Rome wasn't built in a day... uh, clearly!

On Tuesday, we arrived in Civitavecchia, which lays about 80 minutes away from Rome by train. This little town is really quite adorable, and has pretty much everything a person could need, and yet I spent most of my time there in the Subway where there was free internet. Feel free to judge me.

On this first day, my friend and I made our way to Rome on the train and got to Rome around 10:30 am. What a freaking AMAZING city!! I love how the old city has combined with the new city, and everywhere you turn there is an ancient ruin or something equally awesome. We first went to the Colosseum, but didn't go inside that day; then we went to the Roman Forum and the Capitoline Museum... both full of Roman sculptures and ruins which are both fantastic. It was so very hot and humid, so we stoped for lunch at a small cafe and had some amazing pasta. Our waiter was absolutely hilarious, he asked us where we were from, and then did an impression of Eminem hahaha the relevance still escapes me! We then walked to the Pantheon, but found that it was closed because it was a holiday, All Saints Day, or something like that. Bummed out as we were, we found some amazing gelato to comfort us. And I mean AMAZING, holy crap I could eat that stuff everyday of my life! We then wandered around a bit more and stumbled on Trevi Fountain where we made wishes and threw coins into the water. By this time is was getting kind of late, so we stoped for dinner and had some pizza and several glasses or red wine ha ha! Making our way back to the train station was quite a challenge as Italian drivers don't feel the need to stop for pedestrians... but we survived!

Wednesday morning came much too soon, and at 8:30 am, I joined a tour group called Rome on Your Own, and that's just what I did, sorry Mom! I felt completely comfortable in this city and there was so much that I wanted to see that I didn't really feel like waiting for a group of people to form. I made my way across the city by metro to the Colosseum, where I didn't have to wait in line, thanks to our excellent guide that drove us to Rome that morning. The Colosseum was beautiful despite its state of ruin,and provided great views of the Forum and Arch of Constantine. I stopped for a quick lunch of handmade pasta, YUM, and then went to the Pantheon for the second time. I'm so glad that I did too because this building is spectacular and I think I could have sat there for a few hours at least. I stopped again at the same gelato place as the day before, and then began what I'm calling a "Where Did Tom Hanks Go in Angels & Demons?" tour around the city, and finished it with a tour of the Vatican the following day.

St. Peter's is absolutely HUGE, very intimidating and beautiful at the same time, and the lines weren't too bad! It was so amazing/weird to see all that I had studied in the past few years in my art history classes in one spot! The Vatican Museum was equally amazing, and I heard that if you were to pause and look at each piece of art there for 5 seconds, you would be in the museum for 8 years... sounded crazy to me at first, but after walking through the many many galleries, I started to believe it! The walk through the Vatican Museum ended in the Sistine Chapel... Holy crap I've been to the Sisten Chapel! ha ha I'm starting to feel like an art history badass, or just more of a nerd... either works for me. On Friday I had a SAS tour that took us to some ancient Roman catacombs and this super creepy church with rooms decorated with the bones of monks... eeekk! The catacombs were very creepy and the tunnels extended for 20 kilometers below the surface, just enough space to get completely lost in! Every once in a while the lights would go off while we were down there, of course we would freak out and our guide would just laugh at us.. but come on, that's pretty scary! This tour ended at about 12:30, and having seen most everything that I could think of to see in Rome, I headed back to Civitavecchia and the ship. (my feet surely appreciated this!)

Saturday was our first day in Naples, Italy, and I joined to girls on a day trip to Pompeii, which was a challenge! In each port so far SAS has provided a shuttle bus to get us out of the port area and into the city... but this time it was a total FAIL! The shuttle driver didn't seem too pleased to be driving us anywhere, and when we finally got off the bus, we had gone in the complete opposite direction of the train station. Walking back was super creepy, ha ha one guy offered to drive us to Pompeii and back for 70E... when it only cost us around 16E plus admission into the ruins. What a creeper that guy was! We finally made it to Pompeii and walked around for a long time in the crazy humidity and heat. Mt. Vesuvius lay off in the distance with an eerie puff of cloud/smoke/something scary coming out of the top... which was really unsettling considering I had plans to climb it the next day! Once back in Naples, we found some fantastic pizza and headed back to the ship absolutely worn out!

Yesterday I safely hiked up Mt. Vesuvius, which was an amazing experience... I mean it's a volcano! It was really humid so the views weren't that great as there was a blanket of clouds between the peak and Naples and the other surrounding cities. But it was still beautiful! Having realized that it was the 4th of July, we celebrated by drinking wine that was made from grapes cultivated on the mountain (you can't pass up three bottles of really good wine for 8E!) We went out for pizza again last night, and found that everything, and I mean EVERYTHING is closed on Sundays. We were amazed to find a little place was still open, but didn't expect anything amazing! We were wrong. Naples knows how to do pizza, well it was invented here right?! I would be disappointed otherwise. Today is our last day in Italy, man it went by really fast!! Tonight the crew is doing a 4th of July cook out, and I guess they do this very well! I'm looking forward to it, but am sad that I missed out on Granny potato salad!

We'll be in Croatia on Thursday!! I don't really know what to expect from this port, but I've heard it's beautiful, but also that there are nudist beaches, which I will be avoiding at all costs!

LOVE LOVE LOVE