Off to Rome and the Vatican

Yesterday, (11/20) after 24 days of being pampered on the ship we had to schlep our selves and our bags to Rome. Here we are waiting with our friends for the train in Civitavecchia, feeling sorry to be off the ship and a little jealous of the folks on the inbound train going TO the ship.

But we managed to re-enter normal tourist life, find our hotel, and take the metro to the Vatican Museum, where we promptly ran into half a dozen of our ship friends doing the same thing. We had forgotten how MUCH is contained within the Vatican Museum, and after two hours we had seen so much and hiked so far that we really did not have the energy to appreciate the art by the time we came to the modern section, which by any other standards would be a do-not-miss collection. Our camera reflects this, we have a shot-a-minute of the first rooms at the Pinicoteca, two or three shots in each of the Etruscan and Egyptian rooms, one shot of each of the Raphael rooms, and maybe one shot of the quarter mile long hallway leading to the Sistine. Which is included below, along with a couple at St. Peter's. Sorry, Matisse.

After an early dinner, we packed ourselves off to bed for a good night's rest. It seems Tom is coming down with a cold and while we have the NyQuil and DayQuil, rest and fluids still are needed.