Life with Two Superheroes: Mediterranean Cruise, Day 12

We ate our final breakfast on the ship in the Lido this morning and disembarked around 9:00. Our Hotel Napoleon transfer was waiting for us just outside the terminal. We waved a final farewell to the Zuiderdam and got on the Mercedes minibus. It was a pretty long drive to Rome from Civitavecchia. The group was pretty chatty for about 20 minutes and then it was pretty quiet until we got into the city. -James

I'd booked our transfer directly through the hotel. It was significantly cheaper than booking through HAL and comparably priced to booking it on our own, but with the added benefit of our driver knowing exactly where to go in Rome. We were all a little sad to leave the ship - we had really enjoyed our upgraded Neptune suite and each of our different ports!

Oftentimes, when booking hotels, I agonize over which to choose, spending a lot of time reading reviews and mapping routes to tourist spots. We booked this trip fairly late and in the midst of a pretty crazy summer, so I didn't have time for that. I had some time one afternoon after dropping a kid at camp and running errands before I had to pick whichever kid up again. I popped into the public library and got on the wifi to look for hotels. After my 20 minutes were up, I shot Kathy a quick email saying something to the effect of: here's three possible hotels, but we may need to look more. She liked one and booked it. We had our neighbor who is fluent in Italian and a frequent visitor to Rome take a look; she gave it her stamp of approval. With a little hesitation, I took it off my list of things to do. And - it worked out! The hotel was really wonderful. The staff was extremely helpful and very knowledgeable - able to direct us on just about any mode of public transportation to wherever we wanted to go. Breakfast was unusually hearty for a European hotel. The metro was about 10 steps from the front door. So - Hotel Napolean = highly recommended!

Waiting for our tour...

We checked into the hotel and took advantage of the WiFi while we waited for our rooms. We finally gave up on the “5 more minutes” until your room is ready (the Italians are as bad as the Islanders) and took the metro to the Vatican. We found a pizza place on the way and then met up with our tour. Elena seemed like she would be good when we met her. She was nice and didn’t seem to have a strong accent in one-on-one conversation. But when we got in the museum and you couldn’t see her and her mic was picking up all the background noise and there were echoes off the marble walls and floors and her accent got worse as she talked fast and the tongue piercing didn’t help, she was practically unintelligible. We finally gave up after 20 minutes and turned in our radios. It was very disappointing. We went off on our own and did the museum (at a sprint), a long hall with tapestries and awesome maps, and the Raphael rooms. These were supposed to be worth seeing, but we couldn’t really figure out why. I mean they were nice Raphael paintings, but we were missing some symbolism somewhere. -James

This is where the tour would have been helpful! I know it's kind of terrible, but we wanted the highlights tour - tell us what we should know about the famous stuff...the Raphaels, the Sistine Chapel, etc. Elena had explained that she couldn't narrate in either the Sistine Chapel or in St. Peters, which were two of the places where I wanted the most explanation! It was hot and crowded and often hard to see the art because of all of the tour groups; our group got separated and we lost Kathy and Tony. [As an aside - I emailed City Wonders, the company that organized the tour, after we got back home. They apologized for our experiences and refunded us half of our cost. I thought that was pretty generous...but I'm still not sure I could bring myself to try another of their tours...]

No one even talks about the hallway ceilings, but they're pretty amazing too!

Today we got off the boat. We were in Rome. Then we took a shuttle to the hotel the rooms weren’t ready so we watched soccer in the lobby until we decided to leave and get on the metro to Vatican City. When we got there we had pizza. Then after pizza we had a tour. We couldn’t understand our tour guide so after a little bit we turned our radio thingamajigs and left the tour. We walked down a hallway full of maps on the wall. They were really cool because they were very detailed. They had little armies and army tents. Then we went to the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo painted it. He made the pope buy the paint for the sky. It’s made out of lapis lazuli and is the most expensive. Then we went to St. Peter’s. It was huge and had a big bronze altar in the middle by Bernini. Nana got communion. Then we left St. Peter’s. We saw the changing of the Swiss Guard. My dad took a video and some pictures. We left Vatican City and went back to the hotel and had a party with the owner there. We left the hotel again and got gelato and went to see the Colosseum at night. It was really cool. Then we went back to the hotel and went to bed. -Rudy

Today we had to get off the ship and we weren’t allowed back on. We got a bus that took us from the port to Rome. Then we went to our super-awesome hotel. We then went to Vatican City, the smallest country in the world! We tried to take a tour but the tour guide had a thick accent so it was really hard to understand. So we went to the Sistine Chapel where the ceiling is painted by Michael Angelo and is considered the best single piece of artwork by one person! Afterwards we went to St. Peters Basilica, the largest church in the world! We went back to the hotel and went to bed. -Brady

After searching for Mom and Dad for 15 minutes we found them in the Sistine chapel. We spent some time in there and it is still amazing. We went from there to St. Peter’s. I’m not sure the kids really understood the size of it b/c we went to the other churches later and they said, “This is about as big as St. Peter’s, right?” Uh, no. Not even close. I think they have two sizes of churches – church at home and then huge. At the huge end they can’t really differentiate. My mom snuck in and out of mass in time to take communion. We left St. Ps in time to watch the changing of the Swiss Guard. We mailed some post cards for the low price of 2.30 Euro each. The postman said in 1976 we could have bought and mailed 10 postcards to the US for $1.00. We took the metro back to the hotel and I’m sure we got gelato along the way. Kelly and I and the boys walked out to see the Colosseum in the evening. -James

Mailing our Florence postcards from the Vatican:

Do they look scared of the Swiss Guard?

Straddling two countries - Vatican City and Italy!

We were pretty beat when we left the Vatican so by the time we'd made it to the metro and rode back to the hotel, we were all wiped. We hadn't eaten since lunch, so were pleasantly surprised when the evening reception at the hotel included snacks and beverages. This was another perk to the Hotel Napolean. The owner was in the lounge, chatting with all of his guests and making sure everyone was comfortable. The kids and James had sodas and I took advantage of the free cocktail! This little break gave us the boost we needed to head back out for an evening stroll.

We asked the front desk where to get gelato and the concierge pointed us to the oldest gelateria in Rome. From there, we walked with our frozen treats towards the Colosseum. Rome at night is pretty special. I read somewhere that they intentionally light the city in a way that resembles torchlight; there are no glaring spotlights and everything just feels different under the moonlight. It was such a fun night, just strolling with our snacks and enjoying our time together.