Day 0 Of Cruise - Rome, Italy
Well, the day finally came. After 16 hours of travelling we finally arrived in Rome at 9am on a warm (Christie - it was hot!!) humid morning. Arriving at the airport was interesting. After walking between 1/4 and 1/2 a mile through the airport, we arrived at the customs lines. This huge room was full of "lines" to get your passport checked and get your entry stamp into Italy. I say "lines" because it was more like a big huge mob of people moving slowly towards a row of customs officials who gave your passport a cursory look and waved you through. We chose a line and waited. Luckily, we wisely chose a line where the customs booth (that we couldn't see from the back) was marked "Chiuso" - Closed. This turned out to be the fastest moving line. The "line" a couple of booths down that was marked "Non-EU" never moved the entire time we were waiting (about 20 minutes). We collected our luggage and, after getting some vague directions to our hotel from a Carnival Cruise lines representative we walked through the second part of customs that consisted of a couple of customs officers standing along the edge of a 20ft wide hallway with tables along the sides. I guess they only stop you if you look suspicious.
After getting out of customs around 9:30am, we stumbled to our hotel by following the convenient signs (our hotel was connected to the airport) and thankfully managed to get our room. We had booked a private tour of the ancient sites of Rome and had to be downtown by noon so we dropped off our bags and freshened up prior to heading to the train station into downtown Rome. We managed to get to the airport train station about 10:34 (the train leaves every half hour at :07 and :37) and Lael managed to quickly get us some tickets to Termini station and we caught the 10:37 train about 1 minute before it left. After the half-hour ride to downtown Rome, we did the ~3/4 mile walk through underground tunnels to the Metro station and used one of their convenient automatic ticket boxes to get some Metro tickets. The Rome train and Metro stations are actually fairly easy to use for travellers. After leaving the Metro the Colosseum was directly in front of us.
After taking a few pictures of the Colosseum we headed off to the Arch of Constantine to wait for the guide that was supposed to take us around Rome. The tour was going to be a walking tour of a bunch of the major sites and it was supposed to take about 4 to 5 hours. We waited...and waited...and waited. We picked up some gelato (Italian version of ice cream), and some water while we were waiting (Christie - OMG!!! I would love to live off Gelato!!!). We were to supposed to meet our guide at noon - who was supposed to be actively looking for us. We got to the Arch at 11:45 am and at 12:30 pm we gave up on the private guide and hooked onto one of the many public tours of the Colosseum & Capitoline Hill. (Christie - Thank God the tour guide didn't show. I was thrilled not to be tied to a 4 - 5 hour tour...I was TIRED!!!!)
The Colosseum was very interesting. The guide provided us with quite a bit of history as we walked around the entire outside of the building. There are 80 entrances around the entire outside of the structure, 4 of which (at the compass points) are reserved for special purposes. The Roman Emperors would enter from the North entrance and the stones that they walked on are still there today (Lael - I stood where the Emperors walked =)). The Senators entered from the South. The Gladiators and animals would enter from the East and West entrances directly onto the battlefield in the center. The guide tried to impress on us just how much of a spectacle would occur inside by describing a particular event where there were 20 Elephants and 100 Lions in the arena fighting. This would be the first time these people would see an elephant or lion in their life...think about that for a second and you realize just what that would be like. Something you can see from the picture is that there is actually a structure underneath the Colosseum. This sub-structure could actually be flooded and water battles would take place there.
After the Colosseum we bowed out of the guided tour and walked a small part of the Capitoline Hill on our own. Right next to the Capitoline Hill is the Roman Forum (picture at right). This is a huge area with many ruins including the Temples of Romulus and Remus. Most of it is not there structurally, however with a little imagination you can see a huge square surrounded by beautiful temples and people going about their every day business. Several blocks from the Forum is the Victor Emmanuel II Monument. Then about 1/2 mile or so away from the monument is the Trevi Fountain. Christie - Lael decided not to tell me exactly where we were going next because he knew I would whine about wanting to go back to the hotel and take a nap...being up for almost 20 hours! It was worth not knowing where we were going because we ended up at Trevi Fountain.
Thankfully after Trevi Fountain we went back to the hotel. It was an extremely good idea to arrive early and see Rome. Not only was it amazing, but it forced us to stay up until 4:30pm. We then took a 2 hour nap before eating dinner at the hotel and retuning back to bed. This really helped us acclimate to the time zone changes. Christie - One thing I noticed was the women that bought backpack style purses would almost always wear them on their chests instead of their backs. I knew that this was for the pickpockets but it was just different to see it.
Arch of Constantine
Outside of the Colosseum
Inside of the Colosseum
Roman Forum
Victor Emmanuel II Monument
Trevi Fountain
Back to Main Page
