Rome, the third day.

Above: The queue at the Vatican

The plan was to visit the Vatican to see bits of it. Because it was a long way from our hotel, we decided Metro was the answer. So we got on the train at Cavor, which is right next door to our hotel. This took us to Rome termini on the B line. Coming out of the Metro up onto the surface we headed for the ticket office to buy a ticket to Civitavecchio, which is the port for Rome, where we get on the cruise ship.

Here a con man tried to let him buy our ticket for us from the ticket machine.

Nice try. Rose was not quite convinced of Bill's skill with the ticket machine. So a human ticket operator was required. To get to one of those you had to get a number from a young lady and then wait. After half an hour waiting, Rose said okay let's use the ticket machine. Seem to work out okay but we still had some woman trying to horn in on the action and pressing a buttons for us, so she was told to go away.

Back onto The Metro, and looking at the train stations, decided that Lepanto was the best fit as it said Vatican beside it.  Actually no. Had to walk about 3km to reach the Vatican.  Once there it became blindingly obvious a wrought was going down.  Every five minutes you would be approached by a man who offered to enable us to skip the queue which was at least 300 m long. The only trouble with this idea was that the price was about NZ$160. The other people out in the hot sun queueing up to get in for their $22 New Zealand decided that they weren't going to pay the $160 either. At this point we decided, blow the Vatican, then walked a k up to Ottaviano station, then home.  Not a lot of fun on the metro because of the crowds there were no seats. At every station there would be two soldiers with large guns, presumably for anti-terrorist duty.

A short rest, then back on the Metro heading for Spagna, with the idea of having a look at the Spanish Steps. Luckily just a short walk in the heat after getting off the train. The Spanish Steps were a bit underwhelming but it was a nice fountain.

Here are the steps:

This is the fountain:

We should have a copy of this in Pukekohe. People were using the outlet of the water to cool off. So did I.

Back home in a crowded metro to have yet another rest from the rather high temperatures of 35°.

Feeling guilty at not having seen enough we headed for a look at the Forum. Turns out they did not accept cash, they needed a credit card, which was back at the hotel.

So nuts to that as well.