We woke in the port of Civitavecchia, the gateway to Rome.
I really love early mornings on deck.
For some reason, I was waking quite early, whilst Sequoia was needed that bit extra sleep in the mornings.
Breakfast in the windjammer cafe is always a treat.
Now, I had booked our tickets to Vatican City whilst still in Australia and was looking forward to taking in the Sistine Chapel. Unfortunately, due to delays in getting off the ship and taking the shuttle bus to the entrance of the port, we realised that there was no way that we were going to make it in time for our skip the line entry time.
There was always going to be things like this, but we decided to just cut our losses and go and see a bit of Rome. We we managed to negotiate a slightly better price for one of the shuttle buses available for the hour long trip to the city, but ended up sitting there for 40 minutes waiting for other cruisers to hop aboard.
Eventually we arrived. Now, I never expected to be able to see all of Rome in a single day, but somehow we managed to see a grand total of 2 sights!!! One of which was closed for renovations.
Oh well. We ended up having a fun time anyway. As they say, when in Rome...
And isn't always all about the food?
A little cappuccino and Italian pastry stop as we wandered soon made everything alright.
Now, what does a birthday girl want to do whilst in Rome? That's right. Go shopping!
It was really fun to watch Sequoia pick up some Italian fashion. Her big smile made the whole day more than worth it.
We made our way through the streets of Rome to the Spanish Steps.
Just so many people though.
We kept wandering, searching for the Trevi Fountain, gelato in hand...
Only to find the fountain under reconstruction. All I could think was all these poor people who can't throw a coin and will never come back to Rome!!!
Apparently there was a small break in the barricade where you could throw a coin, but we of course missed that because of the sheer volume of (disappointed) tourists.
Sequoia started humming a tune. It sounded familiar...
'This is what dreams are made of...' Thank you Lizzie McGuire Movie. No La Dolce Vita for us, let's get our travel tips from a Disney Movie! It was lunch time and Sequoia started leading us down a side street trying to find the restaurant from the movie.
I'm not sure if we found the right one, but there were loads of people sitting outside smiling, so we decided this was the place for our Roman meal.
lol, I should have really known better. We were waaay to close to the Trevi. But it was lunch time and the minutes were ticking by.
Sequoia enjoyed her plate of pasta. I, however decided to sample the pizza. On the menu, it advised that the price was €2 per 100gs. I chose 2 types of pizza expecting perhaps 2 slices of each.
This is what arrived at our table:
Just for me!!!!
I tried to clarify with the waiter what the cost was but he suddenly could not speak such good English.
So we ate. I think I managed 2.5 of those slices...and that was pushing it.
When it came time to pay the bill, I was absolutely horrified to find that he had brought me out €24 worth of pizza! That is over 2 kilo of pizza, costing over $A40. What an absolute scam.
I tried to reason with them, but in the end, I ended up just paying as I really did not want to deal with the Italian police. I look forward to writing my honest review in TripAdvisor!
We only had now to make our way back to where we're meeting the bus back to the Port.
We got back to the ship to find our stateroom attendant had left a little gift on our bed:
This seemed to make so much about the day alright.
Anyway, Rome is somewhere I think I'd love to spend a week. I know I will be back. There is so much I'd love to see and it was just a fun place to wander.
I know on every trip there will be at least one day that just doesn't go right and Rome for us seemed to tick many boxes. But we had fun anyway. 😀
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