Oct 11: Day 8: Rome

Another early morning and up at 6 for our day in Rome. Three weeks ago we learned of a planned train strike today so at the last minute I arranged a bus to transport 27 of us to Rome and drop us off for a day on our own and then meet back at the same spot for the return ride to Civitavecchia where the ship is docked. Everyone meet on the ship at the designated spot and we exited the ship together for pick-up. Obviously the guy I booked the bus with told me and the driver different times to meet, but after a 20 minute wait we were comfortably on our way to Rome. It was a scenic 70 minute ride and we were dropped off at a central point. Since this was Tim and my 2nd time in Rome and with limited time, we decided to hire “Ron In Rome” as our walking guide for the day. He is an American living in Rome for the past 2 years and does walking tours in Rome. Winnie & Greg decided to join us for the day. Ron only does very small groups of 2-4 people. He was absolutely wonderful and we both thought of how much Tim’s son Brian would enjoy a day with him. He possesses a wealth knowledge and made the ruins of Rome come to life for us. He presented it in a very informative and entertaining way. He showed us the ropes on getting around Rome and after helping us buy our metro train tickets for the day we were off to Ancient Rome. Because of the large number of people getting off the train at the Colosseo stop he said the line would be very long to purchase our tickets so we rode one more stop and got off at Circo Massimo and got some great info and photos of that area as we walked to the Palatine Hill entrance with very little wait to buy our ticket there that includes admission to Palatine Hill and the Coliseum. After just a few minutes here, the 4 of us knew we had found a gem for the day in Ron. After quite a while here we worked our way down into the Forum and the information we got was unbelievable. With Ron’s explanations and the overlay book he was using as a supplement we saw and understood more than we possibly could on our own. We then made our way past city hall where there were a lot of wedding taking place and we saw newlyweds all over the area getting their photos made. We took the shortcut to come out at the top of the Victor Emmanuel Monument with more incredible views over Rome and Tragan’s Markets. After descending the steps we made our way to the Coliseum. The streets surrounding the Coliseum are closed on Sundays and are pedestrian only. We passed several street performers along the way. Since we already had our tickets we bypassed the huge line of people waiting to buy their entrance tickets to the Coliseum with no wait at all. What an incredible sight and history!




By now we were starting to get a little tired and hungry so we decided to skip our planned visit to St Peters Basilica and have lunch and sightsee close to our designated meeting point. After taking to train to Spagna stop for the Spanish steps we got some pizza and sit on the steps and enjoyed it while people watching. We walked down the Rodeo Drive of Rome which stretches several blocks—much larger than Beverly Hills. We saw several groups of nuns in this area since there was a canonization at the Vatican today. The gelato shop Ron wanted us to try was very crowded so we went around the corner to another one which was fairly crowded, but served homemade gelato and we had about 100 flavors to choose from. It was delicious and we ate it as we strolled to the Trevi Fountain to toss in our coins to assure our return. It was now time to meet the bus for the return to the ship, and all the others were back early, so I got a call from Pam who was nice enough to collect everyone’s money for the trip while we made our way to the meeting point. As we got very near the post, the bus seemed to have a mechanical problem and we pulled off at a store for the driver to have a look. After just a few minute delays, we were on our way back to the ship. The transmission seemed to be slipping fairly bad, but we had built some cushion time into our return, so no problem. We were back on the ship about 1 hour before the required “all aboard” for departure. Like yesterday, cruise staff met us by the gate with ice cold wash cloths to refresh before getting back on the ship. We had a glorious sunset just before we sailed toward our next port. Tim and I were exhausted, so a trip to the thermal suite refreshed us. After eating dinner we decided to go to bed instead of the casino since we have 3 more port days before we get a break with a sea day.

I will try to add some photos in a few days, but the 250 free minutes I get based on our cruise history are down to 100 and each pic takes about 2 minutes to upload. We will get Tim’s free internet package soon and will probably purchase some additional minutes so we can get more photos uploaded on the sea days.