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Oct 15: All Roads Lead To Rome
Docked at Civitavecchia, Italy at 7 am. The land tours all begin at this unearthly hour, much to my dismay. I don't even wake so early during the weekday, much less while on vacation, but I didn't have much choice. So there we were, at 730 a.m., disembarking from the ship and then boarding the bus that would take us inland to Rome. It was a pleasant journey, and I resisted the impluse to nap, lulled though I was by the comfortable temperature and the soothing voice of the Italian guide as she narrated information. We arrived at Rome after about an hour's journey and parked in a large underground garage before walking out into the bright sunlight of the ancient city.
WE were on a "Rome On Your Own" tour which meant we had the day to ourselves and would meet up with the guide at the end for the ride back. My sister had been to Rome a few times so she knew where we should go -- towards the Spanish Steps district where the boutiques were. Yes, there we were in Rme and all we wanted to do was to shop. None of us really wanted to spend precious hours lining up to get into favourite tourit spots like the Vatican or the Sistine Chapel - move over Michaelangelo, we wanted Dolce and Gabbana! We had a terrific time exploring the row of designer stores there - I bought a suit and a pair of silver sneakers at Dolce, and a suit and two pairs of pants at Prada. Not only was the range of clothing so much bigger than what i would find in Singapore, the prices were also about 30% lower.
We took a coffee break in a nice cafe next to the Prada store and enoted the great Italian coffee and pastries.
We spent a few hours shopping and then had to catch a cab and head back towards the meeting point for the bus. We took a cab and asked the driver to go pass the Colosseum and we ran out to take pics. The building is ecrtainly huge and impressive, especially considering that it built in the year 80 A.D., which makes it 1,927 years old! As impressive as it was, we wouldn't help thinking of its bloody and gory past.
By the Colosseum
The Colosseum by night (pic from wikipedia)
After the shopping!
We arrived back at the meeting area and took some time to check out St Peter's Basilica and the square, known in Italian as Piazza di San Pietro. The piazza is huge, surrounded by an elliptical colonnade and a 83 ft tall obelisk in the centre.
We met up with the rest of the tour group and there was some delay as one couple was misisng. THey finaly arived and we started the walk back to the bus. The sidewalks were packed with tourists and tour groups, and our group walked pretty fast. We were pushing my Mom in her travel wheelchair, which we use when we have to cover larger distances or move fast, as she can't do either. We were following the group when one of the wheels in her chair got stuck in a cobblestone and we had to stop and extricate it. When we looked up, we'd lost teh group and amongst the many other tour groups, we couldn't se ours. Thankfully they had given us an emergency number to contact and they were able to tell our tour guide and they managed to find us and brought the bus around to pick us up.
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