Rome

They say that all roads lead to Rome. Perhaps they do. After Santorini, Rome was high on my list of cities I wanted to go back and visit. It's no wonder that this city is much beloved and often referred to, Ever heard of, "when in Rome, do as the Romans?"

The only time I've ever been to Rome, it was as a day trip. Our cruise ship stopped at the port of Civitavecchia for the day. The great part of this was that I would get to see Rome, the bad part of it was that Civitavecchia is approximately a 1 hour 30 minute drive from Rome. That meant, of my 12 hours in port, 3 of them would be spent driving back and forth. That really kind of puts a damper on everything because your already limited time is even more limited

In order to make the most of my day, we booked an all day tour with a private company that would give us a private tour of the city.

The driver was there to pick us up as soon as we got off the ship and off we went to Rome!

Due to the fact that Rome is a tourist mecca, we knew that our limited time would mean that there wouldn't be any time to walk around the Roman Forum, nor enter the Colosseum. With that in mind, and after driving for a little over an hour, we got our first view of Rome from a lookout point atop one of Rome's famed Seven Hills. It was a breathtaking sight to see this grand, and ancient city laid out right before your eyes.

Since I can't list everything we saw that day, I'll just hit a few of the major attractions.

After a short stop at Circus Maximus, our tour took us to Capitoline Hill, where there there is a beautiful statue of Marcus Aurelius astride his horse as well as sculptures of Castor and Pollux. From Capitoline Hill, you can look out across the way directly into the Roman Forum and beyond the Forum make out the shape of the Colosseum.

Before it got too late in the day, we drove across town to the Vatican. It's interesting that the Vatican is it's own country, not just a part of Italy. In fact, it's the only country who's boundary is completely surrounded by another country. For our trip to the Vatican Museum, we had booked a private tour of the complex as it's so diverse and large. We knew we would have 2 hours to hit all of the major points. It's amazing the wealth and breadth of the art work that is inside the Vatican Museum and that has been collected over the centuries. Of course, the highlight of a trip to the Vatican Museum is Michelangelo's famed Sistine Chapel. While we weren't allowed to take pictures inside, I can say that it was absolutely gorgeous. To understand what it took to paint the ceiling, the amount of time it took, the symbolism involved, is to understand and appreciate this great artist.

From the Vatican Museum, we made our way into St. Peter's Basilica. This is the largest church in all of Christendom, and the heart of Catholics around the world. The enormity of it's size is just amazing. In fact, inside the basilica, on the ground are markings that show where the next largest churches fit if they were to be put inside of St. Peter's. The two most important pieces of art inside of St. Peter's Basilica is Bernini's famous altar, and Michelangelo's marble carving of La Pieta. Both were truly stunning.

In the afternoon, as we were running out of time, we headed over for a brief stop at Piazza Navona. There we saw Bernini's famous 4 winds fountain. After that, we headed over to the Pantheon, followed by a visit to the famed Spanish Steps. We each threw the obligatory coin over our shoulders to ensure our visit to Rome again in the future. From there we headed over to Piazza di Spagna and the famous Spanish Steps.

Finally, before heading back to Civitavecchia, we ended our day back at the Colosseum. We only had enough time to take some exterior shots of this marvelous engineering structure, as well as the Arch of Constantine and the Roman Forum.

Then we were whisked back for our drive back to Civitavecchia to re-join the cruise.

I'm glad that this time around, we'll be ending the cruise in Rome. I've planned 2 nights post-cruise in Rome so that this time I can breath and take the time to really appreciate all of these ancient wonders in all of their glory.