Second Port of Call - Rome

After an "at Sea Day" we arrived at Civitavecchia, the port city associated with Rome. So we had a nice ride through the countryside on our way to Rome. This was 30 March and our second day of the cruise. In all our port calls we tried to get a few photos of what the countryside was like and then what the cities themselves looked like by random views up side streets. Here are a few photos of "generic" Rome and vicinity. The other piece of info we liked finding out was the cost of gas in each country. It does vary quite a bit. In Italy it is like 1.28 euros/liter, or $3.65/gal.

First major stop was at the Vatican. One thing we found out was one day just does not do justice to Rome. Because of time constraints and the large number of tourists, even at the beginning of April, most time is spend in the bus or walking quickly around some highlight. For example, in the Vatican apparently 20,000 people pass through on an average each day and given we were coming up on Easter, it made it even worse. We walked through a part of the museum, through the Sistine Chapel, then the Basilica and finally St. Peter's Square. Photos could not be taken inside the Sistine Chapel and so it was a matter of trying to remember the incredible paintings of Michaelangelo, especially the scenes depicting the Creation and then the final judgement. Also, where you could take pictures it is difficult after the fact to recreate what objects were being photographed. One place that we were able to take photos, but not flash because of the sensitivity of the material, was the Gallery of Tapestries. Unfortunately the still photos came out very dark. However, video, without light, yielded excellent results. Here is a video of a tapestry depicting the ascension of Jesus. Here is another video of the ceiling of the Gallery of Tapestries. By the way, the ceiling is a painting and not a three dimensional relief as it appears to be. If you pause the video you can see the detail in the tapestries - totally incredible. By the way, with the sound on you will also get a glimpse of tour guides talking and how noisy it was. Even with all these limitations, it was an amazing experience. The photos we managed of the Vatican are given here. The impression we came away with was, this edifice is so grandiose, which is more important to God, the building and all its trappings and statues or what is in our hearts relative to worshiping Him?

Next was the Coliseum. The first impression was its immense size and the fact that it still survives after 2,000 years. Because of lack of time we couldn't participate in the tour of the interior of the Coliseum. Afterwards we found out that if we walked a little bit further we could have seen more of the Palatine Hill ruins but we didn't know they were there. A suggestion is to do a lot of homework before taking a tour. Our photos of the Coliseum are shown here.

The rest of the Roman ruins we saw were based on trying to snap photos from the tour bus while listening to the tour guide. Turns out to be quite a challenge. But here are the photos of some of the other ruins that we were able to get.

Next Port of Call, Athens, Greece.