Italian Cruise 2021 - Day 5

Wednesday, 10/20

Rome

Walking til the cows came home

Another breakfast in the buffet, at about 6 am, because most of the restaurants didn’t open early enough to let us eat and get to the auditorium on time. I had one skinny little omelet, 4 pieces of bacon, 2 slices of pineapple, and some orange juice. I dawned on me that I wasn’t eating much, but honestly, nothing else appealed to me.

Rome is not a port city, it was located about 70 km from the port. It took us about an hour to reach the city, where the guide immediately started pointing out churches, the old city wall, important buildings, while the driver took the bus off the highway and through progressively skinnier and skinnier streets. Eventually, the bus stopped, and we all got off, were introduced to the woman who would be leading us through town and to the various sights we would see.

First was a famous fountain, but to get there, we had to walk about 45 minutes through very narrow streets over cobblestone sidewalks where the stones were not necessarily sturdy, some of them wobbled as you walked on them. We were given about 15 minutes to admire the fountain, and then we were off again.

Walking, walking, walking, until we reached a ‘new!’ monument, only 100 years old. According to the tour guide, nobody liked it because it was the wrong style, and didn’t fit in with its surroundings. Here we were given a few minutes to take some pictures of this unliked monument, and then we were off again.

We could see a bit of the coliseum from that monument, 3 or 4 blocks away, and that was where we were headed next. On the way there, we walked past excavations of pieces of ancient Rome, and the lady guide occasionally stopped to tell us about one or another. Otherwise, I would not have managed to keep up.

We reached the Coliseum about noon, and had to show our vaccination cards and go through a security check point to get in. We were about to climb a couple of staircases to the third floor when Philip, the tour guide from the bus, gathered a group of about 6 who were having trouble keeping up, and took us to the elevator to go up to the 3^rd floor. I found out later that the coliseum originally had 28 elevators in it, each operated with weights, ropes and the muscles of 40 slaves to transport them up and down. These days, the coliseum only has 1 elevator, or, technically, 2; 1 to go up only, and 1 to go down only.

On the 3^rd floor, we reunited with the group, and walked past various displays explaining the history of the coliseum. After the games were discontinued, it became homes for the poor, and sometime after that, the rich moved in, making homes for themselves. The footing we were walking on was not very smooth, and I was rapidly losing my capacity to pay attention to the voice in my ear. (Each member of the group had been issued a small radio and an ear phone, so the tour guide did not need to bellow for us to hear her.)

The same small group that took the elevator up was peeled off to take the elevator down with Phillip, while the rest of the group followed the woman around the 3^rd floor of the coliseum. When we met up again, the group was headed for the Forum. But Phillip took pity on 3 fat old ladies (myself included) and took us to a small ‘snack bar’ about a block away, where we sat and cooled off and had a drink. After a while, Philip took us to the bus, which had relocated to be closer, and a few minutes later, the rest of the group appeared and rejoined us.

This time when we got off the bus, we walked ¾ of the way around a city block to get to a restaurant. We went inside and down the stairs to what appeared to be an ‘event’ room, where we all took seats. This was around 2 in the afternoon. We were served some pasta and bread to start with, and the wine was opened. John told me it a dry wine, so I didn’t bother to get any. The 2^nd course consisted of some sliced beef and French fries, and neither one of us can remember if there was anything else. Dessert was a wedge of two-toned gelato (ice cream). Certainly nothing to write home about. The meat was so bland, it reminded me of my mother’s cooking, and not on a good day. We were, to put it mildly, disappointed in the meal.

Then we had one more thing to see, and that was the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City. Vatican City, it turned out, was just the other side of the street, but once we crossed that street, we still had to walk 2 or 3 blocks to skirt around the edge to an entrance. After giving us a short talk about the chapel, and pointing out where we would meet, we were given 15 minutes to snap pictures and shop. John bought a magnet from the shop and 4 bracelets from a street vendor. I found a stone to sit on and waited for the tour guides to take us back to the bus.

Finally, it was time to go, and the bus was around 4 or 5 blocks away. I was beginning to think the walking would never end. But we finally reached the bus, and bade good-bye to the lady tour guide.

I had dozed on the drive into Rome, but dozing was beyond me on the way back to the ship. It was horrifyingly fascinating to watch the drivers in Rome. Philip had already mentioned that Romans park wherever they liked, and there was certainly plenty of evidence of that! Vehicles were parked with mere inches between them, and sometimes perpendicular to the rest of the cars parked there. Or double-parked. Motorcycles were parked on the islands between lanes. It struck me as madness.

I am left with a definite impression of Rome as a dirty city. Graffiti was everywhere, but I kept telling myself that it was a time-honored tradition, because the coliseum had had lots of graffiti dating all the way back to the early days of its existence. Some of the ‘dirt’ was probably leaves that had fallen off the trees (it was the latter part of October, after all) and been trampled into something resembling dirt. But everywhere I looked, there were bits and pieces of paper scampering about on the breeze.