We disembarked a couple hours away from Rome. We arrived really early to our apartment located just a block from the Colosseum. Our accomadations were top notch and the staff could not have been better. We placed our things in the room and headed out to the Colosseum and for coffee. Then we headed via taxi to Vatican City. Super hot day and super crowded.
This is really just a hodge podge of pictures. Naturally we have been home for over a month and I need to finish this up before I forget things. I know I took a nap and John went to a church to light a candle for a friend of mine. I sure did appreciate that because I could not handle the heat. After the Vatican we had lunch at a really cute restaurant where the staff was great and so was the food.
When we returned to our apartment after the Vatican we had a little suprise in our room.
We went to dinner and met all the Brandt’s at a special restaurant. Everything was delicious. We ate, came home and walked to the Colosseum one last time to see it at night.
Not going to lie, walking around these cute towns is torture in this heat. Our last day we opted for renting a boat and visiting different towns and beaches. I love being on the water. The water here is so blue and beautiful. It was a little choppy but not enough to stop us. We had to rent 2 boats so we put all the kids in one and adults in the other. Two of the kids were 18 so technically there were adults on the boat with them.
We went to Porto Venere. It was a really cute town with a castle at the top of the hill. Believe it or not I made it to the top and then walked back down. After boarding our boats again, we stopped in a little cove and almost everyone jumped inn and swam a bit. Then the boat driver/owner bought everyone ice cream from the ice cream boat. Only the kids wanted ice cream. We went to another cove and again most everyone (literally meaning everyone but me) dove in and enjoyed the water. Such a fun day! We had to reboard the cruise ship early so we didn’t have much time for more. After boarding the ship we went to dinner int he main dining room, went to a Broadway Cabaret show which was fun. Then Leeman wanted us all to meet at the craps table. He insisted I throw the dice and apparently I made a lot of people happy. I actually throw 3 snake eyes–that’s two ones. It was nerve wracking when everyone at the table is wanting you to roll something good.
That pretty much sums up the day. Tomorrow we disembark and spend one day in Rome and then home the next day. Major photo dump coming soon.
We woke up refreshed and ready to go. Today we had to take a tender into port. The water was a little more choppy and getting into the tender was a little bouncy to say the least. It was also another scorcher of a day. We walked around and did some shopping with everyone then they left on a ferry to go to another area to go to a beach. We did not want to go to a beach because we are doing it tomorrow so we thought we would just go to Castle Brown. According to internet research it was a short walk-9 minutes, with a slight incline. I don’t know what an extreme incline is to them but this slight incline was pretty much straight up. I found a nice shady spot and told John to enjoy. I was ok living vicariously through John.
We hung out a bit and had a gelato but, there was no place to sit in the shade. It was super crowded, super hot, and super expensive shopping. We decided to head back to the ship. The water had gotten a little rougher and like an idiot I decided to sit up on top of the tender–thinking the fresh air would be good. Needless to say, there was fresh air but the tender moved so much more on top. And the guy driving our tender was moving so slow. I am usually fine if i am moving swiftly through the water but that wasn’t happening. Although I have a patch, I was getting a little motion sickness. We made it to the ship and I went and took a 2 hour nap. I went to the buffet with John but couldn’t find anything appealing. Ended up with a hamburger and fries but couldn’t eat much. By this time everyone else was coming back. We watched Christy’s tender come in but they were inside so we didn’t see them in it.
At 6:00 the Ventriloquist was performing in the Reflections Lounge so we went to see that. The girls joined us and then we left to get dinner. After dinner we went back to the Reflections Lounge with Loen and Bazlo and played the Musical Murder Mystery. It was a lot of fun and we didn’t win but then you had to know the name of songs and I am the worst person for that. Luckily there were a lot of oldies and John actually knew a lot of them. I decided to go back to the room and work on the blog and then get a good nights rest while John went to the theatre to listen to a pianist.
Tomorrow is our last stop. We will be in Florence and then the next day we disembark in Rome or near there.
