Adventures of the Golden Girls (AKA The Fab 4)

 Sorry I didn’t do this blog earlier.  We had to get up and get moving yesterday morning, so I didn’t have time. Thursday morning, we relaxed for a while at our place and we had some lunch there, eating up bits of things.  No rush.  But we had a tour booked for 1:45 pm over near the Coloseeum.  Off we went. Of all the tours done in Rome, in terms of the guide, stories, and items of little-known interest, this was the one.  First of all, this is how we got around.  It was fun. Our first stop was at a small church, along the Appian Way. The Appian Way was an extremely important road to the Romans.  If you took it all the way, to Brindisi, then across the Adriatic Sea, and kept going, you would end up in Istanbul (previously Constantinople).  “All roads lead to Rome.” So, the story here at this little church is that it contains the footsteps of where Peter turned around.  Jesus met Peter and told Peter to go back to Rome.  He was escap...

 Yesterday morning, on our agenda, we had a tour of Ancient Rome.  You canNOT come to Rome without seeing this stuff. We met up with our guide in the morning and a group of us started off with the Roman Forum.  I won’t bore you with all the spots we stopped at, but here are a couple of shots of the Forum from atop Palatine Hill.  This forum dates back to about the 8th C. BC.  The age of this stuff is incredible. And this is apparently the tomb of Julius Caesar.  Why people drop flowers there, I have no idea.  He was not the nicest person! And this is the Arch of Constantine - if I get this correctly - the first Roman Emperor who adopted Christianity.  He was in charge in the early 4th century, so around 325 AD. And, of course, the Colosseum.  Outside, then in. This is the Colosseum inside.  You can see people standing at the other end on a floor.  That’s where the floor used to be.  Everything in the middle is what was under gr...

Yesterday morning, we venture into the old city centre.  When we got off the bus at Piazza Venezia, this is the first thing we saw.  Called Vittortiano - Altar of the Fatherland - inaugurated in 1911. Our main goals were the next ones, though. Trevi Fountain The Pantheon And Piazza Navona While travelling from one to the other, we stopped for what we thought was a small snack and a beer at one of the many cafes/trattorias.  It ended up being quite a bit more in size (portions are rather large).  But it was most enjoyable. When we were done with this tramping around, we managed to flag down a taxi who took us to our meeting destination for the Vatican Museums tour we were doing this afternoon.   Another great shot of the dome. A couple of the loooonnggg hallways we walked through. I have to say, I don’t recall walking through all of the areas we walked through in the past.  Overall, we didn’t particularly enjoy the tour.  Our guide was very knowledgeabl...

 This morning we arrived at Rome’s port - Civitavecchia.  We were to be out of our cabins and downstairs getting our luggage by 7:45 am.  It had been packed up the night before and we were given labels to attach to the handle, which is where we would find them.  And presto!  There they were.  Nice not having to wheel them around on the boat.  And the elevators were pretty busy. Once we got outside, we eventually found our driver to take us into Rome.  It was about an hour and a half trip.  Traffic. We got to our place, a VRBO property, which is just south of Vatican City…about a 15-20 minute walk.  We first went to a bank machine.  Turns out we can’t use the machine if we don’t have a 5-digit PIN.  Hmmm.  So we figured out what to do from there.  Good job we have someone that has one of those! We then sat down to have a pint.  It sure is hot here.  We then went to the Market to buy some breakfast things and ...

 Yesterday was a sea day, so we just trotted around the ship here and there.  I have to show you a picture of a bag I bought in Malta though. Love it. We did pass through the Strait of Messina.  It runs between Sicily and the toe of the boot of Italy.  You can see mostly Sicily in the picture, but you can see the strait as well. I went upstairs at one point and saw this island out of a window on the other side.  It’s another volcano that is active in Italy!  Stromboli.  (Those are clouds, not spewing smoke.) So we landed in Naples this morning where we had a full-day excursion booked with the ship.  After getting organized, we headed over to Salerno by bus - the east end of the Amalfi Coast.  But first we stopped at a cameo shop in Naples.  I didn’t know that real cameos are made from shells of shellfish.  Quite beautiful - and quite expensive.  This is a guy carving one.  I guess that’s why it’s so expensive. And on we we...

 Yesterday morning, we landed in Malta.  What a beautiful port!  Across from us in the harbour were 3 peninsulas that stuck into the harbour, and they had buildings, obviously from the past. It was hard to get all 3 from where we were, but this is sort of what it looks like, as we were leaving.   We didn’t have anything planned for Malta, and the city of Valletta, but as we were going to walk into town, a cab driver talked us into having him take us around.  It sounded like a plan. So he first took us down to the south end of the island to the town of Marsaxlokk.  We wandered the harbour there for a bit, with lots of goodies to purchase, if we wanted. It’s a busy harbour.                                                   Saw this ice cream truck that had a cute name. After we left there, he took us to the Blue...