On leaving New Zealand we had one outstanding issue; our Mongolian visa. We were unable to get it I’m New Zealand as we left more than 3 months before we were entering the country and therefore relied on getting it overseas. We therefore had opportunities in Rome, Ankara in Turkey, and Berlin.
Arriving in Rome over a weekend effectively left us with Monday in order get the visa. Emails to the embassy were either not replied to, or stated confusingly that we had to ask the Italian ministry of foreign affairs if we could get a Mongolian visa. Using the power of google I managed to track down the embassy address by finding a news article about the opening ceremony in 2011, which happened to have an address in the photo description.
Located in a random Rome suburb and a long walk from the nearest train station, we found a random apartment block with a Mongolian flag out the front. Amazingly someone opened the door! After filling out the forms (which I had luckily printed in New Zealand), and handing over 240 euros (!!!! we didn’t have the cash at hand so had to scurry off to find a bank and hope our cards worked) we were told to come back the next day.
Success !! Mongolian visa done and dusted on the first go. A massive relief.