Today, our port destination was Rome.  Ted and I decided to take the day off and to stay onboard the ship.  We made that decision after some discussion, not because we didn’t want to see Rome but because, when we spent five days in Rome in 2019, we had such outstanding private tours of the Eternal City that we knew today’s scheduled tours would be disappointing. 

Our hours-long 2019 tours included only the two of us and an extremely knowledgeable guide who shared in-depth and interesting information about the Coliseum and the Forum (the best tour we have ever had anywhere); St. Peter’s Basilica and the Sistine Chapel; and the Vatican museums. We also had a city tour drive that stopped at lesser-known sites such as the Pantheon, the Capital Hill complex designed by Michelangelo, and St. Mary’s Basilica, which is decorated with paintings by Michelangelo.  (Can you even imagine attending church every week, surrounded by Michelangelo’s work?)   Our hotel was a short walk from the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain, so we visited those sites daily, just because we could. 

Viking offered excursions to the most popular sites—all of which we visited in 2019.  With only one day in Rome, a Viking excursion would have allowed us to visit only one site for about three hours, spending most of the allotted time on our own after hearing an overview from a local guide.  We decided we didn’t want to spend the day talking about how much better our 2019 visit to Rome had been.

Instead, we enjoyed sleeping later than usual and then relaxing in the Winter Garden with coffee and hot chocolate.  After lunch, we used the free laundry (there’s a free laundry on every passenger deck) to provide us with enough clean clothes to last until we get home.  There was no line for the washers and dryers because most passengers had—not surprisingly–chosen to go into Rome.

Casting off is entertainment for a lot of people, so Ted and I were sitting on our veranda to watch the port area recede into the distance when a flock of seagulls surrounded our ship.  While we were sitting there, one of the gulls flew parallel to our ship and just a few feet away from our veranda for nearly a full minute before the ship picked up enough speed to outpace it.  It was kind of neat to move forward with a bird at our sides.  

We had nothing important to do immediately after dinner, so we counted the offerings on the ship’s buffet, then ended the day by going to the pool deck to watch Roman Holiday under the stars.  The entire day and evening were a nice change of pace from walking up and down hills and absorbing new information every day.