Went on the Pisa by Trolley excursion today. Wasn’t bad, although the trolley was kind of cramped. The tour guide said he’s gotten 56 people in there before, but we had trouble with just 46, so I’m wondering if those 56 people were grade schoolers.

Other than that it was a good tour, the trolley drove us around the city of Pisa and the guide pointed out various buildings to us before we stopped and were allowed to wander around where the Leaning Tower is, along with a couple other historical buildings.

I have a few good pictures, although not as many as I’d hoped for. Since it was raining I had my camera in a waterproof case, and unfortunately later on the lens got foggy so some of the pictures turned out looking rather dreary. Although, the effect is kind of neat, so I may post a few anyways, I’ll have to think about it.

Well, today was a lot better than yesterday. We did the Rome on Your Own excursion, which was great since we didn’t get herded like cattle. Granted we got a bit bewildered as to where we were and how to get where we wanted but we managed.

First thing we saw was the Spanish Steps, which honestly I’m not sure why they’re so special, but they were nice looking I guess, for steps.

Next thing we saw was the Trevi Fountain, which was pretty nice, at least it looked more extravagant than other fountains I’ve seen, unlike the Spanish Steps. While there we also had some gelato, which was very good.

After that we made our way to the Colosseum. We did take a guided tour there, but that one wasn’t as bad as the Vatican City tour. The guide waited for people and she spoke more clearly. Also, getting the tour we were able to bypass the line to get in, so if we hadn’t have done the tour we wouldn’t have had time to go into the Colosseum. Although, like the Sistine Chapel yesterday I actually thought the Colosseum would have been bigger.

After that we decided to get a taxi back to where we needed to meet the bus instead of walking since it was mostly uphill from where we were. And actually it wasn’t that bad, only about 5 euros. Now I’m not sure how far it actually was, but it was worth it not to have to walk back.

After we got back to the ship we had the lifeboat drill, and then dinner. Fortunately, tomorrow the excursion I’m on doesn’t start until later in the morning so I’ll get to sleep in.

Oy! After about 10 hours in airplanes we made it safely to Italy. Although I was envious of the people in business class, since their seats laid almost all the way back. But I did manage to sleep for most of flight so that helped.

After landing we got our luggage and got it headed to the cruise ship, and then the real “adventure” started. Since we couldn’t get on board the ship for a few hours we decided to do a tour so we wouldn’t be wasting the time. We decided on the Holy Rome excursion, which is a tour of the Vatican.

Unfortunately, today the Vatican was even more busy than normal as apparently 300 Spanish were being blessed by the Pope today. I’ve also decided I don’t like guided tours. Our guide kept telling us we had to hurry and didn’t have time to stop and look at other stuff because we had to get to the Sistine Chapel before our time was up, but in the very next sentence she’d tell us to notice the beautiful art work before again telling us not to stop. I also got left behind before this a couple times as I was taking pictures. Don’t get me wrong, the Sistine Chapel was nice, but honestly I was more interested in a lot of the sculpture and architecture in the museum. Not to mention I like going at my own pace and looking at what interests me, not being herded like cattle. Regardless of all that tho, I did manage to take quite a few pictures, a couple of which are very nice if I do say so myself. But, I’m not even going to try and guess as to when I’ll have them posted since I still have pictures from previous vacations waiting to go up.

Fortunately, the excursion we’re doing tomorrow is “Rome on your own” so we’ll be given a map and be able to see what we want and take our time, as long as we’re back on the ship in time. Frankly, I don’t want any of my pictures to be of our ship leaving without us.

Yay! The day is here. I’ll be leaving for the airport in a couple hours and then after a layover in Chicago we’ll be on my way to Italy. We’re leaving Saturday afternoon but won’t arrive until Sunday morning. We’ll also be arriving before we can board the cruise ship so we’ll be doing some sightseeing when we get there to kill some time. I plan on checking in while on vacation as well, assuming this ship is like the last one and has internet access. I hope so, because not checking my mail for two weeks would mean needing another vacation when I got back to go through and delete spam, both in my inbox and from the comments. Thank goodness for comment moderation