05 Feb

Day 6 – Rome, Baby!

 

Today we were on our own again, and taking the train into Rome.  I checked on Mom and she wasn’t well yet.  We wondered what on earth she had!  Well, we would find out soon…

Rome was about an hour away and our time in port wasn’t that long.  We didn’t want to waste any time, so we were ready to get off as soon as they gave the all clear. 

Side Note- One of the things I ran out of time to do before the cruise was print all of my notes and directions for this cruise.  The last two days I had just sat down before bed and jotted down some important stuff to remember in port.  Well my notes for Rome were about 2 pages long!  Blech!

I was about to start writing when Chase asked why I didn’t just take a picture of the notes with my phone.

Hmmm.  Why indeed?

Such a smart teenager!  Lookie here:

We’re off!

The ship docks a good ways from the entrance to the port, so they run free shuttles back and forth. It was a short, 5 minute ride to the front, but it would have been a long walk! Take the shuttle!

After we got off the shuttle, we took a right and walked the mile or so to the train station.

We were amused by this giant, and very American, statue:

Looking back where we came from:

The tickets for Rome are a real bargain. Transfers from Disney were $99 a person. Our tickets? 12 euros a person! And our tickets included all busses and metros for the day too. Our tickets were called BIRG tickets. If you go to Rome, get BIRG tickets!

My biggest tip for the train station in Civitavecchia is – don’t go to the ticket window! Since everyone walking off the ship is going to the same place, big groups of people tend to arrive at the same time and the majority of them head right for the ticket windows. Don’t!

Pass the windows and go to the right. There’s a small newsstand there. There is usually no line and they sell BIRG tickets. It’s great!

We knew we had missed the 7:30 train but little did we know it was late leaving! When we realized it, we tried to make it but just missed it. Shoot. So we waited for the 8:00 train.

I think she was joking in this picture…

See! She’s happy!

And we had seats! Happy happy happy!

Our tickets:

We got off the train and got on a metro for one stop.

On the metro:

We actually got off the metro too early. The directions I had, assumed we would want to walk by Palentine Hill.  We actually wanted to go straight to the Colosseum. The walk would have been fine if it wasn’t sweltering hot out there! Rome was by far our hottest day. We were dying.

We realized we were going the long way and cut across this field.

There it is!

We bought our tickets online beforehand so we bypassed the entrance line and went inside. We had an extra ticket since Mom didn’t come, so I gave that to a family we passed in the line. Amazing!

Brother-in-law, Ally and Chase:

Look at us. Look at how hot we are. Those aren’t sunburns. Those are hot faces!!

Look! Shade! I have no idea what Stephen was doing.

I think he tried to get everyone else to join in and they must have declined.

Quick shot of where I think we took this same picture last time:

 

Look we found a passageway with a tiny breeze!

Okay, I may not have appreciated the Coliseum as much as I should have this time because of how hot I was.

After we had all we could stand in the sun, we started to walk towards the Panthenon. We bought some water from a stand first which helped a little.

We passed these guys and had no idea how they were doing it.

The walk was pretty!

Some members of our family were feeling hanger as we walked. Yes that’s a combination of hunger and anger. Or – hunger induced anger. Compounded by the heat of course.

We walked past an Irish pub and I glanced at the menu. Hey! This didn’t look bad!

So I called everyone back and we went inside the glorious air conditioning.

Yes, we had pizza in an Irish pub in Rome. And it was yummy.

These booths were cool.

Much better!

After lunch and time in the air conditioning, we were back out walking. The Pantheon was our first goal! On the streets!

The streets of Rome are why I don’t like to do tours there. Roaming (see what I did there) is all kinds of awesome. You’re on your own schedule, your own itinerary, your own time. Do you want to stop in a souvenir shop? Stop! Stop and take pictures? Stop!

Here’s the square outside of the Pantheon:

It’s beautiful inside.

Our next stop was the Trevi Fountain. So we started walking.

The streets are lovely in Rome and very very narrow! When a car came by you better get out of the way!

Made it!

Brother-in-law:

After throwing in our coins, we went looking for Gelato! There were several options right next door. I didn’t take a picture because it was melting so fast! It was delicious though.

After the gelato, we started walking to the Spanish Steps:

The Spanish Steps never look quite as big to me as they do in the movies:

Our tickets for the Vatican were for 2:00 so we needed to go there next. I also wanted to find the awesome McDonald’s next to the steps that we found last time, but we missed it somehow. So we got on the metro and went to the Vatican. We’re here!

The Vatican was the reason that most of us were wearing pants on this very hot day. The Vatican requests no bare knees. I brought Ally a skirt in my backpack and she slipped that on over her shorts. Chase and brother in law both brought jeans but just pulled their shorts low enough to make it. Stephen looking at the map:

The walk to the Sistine Chapel is gorgeous!

Sometimes you pop outside:

The ceilings are so pretty as you keep walking, you keep thinking you could already be in the Sistine Chapel!

The floor at one point:

The Sistine Chapel has lots of No Photography signs. I was good and followed the rules.

Stephen, however, was “That Guy” who didn’t see the signs and walked right in and took a no flash picture. He was promptly yelled at by the security guards and he put his phone away. Oops.

I had done my homework on the Vatican this time and found out if we went through the group exit of the chapel it would deposit us in St. Peter’s Basilica without waiting in the ginormous line out front. It worked like a charm! Score! In the Basilica:

I took a bazillion pictures in St. Peters. It’s gorgeous. This is when I wish I had a tripod and my wide angle lens.

Here’s the Pieta by Michelangelo:

We exited through the tombs and out through the square.

I thought these guard’s outfits (although my Air Force husband tells me that uniforms are never to be called “outfits”) were amazing:

The square was full of chairs:

Our day in Rome was done! We walked to the nearest train stop and stopped in a store for cold Cokes.

Looking back down the street towards the Vatican:

At the train station:

It was a long tiring day, but totally amazing. Most of us slept on the way back at some point. There were several crew members near us too. We obviously weren’t sleeping here:

We walked back to the ship and boarded right at 5:30. We were only in port until 6:30, so we timed that just about right. I like to give ourselves an hour of wiggle room.

We took super quick showers and were ready for dinner at Lumiere’s. Which some members of my family, no matter how often I correct them, call Lumineres. I can’t…

Dinner tonight included one of my favorites – French Onion Soup!

And the exact opposite of one of my favorites – escargot.

Ally was in love with the French bread tonight and asked for more. Mesa brought her a whole bowl of just French bread:

Our little corner of the restaurant was super dark tonight. So these pictures are dark! Mesa also had a ton of brain teasers for us using the crayons:

Stephen solved a particularly hard one and Plamen insisted on making him a prize:

Ally had a lobster pasta dish for dinner:

I had steak of course!

I don’t know what this one was:

Dessert!

There was a character-palooza happening in the lobby. Pinocchio in the wild!!

Does Mickey look awesome or what?

We stopped by the room and then went to see the show which was a ventriloquist. He was hilarious! A tiny tiny bit off color? Which made me wonder what the adult show would be like!

After the show Stephen, Chase, Ally and I hit up the hot tub. We played trivia on the Funnel Vision while we soaked. Then it was back to the room for bed! Well not Chase and Ally. They went to watch Avengers before bed. I’m not sure what time they came in.

Tomorrow was a relaxing sea day!

 

 

Our 19-Day Mediterranean Adventure – Greece, Turkey and the Search for Free Wifi

Day 0 – Crazy Days Before Departure! 
Day 1 – On Our Way! 
Day 2 – London Layover 
Day 3 – Embarkation!  
Day 4 – The Beauty That is Monaco 
Day 5 – La Spezia aka the Road to Pisa or Florence 
Day 6 – Rome Baby!
Day 7 – Sea Day Fun! 
Day 8 – Introducing The Pneumonia 
Day 9 – Athens and the Inside of the Hospital Onboard!
Day 10 – Turkey 
Day 11 – Mykonos and the Start of a Countdown to Get Back to Mykonos 
Day 12 – Sea Day and Palo Dinner 
Day 14 – Last Day Onboard 
Day 15 – Disembark and Barcelona 
Day 16 – Travel to London
Day 17 – London Baby! 
Day 18 – Harry Potter Heaven