Piazza della Rotonda

Our Rome in Limo driver was waiting for us, holding up a sign as we came through Passport Control.
He insisted on wheeling our luggage and had us follow him from the terminal, across the street to a parking garage where a black Mercedes E Class waited. He didn't speak much English and our Italian only works in Hotels or restaurants so we didn't chat much on the 40 minute drive into the heart of Rome. I was busy shooting video and taking photos from the car anyway.

Soon we were in the tight narrow streets near the Pantheon. Our driver dropped us off at our home for the next two days-Albergo del Senato (Albergo is the Italian word for Hotel so you will see it a lot in Italy) After a warm "welcome back" we were escorted up to our room and looking out the window we saw this...

 While Carol did her Traditional "Immediate unpacking of the suitcase" I went down into the square known as Piazza Della Rotonda to take some photos.

That is our hotel across the square

The Pantheon draws a crowd. You don't need tickets-just walk right in as long as there isn't a religious service taking place. It opens at 9 am. It has been standing here in it's present form since 126 A.D and is lit within by the sun shining through a large circular hole in the roof. The rain that comes in falls into a circular drain on the floor, 142 feet below.

Our room is on the third floor with windows looking forward to the Pantheon and to the side onto a narrow street filled with hotels and cafes.

We allowed ourselves a 90 minute nap, a short sleep to take some of the "sting" out of being jet-lagged  now that our watches were 6 hours ahead of our bodies which thought we should be asleep in Chicago. Heavy metal shutters and thick curtains on our windows kept out the noise of the crowd and the bands playing in the square below.

Once awake and showered we were in need of coffee to help keep us awake through the day. On our previous visit our Rome in Limo driver, Franco, has recommended his favorite coffee shop. At the time it had lines of people waiting to get in so we didn't visit it. This time would be different as we were coming in the early afternoon, not the morning. We were lucky to get a table outside where we could watch Rome go by and enjoy the perfect weather and the perfect coffee.

The coffee costs more outside as you are paying for waitress service and the table but for us it is worth it. Here we can relax and enjoy the fresh air. I am drinking espresso doppio-double espresso and I had two of those while we sat- 4 espressos so I became wide awake! As you can see it was OK to smoke at the table.

Cafe Sant Eustachio

Our view

After an hour or so it was time to move along as Carol wanted to see some churches nearby.

Looking back to Sant Eustachio square

Lunch al fresco-but not for us. Our first meal would be dinner, much later.

The rear side of the Pantheon

Minerva Square

You can see the Pantheon dome in this shot and see we didn't have far to walk to visit our first church

We step into the church of Santa Maria Sopra which dates from 1370 A.D

 Flash photography is not allowed inside-which was fine by me as I don't often use flash anyway.

 Back outside and onward to our next (and last) church.

Here's a video to bring you up to date on our day so far. It begins in the car driving past the walls of the Vatican....

Cruise from Rome to Barcelona

I've shown you our cruise from Venice to Rome in September 2014...(March 2015 blog)

For our summer cruise a year later we had chosen a trip to the Baltic- Estonia, Sweden and Russia but as time went by we began to yearn to see Rome again and so canceled and instead found a cruise starting in Rome and visiting various Italian ports before terminating in Barcelona, Spain. Rome would be the only city we had visited before.We liked the idea of the warm Mediterranean with it's outdoor dining opportunities and ancient history, still alive today in the buildings left behind, over the cool of the Baltic.

We had been talking about Rome since our return home in late September. Neither of us had been in Italy for many years prior to that-in fact in my case my previous visit to Italy (Rimini) had been 49 years earlier!! How time flies...

To say we fell in love with Rome on that 2014 visit would be understating the matter. Every minute discovering that city was a joy.

Now with a new booking to arrange we immediately decided we would need two full days there before joining our ship in the port of Civitavecchia, 65 miles away.

As we would need transportation from the airport (Fumico) to our hotel and two days later a car from the hotel out to Civitavecchia I went on line and booked a car to do both using the excellent tour company Rome In Limo, which we had used a year before. The cost was $60 for the airport transfer and $160 to the port. You can pay in advance using a credit card. If you pay on the day you use their services you pay in Euros and we wanted to avoid carrying extra cash around when there was no need to.

With all the potential pickpockets in Rome awaiting our arrival the Euro cash we did take was carried in a money-belt I wore under my clothes and out of sight (and reach of pickpockets!).

We would need two hotels-one in Rome for two days and one in Barcelona for two days. For Rome we returned to Albergo del Senato which sits next to the Pantheon. It had been perfect for us a year before. For Barcelona I researched on Tripadvisor.com and found a classic elegant hotel which had been in business for 100 years-Hotel Majestic.

*This cruise was planned in March 2015 when we found we didn't have tickets to the Bayreuth Festival in Germany (see my first blog of the Festival in 2013) and Plan B was a cruise. The Baltic cruise we had originally booked and expected to cancel in favor of Bayreuth was now canceled in favor of Rome to Barcelona.

The itinerary which the cruise line changed when Tunis was considered too dangerous after some cruise passengers on MSC cruises were murdered by terrorists as they visited a museum. Salerno, near Naples, Italy would be substituted.

An app called Shipmate on my phone kept a countdown for us

 A weather app promised good weather in Rome during our weekend visit

When Wednesday September 23 finally came we were in O'Hare airport in Chicago waiting for our evening flight to Rome

Our aircraft was waiting for us

 And soon we were out on the runway as the sun was setting

Carol was anticipating what lay ahead after a 9 hour direct flight to Rome

And we are taking off on what should be another great adventure!

Arrivederci Chicago!

 Between movies and delicious meals I would keep track of our progress. I didn't sleep much.

By the time we had finished breakfast the West coast of Italy, North of Rome was appearing below us
(above us and it would have been a problem!)

And we are landing

The hardest part of our journey is over as we wait in a crowd for our luggage. Once we had our bags we would exit Baggage Claim and find our Rome in Limo driver waiting for us...

Next up- Rome!