As they say, it wasn’t built in a day! There was so much to see that we barely touched the surface but we had a great day. We booked a tour with other people we had met online before sailing and traveled from the port to Rome in a van with 5 other people. Everyone in our group was really nice and it was nice to share the day with them.
Rome is about an hour away from the port where we docked, Citavecchia. Our driver/guide picked us up at the port and we traveled the motorway until we got to Rome. This isn’t the place to be driving on your own – we wound in out of traffic like crazy. Rome is full of very narrow streets – the narrower the street, the older the buildings and architecture. Not only are there lots of cars, but there are also lots of buses, pedestrians and scooters! We pretty much sat in the back of the van trying not to watch the street too closely!
Our first stop was the coliseum. The guide took us to buy our tickets a few feet away from the coliseum and we were able to skip the regular line to get in. The other line looked like they might have at least a 45 minute wait. We had about an hour to explore on our own. This was our first exposure to some of the MANY statues we were about to see during our day. The Romans loved their statues!! We had plenty of time to look around the upper levels and the inside of the coliseum before being picked up by the guide.
Next, we took a drive up one of the hills for a view of what is left of the Forum and Senate area. It is a huge plaza with some of the old buildings and columns still intact, but much of it is now gone. Our guide had a great book of Rome now and then with fold-over pages showing what it looks like now with a page of what it looked like in the past. We bought one of the books while at the Coliseum.
After that we drove around some more to see more of the city and stopped at Trevi Fountain. Everywhere we went was very crowded; however, our guide, Ivano was able to move us around quickly to get the most of our day. The fountain is huge with lots more statues to see!
Ivano then took us to a small restaurant for lunch. It was in his old neighborhood and may have been owned by some of his family, we aren’t sure. They served us pizza and salad – it was a nice break from all of the rush of the city.
After lunch we went to the Vatican. Ivano had arranged a Vatican guide for our group and he met us there. This guy was incredibly knowledgeable about the Vatican, the Popes and the art that we saw. We were able to get tickets again just by walking up to a separate window for groups and missed having to stand in line for over an hour to buy tickets. Our group spent over 2 hours in the Vatican looking at the art, the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s. We saw where the Pope’s apartments are and the balcony where he greets the crowds. More than anything else, this place is where you will find statues. When we first walked in there were headless statues, you turn a corner there is a room with just heads! It was amazing to see the art, the mosaics, tapestries and so much more – and all of it was created hundreds of years ago. Our guide explained a lot of the traditions of the church and pointed out where they hold the meetings to choose the next pope and how they signal when they have chosen.
Although our day was very busy and full, we felt that we were able to see a lot in that short time. After 3 very busy days we now have a sea day to rest up for our final 3 stops – Gibraltar, Lisbon and Vigo.