Italy and Med Cruise Days 1 and 2-Travel and Vatican City

Cast-
Me-Janet-40-First trip to this area-from Atlanta Area
Dad-66 and Mom-65 from Arizona

Friday October 6th-
My hubby dropped me at the airport early because we had come directly from a meeting way across town about 3pm. I met up with mom and dad who had flown in from AZ and we waited for our 6:45 direct flight to Rome. Flight took off a little late but was fairly uneventful. I popped an Ambien before they served a poor excuse for dinner and I slept for about 4 hours which all things considered wasn't too bad.

We landed at 10:00am or so (4am Atlanta time and 1am Phoenix time.). My parents were a few rows ahead of me and apparently didn't have the same luck in the sleep department. We waited about 20 mins to use the restroom in the airport (this would become a theme.) and then we headed down to immigration and baggage pick up which took a fairly long time. We had a shuttle arranged and were glad to see someone holding a sign with our name. He spoke no English but also I don't think he spoke Italian either (ha ha) he drove 130 km in a 60 km zone the entire ride from the airport into downtown Rome but we were ok with that. :)

We arrived at our B&B around 1 I think and were met by the owner who had our little room ready to drop off our bags and stuff (which was nice.). We stayed at the Castel Saint Angelo and it worked out well. Fairly small but we didn't need much. It had a Queen bed and a single and one bathroom.

We decided to set out and head to Vatican City since we had the whole afternoon. We stopped on the way for a quick and expensive lunch from a cart. Two ham sandwiches, 1 "pizza" sandwich and 3 bottles of coke for $33 Euro or about $40. Yikes! It was a pretty quick walk and we waited in a very long line to enter St. Peter's. (Almost an hour). It was amazing, awe inspiring even. We used a predownloaded audio guide with ear buds on our phone and that was a nice way to tour. We thought about trying to stay for 5pm mass but it was only 4pm and we were beat.

We walked back towards our place past a park and some restaurants and came back to rest and try to figure out what to do about dinner. A lot of restaurants don't open til 7:30pm and we were too tired for that. So we ended up showering, changing and walking back to a place we passed near a park. For European newbies, you have to pay for water with your dinner, no tap water available. You also had to pay if you wanted bread. I stuck to wine, if I was paying to drink something it might as well be alcohol. We had some fairly basic pasta, pizza etc and they brought us some little chocolate wafers at the end which was nice. You also have to ask for the check, they won't bring it out automatically when you are done.

We walked back to the hotel, pretty darn tired. Especially mom and dad who had basically been up for 48 hours or something. I feel asleep quickly at 9pm, (3pm at home-crazy) but woke up wide awake at 11:45 and texted my hubby for awhile. Finally back asleep at around 1:30am and woke about 7am. Not a terrible adjustment to the time change.

Next up-A Day in Rome.

A great day in Rome! Our Rome day is a port stop on our cruise so we decided to go with a tour by Rome in Limo to make sure we hit all the highlights and are back to port in time.