Citaveccia, Italy - the port is an hour and a half from Rome.... disembarkation went very smoothly, though the port area we were in was definitely no-frills industrial - nothing to see or do there - but our comfortable bus was waiting to take us to downtown Rome, through lovely scenery - vineyards, olive groves,
As we approached the downtown area, we wound through narrow streets around the Vatican
and onto a side street to our hotel - an ultra modern 5 star marble lobby sort of building.... our rooms were not ready yet (10:30 am) but they stored our luggage in a secure area. leaving us free to wander the streets.
We were amazed to find that we were within walking distance of everything we wanted to see -
the Vatican - the Coliseum - Trevi Fountain .... and lots of picturesque little squares along the way. There were huge lines winding through St Peter's Square, so we satisfied ourselves with a walk around the square, rather than spending the entire day in line - that will wait for the next visit...no sign of the current Pope, but huge posters of John Paul II, following the recent celebrations surrounding his beatification process.
It was fairly crowded everywhere we went, but not nearly as bad as we expected, except for the area around the Trevi Fountain -
it was difficult to get close enough to throw our coins into the fountain, but we managed - after all, that will ensure our return to Rome one day!
And, for Chook's info, after leaving the fountain area, on these spotlessly clean and well swept streets, I caught a glimpse of shiny metal on the cobblestones, and found a lucky Italian penny! With my recent problems with tight stiff muscles, I seriously considered leaving it there, but couldn't - I very carefully bent down to pick it up and have added it to my collection of lucky coins found during the Sisters' recent visit to the Caribbean.
We stopped at a small cafe for lunch before walking to the Coliseum area. The cafe was 'interesting' - good food and lots of it, a basement washroom, totally spotless, but with just a toilet in the little room - the 'paper' was out in the hallway (luckily I always have a pocketful of kleenex), as was the sink, which was operated by a foot pump, which required some coordination, similar to a treadle sewing machine....
Our table was actually inside but wide doors left us open to the sidewalk, with lots of good people watching while we ate - a little old lady with three tiny dogs in a stroller - similar to those in Fish named Wanda .... lots of tour groups following leaders on foot, on buses, riding Segues ....
After resting our feet for a while, we headed toward the Coliseum -
well worth the walk. Again there were lines waiting to go inside, so we just toured around the perimeter, and again we vowed to come back another time.
By then we were pretty beat and started back toward the hotel, at a fairly slow pace. We ended up on a 'walking' street, very crowded - we thought perhaps it was closed to traffic because it was a Saturday, but all of a sudden we heard some music and saw a couple of men carrying a banner, followed by a marching band.... then some majorettes, another band, and another... and another .... we stood there for ages watching folk dancers, bands of every description, all ages, all levels of music, some who just ambled along disregarding the beat, instruments in good and bad condition ...
ending with an Italian Army group, who held back until there was a fair amount of space in front of them -
the leader then shouted a command and they all sprinted full speed as they played! What a show. After it was over, I asked a nearby policewoman what the occasion was, and her answer? "No occasion..... it was just a gathering of music associations .... in Rome, we do things like this all of the time"..... . We were so glad we happened upon it.
Eventually we arrived back at the hotel and what a treat that was! Our luggage had been taken to our room - our luxurious room - spacious, modern, windows that opened, huge bathroom with bidet....
We reorganized our luggage for tomorrow's flight, cleaned up and rested for a bit; as evening fell we headed down to the patio for a light meal - sandwiches and salad with a glass of wine.... the wine was delivered promptly and we sat and sipped, enjoying the ambiance....and we sipped, slowly, as we waited for our sandwiches to arrive .... after an hour or so, we flagged down the waiter and asked about our food - he apologized and promised to have it ready in 2 minutes .... and we waited.... 20 minutes later our plates arrived - toasted ham and cheese with salad ....it looked sooooo good ... but there were no forks for the salads..... I asked the waiter for a fork, he said 'yes, yes', and came back with napkins...... asked again for forks - he asked if we wanted olive oil for our salad - we said yes - he dropped off the olive oil, salt and pepper and scurried off. By this time it was getting funny - Ber's comment ... "when in Rome..." and started picking up bits of lettuce with his fingers..... finally we realized the waiter's English skills were lacking, so we recruited another tourist who spoke Italian to translate the word 'fork' for us - apparently it sounds like 'fork', but right away we received more napkins wrapped around forks..... thank goodness the sandwiches were very very good, but the bill for that simple meal was 45 euros!!!!! Coffee was 5 euros without cream, 6 euros with! We had a good laugh about the service - it was so elegantly bad, and in such a wonderful setting - the patio was quiet, softly lit, lots of greenery - a lovely atmosphere... eventually we headed to our room (#232)for the night.
The electronic room cards had only to be tapped on the sensor beside the door - Ber stopped at room 234 by mistake and tapped his card - I didn't hear any 'click' but pushed the door and it opened .... we were surprised to find the lights on and a little old lady sitting on the end of the bed .... luckily she was fully dressed! We apologized profusely and wondered why our key had opened her door, but it turned out that she had not closed her door properly .... what was really odd was her response ... it was a 'chookism' if ever there was one! All she said was "I'll be getting a bus to the airport in the morning".... .... We went next door to #232 and made sure to give the door an extra pull to make sure the lock mechanism clicked, and then settled into very very comfortable beds with very very luxurious linens..... 'Almost' worth the room rate of $600 - $800 a night!!! NOT! Fortunately our cruise package included the hotel and so we didn't have to think about that! But there we were, right in the city of Rome, sleeping with our windows open - the air was fresh and it was QUIET - not what we expected at all!
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