Today we docked in Civitavecchia which is the port for Rome. Our driver/guide (Constantino) was there to meet us at 8:30am. The ship had docked at 7:00am so I think we may have been some of the last people off the ship.
Our tour today was for the Italian countryside. The drive into Rome was about an hour. The traffic wasn’t too bad early in the morning. Our first stop was at the Catacombs, the curious underground maze of tunnels hallowed out of volcanic rock, where the earlier Christians, persecuted by the Romans, had to practice their religion in secret and bury their dead. It was supposed to be 8 euros per person but they didn’t have any change and we didn’t want to use a credit card so they let the 2 of us in for 15 euros. The restrooms were also free to use. They had different signs to line up at depending on what language you spoke. It took them a while to call the English language people because they had a lot of Italian kids there so they were trying to get them through.
The Catacombs are run and managed by the Vatican. Our guide was from Australia and really good and easy to understand. He first took us into a room and explained what we would see inside and then we more or less walked through at a steady pace and he did a little more narration inside. We were not allowed to take pictures and we had to walk down a lot of stairs which wasn’t too bad going down but coming up was quite a challenge.
Constantino took us to several small villages where we got out and walked around some. There was a monastery where we got out and walked some. The main village that we went to was Castel Gandolfo, where the popes have kept their summer residence for centuries. On one side is a view of the sea and the other side is a view of the lake. We had lunch in a little italian restaurant which is run by a couple of women. They serve a variety of pasta dishes and the pasta is all homemade by them. It was kind of funny because we were left there by ourselves and the people working there didn’t speak English. When the waitress came to see if we had finished eating, she walked up and in a loud voice said “Stop”. We thought we had done something wrong. All she was wanting to know was if we were finished eating so she could take our plates.
After lunch we went back into Rome and drove by the Colosseum and stopped at a couple of other places for photos.
Traffic was really heavy getting out of Rome. We were supposed to be back to our ship at 5:30pm but Constantine told us it would be closer to 6:30pm which was the all aboard time. The traffic thinned out so we made it back in time. We were too tired to go to the dining room. They were having an Italian BBQ out by the pool so we went to that.
I finally got a chance to try out the coffee bar and it was just like having a Starbucks. So much better than the other coffee they serve. The singers and dancers were the entertainment so we skipped the show and called it an early night.
When we got back to the room our cleaning had come so I went to put everything up. Unfortunately the clothes in the little basket were not ours so somebody else got our underwear and we got somebody else’s. I turned it in. I certainly hope they find our stuff!
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