After our lovely first day in Italy, some nasty sinus infection came up and punched me right in the face, and I went down. I thought about staying on the ship and skipping Rome since we’re going to be back in a couple of weeks with Debbie and Donald, but I decided to suck it up, drag my butt out of bed, and go be a good tourist. I did, however, decide to leave all of my camera equipment onboard; I didn’t feel like having that 20 lb bag strapped to my back all day; my iPhone would have to do.
Shortest tour ever.
Not for us. The shortest tour award goes to a woman we call Skeletor….ok, I call her Skeletor, Kevin just calls her the lady with unfortunate plastic surgery. Again, he’s so nice; unfortunate plastic surgery is an understatement. She looks like someone took fish hooks, attached them to the perimeter of her face, and then pulled them as tight as they could behind her head and tied off the line. She’s also had her lips injected to their maximum capacity (think Goldie Hawn in The First Wives Club). That combined with the fact that she’s pencil-thin, to a point where a brisk breeze could knock her down, creates an unusually creepy look.
Each tour you select is given a rating from 1-3, 1 being a non-strenuous activity that’s suitable for most people, 3 being a strenuous activity that requires a considerable amount of walking, climbing stairs, etc. The Rome excursion was given a rating of three. Obviously, Skeletor selected this tour and completely ignored the activity rating.
The tour started with a short bus ride to the train station. We then had to exit the bus, walk to the main entrance, and go down a flight of stairs leading to the platform area. Skeletor started complaining as soon as she was getting off of the bus; she felt the group was moving too fast (we weren’t). We had to slow down enough for her to keep up with us, the entire time having to listen to her complain about having to walk so fast. As she got to the stairwell, she let out a big groan and slowly started her descent. She only got five steps down before she dramatically conceded her defeat and told her husband that she needed to return to the ship, but that he should continue on without her. I’m not sure how she thought she was going to make it back by herself. Of course, the husband stayed behind with her…or at least we think he did. The group b-lined it to the train at full speed the second she said she was returning, and we didn’t look back. I’m sure the group leader called someone on the ship to come and fetch them…probably.
Scouting things out.
Our tour wasn’t structured. As soon as we were led into the city, we were set free to do what we wanted for seven hours. Thank goodness for the hop-on hop-off busses. I wasn’t feeling well enough to walk all over the city, or stand in line to see an attraction, so Kevin and I decided to tour the city on one of these busses to help plot our course for our return visit.
Rome is much bigger than I thought it would be, and just like Florence, is full of people. Kevin and I found that if we left the main areas and explored the side and back streets, things were much more pleasant. We found a cute little restaurant where we ate the most amazing pizza I’ve ever had, and we found a plethora of cute little stores and boutiques. We got completely lost at one point (there are so many little streets, going in all different directions, all looking fairly similar), but our iPhones came to the rescue. And even though I was trying to limit my activity, we still walked 10 miles. I felt like the walking dead.
I’m really excited about returning here, although we’ll be going to see some of the main attractions, which means waiting in lines and dealing with pushy tourists. Oh well, I’ll cope and deal; it’s always worth it in the end.