This was the last night we would spend in Rome. After we returned to the apartment we all had to pack and be ready for the transport that would pick us up in the morning. The photo below is the room we had in Rome, though it was a little small it was pretty convenient for the things we wanted do.
Clarice and I decided we would go to an early church service at the church across the street from our apartment. The church building was actually pretty impressive, both inside and outside. I have a few photos below. We ended up going to the 7:00 AM service which was held in one of the side chapels. We couldn't understand a single word, I think they were speaking in tongues, or maybe it was Italian. Either way it was interesting to be there. Clarice and I got back to the apartment and Karen and I thought we would go out and get a quick breakfast at the coffee shop next door.
The door above the front door of the apartment where we stayed. The coffee shop right next door was a really convenient place to get a meal or a snack. After a quick breakfast we headed out to take a few photos of the neighborhood in which we had been staying.
This is the coffee shop, Big Ben's. They had good coffee.
We headed down the street taking pictures of a variety of buildings and street scapes.
This is the corner of the church across the street. The bus on the right is parked right in front of our apartment.
On the back side of the church was a wrap around stair way.
Apparently they don't want anyone using the steps however the whole thing was blocked off with a chain link fence.
Heading on down the street I wanted to get a picture of an interesting gas station.
We saw a couple of other gas stations like this. It was literally right on the sidewalk of this main road. Apparently you just parked at the curb and pumped your own gas, there was no attendant.
We crossed a broad boulevard to the other side of the street and walked up this tree lined sidewalk back toward the church. When we got to the end of this walk we were lined up with the back of the church.
There were some really nice buildings in this neighborhood.
Here are a few photos of the church. You can see that it was a pretty large structure.
Here is a shot across the plaza behind the church. The building in the center of the photo is the apartment building in which we stayed.
These two shots are just wider angle shot of the same subject.
We are now heading up the street on the other side of the church plaza.
Another neighborhood building.
The photo below was interesting in that this had nice details and an unusual shape on a wedge shaped site.
Here is another shot of the church from the other side. The bell tower and residential looking structure on the left are much different than the look of the church on the other side.
When we got around to the front of the church we met Clarice, Jon and Renee. Clarice wanted to show them the church so we all went in to take a look.
Interesting stained glass and ceiling.
The photo above is of the central altar area, similar to the one we had seen at St. Peter's Cathedral the day before.
You can see that this ceiling was pretty much used throughout the interior.
This is from the side of the altar area.
Above is one of the alcove spaces that is used as a small chapel. The main part of the church is the area between the columns on the right and those on the far side in the photo below. Again I thought it was interesting that with all of the money obviously spent of the building, there were relatively inexpensive molded plastic chairs. The chapel where Clarice and I attend mass earlier that morning was through the arched way on the left.
The stained glass window was at the back of the church. I took the shots below from the back of the church.
Off to the side was another interesting window. It might have been one of alabaster as well. After the tour of the church we headed back to the apartment to carry our luggage to the main hall way and to wait for transport. We loaded up right on time, headed toward the harbor going by, what by now, were some familiar sites.
I think we all enjoyed our time in Rome, we certainly crammed a lot of site seeing into a short time frame. I think we did a pretty good job of seeing what we could in Rome, but now we were focused on heading out to sea. The transport picked us up right on time. Since we had a bit of a mix up in the first place about the apartment Clarice went a couple of blocks over to the original apartment location in case the transport company did not get the information on the different location. It all worked out just fine, we got all the luggage loaded and we headed to the harbor about an hour's ride and got delivered to a large parking area adjacent to the ship. With all of the hauling of luggage and making sure everything was with us that we needed, I was not able to take a picture of the ship. Several days later I did get some pictures, but none from shore for now.
We had never been on a cruise ship before. Clarice and Jon have been on several Caribbean cruises and suggested that we might have to stand in line for quite a while. We were all pleasantly surprised when we were through check-in an on board within 45 minutes. We spent the next several hours getting familiar with the layout of the ship. After everyone as was on board and we pulled away from the dock we could see the building through which we had come at check-in.
Our rooms were on the 5th level which was the plaza level that had the formal dining rooms and several small eating places a grand hall, and monumental circular stair cases. There were 17 or so levels on the ship. The pools and the "anytime dining rooms" were on the 15th level. Also on that level was a hamburger/hot dog place, a pizza place, a ice cream place, where we could eat anytime we were hungry, and because those places existed there was a workout gym was on the 16th level, in case you got to feeling guilty about the ice cream. There was also a couple of exercise tracks, a basketball court, miniature golf, on these two levels. On the 6th and 7th level there were multiple restaurants, shops, bars, a theater, a casino, art gallery, library and probable several things I have forgotten about. I guess the point is it's you own fault if you get bored.
We quickly found a place where we would often meet during the trip for have breakfast.
There were four pools on board ship as well, they were not huge pools, but you could jump in an cool off or swim a few laps and there were a couple of hot tubs at each pool.
There were lots of open deck areas that would get filled up with deck chairs each day for lounging and sun bathing.
Since we were among those that got on board early we were able to wander around without any difficulty, crowd wise. Later on in the day they had a sail away party and these areas were full.
The photo above is taken from the highest level we could get to and is looking aft. The white arch and lattice work is around the exhaust stacks. The photo below is looking forward where there was a structure with all of the communication and weather recording equipment radar and so on.
I spent several hours in the sun on this deck because it was pretty quiet. Some of the areas had music playing or had a large movie screen with movies playing or some other entertainment.
In the photo above you can just see Jon, Clarice and Karen in lounge mode out of the sun.
Karen and Clarice are right around the corner from the ice cream shop. Perhaps that is why they look so guilty.
Late in the afternoon/early evening the decks filled up to watch as we set sail. We found out later that there were 3000 passengers and right at 1500 crew members on board. I will say that the service was really good, you could hardly get out of sight of someone asking you if there was anything they could do for you. The crew as almost exclusively non American. Almost everyone had a bit of an accent, but English was the primary language spoken on board.
The photo above is of another ship leaving the harbor ahead of us.
Here we are on the 17th deck and you could see in the photo below how high we were compared to the dock and cranes that load and unload cargo ships.
Here we are enjoying the evening. Earlier in the afternoon to get everyone familiar with the ship we were sent out on a sort of scavenger hunt, We had to stop at various shops and restaurants, get a tickets stamped and then deposit the stamped tickets for a drawing for a prize. Clarice was one of the winners.
More views of the docks as we leave, in the photo above and a yes we were here photo below.
The photo above is of a cruise ship heading into the harbor.
For the most part the ship that we were on was bigger that any other ship that we saw while on this cruise. When we got to the end of the trip and pulled into Venice we really got a good perspective of how big. The cruise ship below although pretty large was dwarfed by the one we were on. Once under way we went for something to eat and to get settled into our rooms. More later.
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