Rome I

Rome - Spanish Steps

August 9. We had to get up very early to prepare for disembarkation. As with most cruises, the staterooms must be evacuated by early morning so that the room stewards can get them ready for the subsequent crop of passengers for the sailing later that day.

The van was waiting there at the pier, as promised. The drive from Civitavecchia to Rome took about an hour, as traffic was light going towards the Eternal City. Most of the cars on the autostrada were headed in the opposite direction, towards the beaches. It was August, and almost all of Italy goes on vacation in August. And almost all Italian vacationers head for the beaches. Or sometimes for the lakes up north in Lombardy and Piedmont.

In Rome our driver took us around to all the major sights, the Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, Castel Sant'Angelo, the Borghese Gardens, the Pincio and the Janiculum Hills, the Trevi fountain, the Spanish Steps, The Colosseum and the Forum, passing by the long lines waiting to get into the Vatican museums, before ending up for a leisurely lunch in the Trastevere. Even a passing thundershower did not dampen our high spirits as we dined outdoors under an awning.



In the afternoon, we decided to try for the Vatican once more, and as luck would have it, the lines had thinned out by then, and we were able to enter and spend a couple of crowded hours in the museums and the Sistine Chapel.

It was a highly concentrated expedition on our first day in the city, and by around four o'clock we were, as our driver noted, tutti stanchi, worn out and quite ready to check in at our hotel near the Stazione Termini.