Monday, September 16, 2013

And back to Rome we go!, Wednesday, June 26th

Wednesday, June 26th

Today we are leaving the Epic and heading to Rome! I’m so looking forward to returning to Rome! We had just a short visit when we began this journey and now to end there will be perfect. This time we're renting an apartment. So far every part of this trip has been just as planned, hopefully it will continue! Fingers crossed!

I met Mimi and G-pop at Taste for our last breakfast on the ship while the kids and Keith slept in for just a little bit longer. Breakfast was pretty good. Nicer than the buffet, not so much because of the food, but because there was no crowds. We talked about how we enjoyed all of the ports we'd visited on both cruises far and how wonderful the cruise portion of this vacation had been.

We again decided to do the self disembark. Since my parents were on a different deck, we told them we’d meet them off the ship right by the walk way. We had no problems walking off and found them with ease. As I mentioned before, most people seemed to board in Barcelona so in Rome it seemed to be mainly people going into Rome for the day. Sure some people were walking off with suitcases but most seemed to be going on day tours. Also, the day tour people exited at a different deck I believe.



We had arranged for a private transfer with Walks of Italy and our driver picked us up promptly at 8:30. He called the owner of our apartment for us to let her know we were on our way and she met us right at the curb to welcome us. Prior to our trip she and I had spoken on the phone and she let me know that since we were arriving a bit early the cleaning crew would still be there. We could come in and drop off our luggage and go out for a few hours, then come back and get the tour and apartment instructions. I told her that would be perfect, as long as we could make it to our 12:30 scheduled tour of the Colosseum we’d be set!

So we arrived just as planned, she took us up to the apartment which was right at Largo Argentina and she showed us where to put our bags and where we could lock up any valuables that maybe we didn’t want to carry around the city (money, passports, etc). We got a whirlwind quick tour – to be done more in depth when we came back. She told us to come back in 2 hours. Alessandra, the owner was very kind, and very thorough. She asked us if we would like a map, or directions to a cafĂ©? 

By the way, the apartment was absolutely stunning! We’ll get back to that when we have our full tour and instructions, but we rented through Sleep in Italy and the pictures on the website were accurate and we were thoroughly impressed. This would be the perfect home for us for the next three days!

So we headed out, towards really the only place we knew we could go and get back in our time frame, based on our past visit, the Pantheon area. This is where our hotel was on our first night in Rome. We knew it was a short walk and we could stop and get a quick snack and just sit for a bit. Although the cafes right at the Piazza may be totally overpriced and touristy – it was fine for our two hours we had. We sat at one of the restaurants in the Piazza della Rotunda and had a light early lunch/snack and just felt so happy to be back in Rome! We enjoyed the time here sipping cappuccino, people watching and finishing it off with a Nutella crepe for Megan and I, and a churro for Alex!



Remember I told you Alex would go through sunglasses on this trip? Note the crack in the frame above his lens! This pair was about to go....the lens would pop out during this meal! Good grief! How can one teen go through so many pair of glasses in 3 weeks? Again we were on a quest for sunglasses!








Who knew you could get a churro in Rome?

Next up....our home for the next three days!

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