The ship docked this morning at 7.00 in the bustling port of Civitavecchia, the sea port for Rome. There are two main ways of getting from the ship into Rome. Firstly you could choose an organised tour, prices of which start at $89 per person and rise to $349 dependant on the sights to be seen. Alternatively you could take a 10 minute walk to the train station, pay a 14€ fare each and catch the train. We chose this latter option.
The journey took just over the hour and we left the train at San Pietro, the stop for The Vatican. They say that Rome was not built in a day and so we figured that you could not view it all in a day, we therefore decided to concentrate our trip on this part of the city. After a short walk from the station an underpass took us straight into the magnificent Saint Peter's Square.
The Basilica stands at one end of the vast square with the obelisk in the centre. Chairs were plced in rows across the square for some future event, and although this picture may give the impression that it was quiet, the queue for the Basilica stretched right around the square.
We decided that we would use today's visit to view the outside of the buildings rather than to spend most of the time in line. We wandered around the square and towards the museum here we saw some of the Swiss guard on duty.
Everywhere you look there are statues, murals and other artefacts.....
....and you never know who you might bump into.
We left the square and took the Palazzo Giraud towards the river, this gave us tremendous views of the Basilica .
From the Ponte San Angelo with all it's carved angels you get great views of the Castel Sant Angelo....
....but never is St Peters too far from view.
We walked from the Vatican into the city proper making our way to Piazza Venezia and the huge Vittoriano.Built to celebrate the unification of Italy it now houses the tomb of the unknown soldier.
We stood at the top of the steps at noon as the soldiers changed guard and then as if by magic the heavens opened and it poured with rain. We started to walk back tithe main station passing Romanruinson our way.
As we approached the Colosseum, which incidentally was covered in scaffolding, the rain got worse so we hailed a cab. By the time we got back to Civitavecchia the sun had returned to the sky as we had a pleasant walk back towards the ship.....
....passing an interesting statue on the way.
The rest of the late afternoon was spent sitting in the sun until we set sail for our next stop, Naples.
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