{"id":344,"date":"2008-09-23T23:02:20","date_gmt":"2008-09-24T05:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/codyreport.com\/blog\/?p=344"},"modified":"2008-09-23T23:05:23","modified_gmt":"2008-09-24T05:05:23","slug":"vacation-recap-part-4-cruise-day-5-rome-italy-vatican-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/codyreport.com\/blog\/2008\/09\/23\/vacation-recap-part-4-cruise-day-5-rome-italy-vatican-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Vacation Recap Part 4: Cruise Day 5- Rome, Italy & Vatican City"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Thursday finally arrived and the entire Cody family was excited about seeing Rome.\u00a0 After another early start, we were made the 1 1\/2 hour drive (maybe a bit longer once we hit the Rome traffic) from the port in Civitavecchia to Rome with our tour guide, Andrea, who made very clear that although his<\/strong> name in the US was a feminine name, this was NOT the case in Italy and certainly did not describe him.\u00a0 Apparently Andrea is a very popular male name in Italy.<\/p>\n

Once we arrived in Rome and maneuvered through the VERY crowded streets, we met our local tour guide, Adele, and began our tour.\u00a0 Our first stop was at the Roman Forum<\/a>, which was the city square and central hub of the Roma civilization.\u00a0 I should mention that in many of the pictures, you will see us with lanyards around our necks and earphones in our ears<\/a>.\u00a0 The earphones allowed us to hear our tour guide talking and explaining the different sites as we walked so everyone could hear and we didn’t have to try to huddle together to hear what she was saying in the large crowds of people.\u00a0 After spending some time learning about the Roman forum and some of the structures<\/a>, we headed to the Colosseum<\/a>.\u00a0 We started a few blocks away and ended up right next to the structure where we could see the aracades<\/a>.\u00a0 The Colosseum is in its present state due to earthquakes and stone robbers, but we also learned that large metal plates that were part of the construction were removed and used for other construction, which left holes in certain areas<\/a> of the Colosseum. \u00a0 Did you know the Colosseum was made from travertine stone?\u00a0 I did not know that until our tour guide told us about the construction.\u00a0 Just adjacent to the Colosseum was the Arch of Contstantine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After visiting the Roman Forum and Colosseum, we returned to our van and drove to lunch.\u00a0 Along the way, we passed by the Ikea trucks<\/a> who were apparently delivering catalogs or something.\u00a0 How interesting!\u00a0 We also passed by the most photographed person in Italy<\/a>, and some union protesters<\/a>.\u00a0 After enjoying a quiet lunch at a first class Italian restaurant<\/a>, we made our way to Vatican City<\/a>.\u00a0 Vactican City is it’s own city-state within Rome and is the smallest independent state in the world in both population and area.\u00a0 Citizenship must be granted to people and usually consists of those who work at the Vatican (and may include their spouse and children)…so mainly the Pope and certain clergy.\u00a0 Citizenship is revoked upon termination.\u00a0 The good part about being a part of a small excursion tour was that we had a reservation to visit the Vatican in the afternoon and were able to bypass the LONG LONG lines of people waiting outside in the hot sun.<\/p>\n

Once inside the Vatican, we were again in awe<\/a>.\u00a0 The detail and architecture is incredible<\/a>.\u00a0 Everywhere we turned, we saw famous art<\/a>, or beautiful ceilings<\/a> or floors<\/a>.\u00a0 There was also a corridor full of amazing tapestry<\/a>.\u00a0 Of course the highlight of the Vatican visit was being able to see the Sistine Chapel, which we were not allowed to use photography or videography while inside, but click here<\/a> for a picture of us leaving the chapel \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 After leaving the Sistine Chapel, we headed to St. Peter’s Basilica.\u00a0 Even the doors<\/a> were amazing.\u00a0 One of the first things you notice upon entering is the Piet\u00e0<\/a>, the famous sculpture of Michelangelo.\u00a0 Then you are just drawn in by the detail in every millimeter<\/a> of the building.\u00a0 It was a wow<\/a> moment everyone your eyes hit<\/a>.\u00a0 There was also a beautiful pulpit<\/a>.\u00a0 We were truly amazed<\/a>.\u00a0 After taking in the beauty of the inside, we took more pictures <\/a>outside in the square<\/a>.\u00a0 We also saw the Swiss Guard<\/a>.\u00a0 It was a great day in Rome, but we eventually made our way back to the ship<\/a> in Civitavecchia (my new favorite word) and headed for Livorno (Florence) wondering<\/a> what great things we would see next.<\/p>\n

Oh… I almost forgot to say that while eating dinner that night just as we were about to leave the port, we saw several people arrive back at the ship late, but since there were several ships leaving at the same time, they made it back onto the ship despite the fact it was past our departure time.\u00a0 We do think we probably left at least 2 or 3 people in Rome who did not make it back on the ship.\u00a0 All aboard was always 30 minutes before the ship left, but in most cases, the city was not that far from the port as was the case in Rome.\u00a0 Hopefully they rejoined us at the next port.\u00a0 That is the one good reason to book your excursions through the cruise line b\/c if one of their excursions gets back late, the ship will wait, but if you are not part of an excursion booked through the cruise line, they will not wait.<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> for more pictures from Rome and Vatican City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday finally arrived and the entire Cody family was excited about seeing Rome.\u00a0 After another early start, we were made the 1 1\/2 hour drive (maybe a bit longer once we hit the Rome traffic) from the port in Civitavecchia to Rome with our tour guide, Andrea, who made very clear that although his name […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trips"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pmOjo-5y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/codyreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/codyreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/codyreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/codyreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/codyreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/codyreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":349,"href":"https:\/\/codyreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344\/revisions\/349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/codyreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/codyreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/codyreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}