Thursday 18th April
We have had three days at sea. Yesterday we passed Mount Etna - there was snow on the upper slopes but no volcanic activity visible, a few hours later we passed the volcano Stromboli which had some smoke or steam coming out of one of its vents. Today we have arrived at the port of Civitavecchia which is the port for Rome. We travelled to Rome by coach and had a wander around during the morning, stopping for a very expensive cup of coffee in the Piazza Navona.
In the afternoon we met with our group to take a guided tour of the Vatican City. We started in the Vatican Museum where we saw many galleries, rooms and a couple of courtyards. It was all very beautiful particularly the ceilings. The photo was taken in the gallery of maps and shows a very impressive ceiling. The walls of the gallery, as the name suggests, is full of maps of all the different regions of Italy. We then went into the Sistine Chapel to see amongst others, the wonderful works of Michelangelo - 'Creation of the World' and 'The Last Judgement'. It is an amazing place. From here we went into St. Peter's Basilica. The Basilica is built on the site of the Circus of Nero where early Christians died and is where St. Peter is buried. Only the crypt of the original church that was built in 306 by Constantine survives today. Today's basilica took over 100 years to build and the tomb of St. Peter is under the High Altar. All the pictures in the church are mosaics.
When we left St. Peter's we saw the Vatican guard - the Swiss Guard changing over.
Wonderful weather in Rome and a wonderful visit to the Vatican.