxi, got in, and said something like “hi, here’s my Airbnb address please.”
The driver looked at me.
“Cash only.”
I looked at him.
“Sorry? You don’t take card?”
“Cash only.”
And that’s when I realized I had just used the last of my cash to feed and water myself.
So I got out of the taxi.
And I stood on the side of the road outside Vatican City and said, quite clearly but also under my breath - “fuck.”
At least I thought I said it quietly.
I did not say it quietly.
Two people from my tour who had been standing nearby turned around.
“You okay?”
I explained the situation. No cash. Cash only taxis. My Airbnb was not walkable. I had checked earlier in the day with full optimism and the answer had been a hard no, it was about an hour away and that was at the beginning of the day when I had energy and dignity. Neither of those things were currently available to me.
They said they were heading back towards the city and we could share a taxi.
“Are you sure?”
They said absolutely.
So we put both addresses into Google Maps to figure out the route.
Which is when we learned we were going in completely opposite directions.
So instead they handed me €20.
“Here. Take this. Your taxi is on us.”
I told them thank you, but I can’t accept that. It’s far too much.
They told me “don’t be silly, we want to.”
I asked if I could Venmo them*
*Venmo is a phone app that lets people transfer money to friends and family (and strangers) instantly from their phone.
They said no.
I stood there on the side of the road outside Vatican City holding €20 from two strangers whose names I didn’t even know and I very nearly cried. Not because of the money. Because sometimes when you’re travelling alone and something goes sideways and a complete stranger just... helps you, without making it weird or wanting anything back, it gets you right in the feels.
I didn’t cry. I held it together (mostly, at least on the street anyway).
I got in a taxi, went back to my Airbnb, changed my shoes, walked to the nearest restaurant, and ordered half a litre of the house red and a cacio e pepe.
No word of a lie, it was the best dinner I have ever eaten in my entire life.
And I’m including every other dinner I have ever eaten in this statement.
The cacio e pepe won life that day.
There’s a lesson in here somewhere about always carrying cash in a new city. There’s probably also one about the Sistine Chapel being worth every second of the chaos that followed.
But honestly the lesson I actually took away was this: people are kind. More often than you expect, more generously than you deserve, in moments you didn’t plan for.
Solo travel will put you in situations where you have to ask for help or accept it when it’s offered. And every single time I’ve done that, without exception, someone has shown up.
Sometimes with €20 and absolutely no interest in being Venmo’d back.
Nobody’s Watching You Eat is a blog about solo travel, solo dining, and all the things you figure out when the only person you have to answer to is yourself. Subscribe below so you don’t miss the next one.