Rome, Italy.

They used to say that all roads lead to Rome, or Roma as they call it locally. That may be the case but the port town of Civitavecchia was some 90 minutes by train or around an hour by bus or car from Rome. I had also made the mistake of not realising that the tour desk for Rome had closed some days earlier. So it was a choice of stay in the local port or make our own arrangements to Roma.

Once we were ashore a lady from a local tour firm was offering advice and local hire tours. She offered us a Private Taxi for the day and after agreeing a price we had our very own airconditioned car with a driver, who would take us to anywhere we wanted and wait. Dusan said he nearly fainted when I agreed to the price of 200 Euro. When you consider that the cheapest ship offered tour was around 170 USD I didnt think the services of a private driver for over 6 hours was bad.

The journey took around 60 minutes and our driver, Andresso spoke no English. We speaking no Italian managed our way to communicate for the day. He asked where we would like to see by showing us a tourist map of the city and started our day with visiting the Vatican Square. We had too little time in one day to take 2 hours to visit the Vatican Museum. That would have to wait till our next trip to Roma.

Andresso waited till the agreed time and then took us on to all the sites and more we had asked to visit, the Spanish Steps, the Parnatheon, the Trevvi Fountain, some famous churches and bridges too many to mention, a couple of hills so we could take panaramic shots of the city and he even escorted us to some of the points so that he could take a picture of us together. Finally we ended the day at the Colleseum, paid our fees and went inside. I was amazed at not only how big it was but how intact it was too. You see pictures and it looks parcial but the entire outer edge is intact and we were able to go in and up to the first floor too.

We finally, worn out from seeing so much made our way back to the Ship where Allesandros dropped us at the gangway. Rome in a Day, if it was possible, we achieved. Lucky Bitches!