Rome – Transatlantic 2009 Day 6 – Last Full Day In Rome
November 29, 2009
Yesterday was our last full day in Rome on this wonderful vacation. This morning we will be boarding the Celebrity Solstice for our Transatlantic cruise back to the US. We decided to scale back our ambitious site seeing yesterday and take in a few of the larger piazzas.
We got a slow start on the day by sleeping in. After a breakfast of bacon and sausage, we made our way down to Piazza Popolo. We strolled around there for a bit and check out the three churches that are on the piazza. Suzanne really had wanted to visit one of them (can’t recall the name) because of a couple of really old painting that the church has. The church dates back to the late 1400s.
We then proceeded to head over to Piazza Novona (my favorite piazza). Along the way, we stopped at a new monument/museum. I say recent because it was only recently discovered and put back together. It was a former monument/temple to peace. When it was rebuilt, it was housed inside of a building which seemed really odd. I guess it gave them an easier way to charge an admittance fee for viewing.
At Piazza Novona, we were able to enjoy a nice pasta lunch will taking in some people watching. This piazza is very large and usually has an array of artists and street performers there. At this time of year, most of those had been replaced by a Christmas Market. There were still a couple of street performers there too. Suzanne was able to find a couple of souvenirs at the street market.
This was also the first time we got a bit wet on the trip. As previously mentioned, it had been threatening rain the entire trip which made the weather actually quite enjoyable. There was a slight drizzle falling while we ate lunch and for a few minutes afterwards, but we still managed to stay pretty much dry.
After leaving Piazza Novona, Sean wanted to visit the Spanish Steps again since he still hadn’t actually climbed up the steps. So I guided us back there but took a path back over there that went past the Pantheon. The kids still had not seen the inside during daylight hours. After seeing it, the nighttime view was still preferred. It also gave us an opportunity to get our Gelato for the day! We also visited the Trevi Fountain another time on the way back to the Spanish Steps. Savannah wanted to throw another coin in the fountain since she said she had already left Rome and then returned. Now, personally, I think visiting the Vatican doesn’t really qualify as such, but what the heck.
Finally, we hit the Spanish Steps and the kids were able to climb to the top and view them from above. After a short stay, we headed back to the apartment. I picked up a bottle of my favorite Italian wine, Barolo, for us to enjoy in the evening/night in the apartment.
We enjoyed a final Roman meal and reminisced about the trip to Rome. The girls were a bit sad, but were cheered up by the fact that tomorrow we would be getting on a cruise ship!
This has been a great way to start the vacation. The fact that we gave ourselves four days in Rome was really good. It would have been hard to see all we did in less time. Luckily, having been here many times on business myself, also gave us a pretty good idea ahead of time what to see and how to get there since I still find navigating room on foot very easy. The food has been fantastic. The people have been wonderful. The apartment couldn’t have been better. The price was right and we were ideally located in old Rome with easy access to most things we wanted to visit. All of us have enjoyed the pre-cruise stay in Rome much better than last years pre-cruise stay in Barcelona, Spain.
Be sure to follow our travel exploits on this blog as I try to make a daily update of our Rome and transatlantic cruise. Today, as previously mentioned, we will be boarding the Celebrity Solstice to begin our transatlantic cruise. This should be an interesting cruise as the Solstice is a bigger ship than we normally cruise. It will be another fun day!
Back From Trip
June 27, 2009
If you follow me on twitter, then you know I was recently on a business trip to the Cleveland area. Most of my trips are pretty uneventful, which is good. This one was a bit different though all ended well.
The trip started fine, except for the 6:00 am departure on Thursday. No problems with the layover/transfer in Chicago either before heading to Cleveland. Even got to Cleveland just fine. However, having dinner in the hotel (near the airport) about 5:30 things got interesting. Some sever weather descended on the area. It had been a nice calm day but the winds starting whipping and ominous clouds rolled in. I guess you would call it a severe thunderstorm. The hotel has a couple of patios with tables, chairs and umbrellas on them. Well, they did before the storm anyways! The storm tossed them about pretty good.
During the course of the next 30 minutes, the power went on and off in the hotel about 8 times. The airport lost power for almost an hour they said the next day as I was leaving. The worst part about the storm was that the power cycling fried their internet service. So, I was stuck in the hotel room all night without access to the net. Oh my!
The next day was fine, I conducted my business in the AM and went to the airport for my flight home. That’s where some more fun occurred. Our equipment arrived at the gate and they were preparing to board us when the co-pilot came in after inspecting the plane. It was kind of odd, but he was looking for the previous pilot (who he knew). Clearly he had found something with the plane but seemed odd that he wanted the previous pilot.
After finding him, they went back out and inspected the plan. Then they announced a delay for a maintenance issue. Of course, they didn’t tell us what it was but it was a bit odd a few minutes later to see the maintenance guys arrive 15 minutes later and climb atop the jet (a regional jet). One guy climbed onto the engine cowling and even crawled inside and was inspecting the fans and equipment. After 10 minutes he got up and with a towel wiped off the engine cowling. He did a quick inspection of the other engine and then disappeared. 10 minutes later they boarded us and we left.
Now, I still don’t know what they did or were looking for but I was wondering if the previous flight had ingested a bird or something. Wiping down the cowling seemed a bit odd as if there was something on it which is why they inspected the inside of the engine. Some folks weren’t too happy with seeing the engine inspected and then us going on our merry way without any words.
Me? Just glad to see the cockpit crew doing their pre-flights, noticing something odd and having it checked out. The delay put us about an hour behind schedule, but was no worries for me since I had a 3 hour layover in Chicago. I even got upgraded to first class for the final leg to Tucson. We were ready to leave on time for that flight too, but ended up having to wait 20 minutes at the gate for some International luggage to make its way through Customs to our plane.
So a bit more ‘exciting’ trip than normal, but all ended up well.
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