Day Seventeen. Rome, Italy

We woke up early today (6am) as we need to depart for our tour to Rome at 7:15am. Rome does not have a port and the closest is Civitavecchia which is about 100km north. We settled in for the 1hr 15 min drive in. The tour was a small car with seven of us in it plus the driver.

First stop was a memorial overlooking the city. We took some photos and headed to the Parliament House. From here we went to the Colosseum.

The Colosseum was fantastic and the highlight of the day. There was a fair bit of scaffolding on the outside (a theme for the day) but the inside was great and quite grand. Even with the place being in ruins, you could still get a great appreciation for how it would have looked back in the day. We spent about 90 mins there and took plenty of photos. We met the driver at a coffee shop and after buying some Gelato we headed off for the next stop.

Next stop was another church which had some great paintings and sculptures. We must admit to being a bit 'churched out' at this stage of the trip but you still have to marvel at the detail that has gone into the construction.

We then went to the Trevi Fountain which was a big disappointment. It is currently under renovation, has no water in it and the entire facade is covered with scaffolding. We threw a coin in a small replica and headed back to the van. We will be back to see it at another time.

From here we went to the Spanish Steps. This was another disappointment as not only did the building at the top have a big scaffold and advertising banner on it, but we stopped at the top, bought a painting, and then we were supposed to go down the bottom. However, one lady from our tour got into an argument with the driver (he actually told her to 'shutuppa her face') and this resulted in us speeding off to the next stop.

This was another lookout over the Piazza Venezia which is a square with a statue in the middle of it. We also had views of the Pantheon and St Peters Basilica in Vatican City.

From here we went to the Piazza Navona which was a place where the Romans used to conduct chariot races. It is covered in buildings and shops now.

We then stopped at the Pantheon which is another church but the difference being it is a dome with a hole in the top. Quite an impressive engineering feat when you consider it was built in 126 AD.

Our next stop was lunch at a traditional Italian 'Ristorante'. We had a great meal of pasta, bruschetta, arancini balls, red wine and veal. We were all very full after that and then headed to Vatican City.

We headed for the Sistine Chapel and this was no mean feat. Herded through a labyrinth of corridors and passage ways filled with sculptures and wall and ceiling paintings, it was similar to the Louvre albeit smaller.

We finally got to the Sistine Chapel and it was very crowed, and claustrophobic but amazing all the same. To be standing in a large room with high ceilings that were painted by Michelangelo was very special.

From here we made our way to St Peter Basilica and St Peter's Square which is where the Pope does his best masses. It was grand and absolutely packed with probably 8 - 10,000 people. We took more photos and then headed to our pre-determined meeting point with the driver.

It was 4:45pm and we had two hours to get back to the ship before it departed. After 60 nervous minutes sitting in peak our traffic our driver took a 'shortcut', got back on the freeway and then sat on 150kmph to get us to the port on time. We got there with 15 minutes to spare and he was a happy man when he dropped off the problem passenger at a different ship. When he dropped us off we all tipped him 60 Euro for getting us there on time, had a laugh about the problem passenger and jumped back on the ship.

Traffic must have been bad as we were 1 hour late departing and we sat on our balcony having a few drinks and watching the late comers race back on board.

We went up for dinner and then headed back to our rooms as we had all intentions of watching a Beatles tribute show afterwards but were all too tired to do so. We headed to bed about 10pm ready for another tour tomorrow taking in Livorno, Pisa and Luca.