THE ETERNAL CITY

Rome was the only "Ship Excursion" that we took. Because Rome does not have a harbor, ships must dock about 60 miles inland in Civitivecchia. We were fearful of taking the train to Rome, getting lost and missing the boat ( quite literally) and we had quite a few "shipboard credits" with which to pay for this particular trip. We didn't do a tour, but just took the bus, with guide, that was provided to Rome. We were supposed to get there by 10:00 and meet for the return at 4:15. Clearly not a lot of time and we didn't get to St Peter's Square until after 11:00 because of horrible trafffic. The next 20 minutes were spent in line, with legs crossed, waiting for my turn at the, you guessed it, Ladies Room. I was in dire need and was most annoyed when the women in front of me twice let 4 women cut in line. Believe me, I was mumbling for sure. Of course there was no line for the men's room so Bob wandered off to start the photo journal. Our plans for today were to see St Peters Basilica and Piazza Navona. Anything else would just be icing on the cake. We spent a couple of hours in and around St Peters where Bob literally took hundreds of pictures and then wandered off to catch the Hop On Hop Off bus. I had purchased the tickets before I left home to make sure that I had them. Silly waste of time! There are several HO HO ( sounds like a bus of prostitutes or evil Santas, huh?...but HOHO is what they are refered to) bus lines in Rome. The problem is the traffic congestion. Once on, we only wanted to go two stops to the Piazza Navona for lunch and it took over 45 minutes. Any hopes of seeing P.N and then riding the bus to get an overview of the city were dashed. But that was OK, remember this was a stress free vacation. We had a pizza lunch ( again) , explored the Piazza and then wandered back to St Peters on some lovely side streets. Oh and we stopped for gelato and cappucino on the way. Day done, back to the bus in plenty of time to wait for 4 people who had to be found and brought back. Bet their day was not stress free although they showed no signs of humiliation when they finally got on the bus. I personally would have been mortified.

All pictures are in and around Piazza Navona and leaving St Peters.

Fountain at St Peter's Square ( Piazza St Pietro)

Leaving the square at the Vatican Gate

Bouganvilla (sp), just like SoCal

See what I mean, congested ( and very noisy city).

Perpendicular as well as parallel parking

Love these trees, I think I read that they are called Umbrella Pines

Beautiful apartment buildings near Castelo St Angelo

Castelo St Angelo

Ponte St Angelo

Love the chapeau.. how do you say "hat" in Italian?

My very favorite Rome picture

I had a wonderful tourist map of Rome. It didn't have every street on it, but it had small drawings and comments. We wandered the street which the map indicated "was a small, narrow street filled with antique shops". Beautiful!

That's it for Rome. Join me in a day or two for Pisa, leading up to the grand finale...Villefranche.

Later,
Janet