We had a plan for this day. We think the Holy Spirit may have had a different agenda.

Our plan was to have a good breakfast at Beehive Cafe where we are staying. Then, we were going to 9:00 am Mass at St Mary’s of the Angels and Martyrs within walking distance.

The first part of our plan worked out. At breakfast, we agreed that after we visited the ruins of Ostia Antica, if time permitted we would go to visit the Basilica of St Paul Outside the walls. We went back to the room.

Fred decided to call the TEP Wireless company because our european hotspot device wasn’t charging and was acting broken. Fred thought he damaged a wire connection when he changed the battery the day before. He ended up on the phone for over 50 minutes trying to arrange where they were going to send the replacement since or cruise started the next day. Fred had to gather some information for them on our itinerary. He sent them a reply to their email to him.  We had lost about two hours and we were a little frazzled. We both decided to forgo Ostia Antica.

We had lunch and headed to the train station to buy on all day metro tickets so we could visit several sites in Rome beginning with St Paul’s Outside the Walls. Fred noted that the St Pauls Cloister wasn’t open until 3 PM.

It took us 1.5 hours to buy our Metro tickets. It was a horrifying, illogical and unbelievable! We got in the long line 3 times for buying tickets from the “office”. The automated ticket selling machines that every one uses refused to even recognize our credit card. It may only have accepted debit cards.  We tried many machines, asked many people for help and got no where. We decided  to buy with Euro’s. We put in a $20, it wouldn’t take it. We went and got 2 ten’s. The machines wouldn’t accept them either. It seems they  were only accepting coins.

In the process we must have gone up and down the stairs from one level to another 4 or  times. We finally went back to the ticket office and waited and waited. Finally our number came up. We paid him euro’s 2 ten’s and we had our daily train passes. Normally, like the previous day – 2 minutes stop for tickets, now had taken 1.5 hours.

Amazingly, we arrived at St Pauls at about 5 minutes before the Cloister opened. How ironic! Thank you HS. I learned that my tempered wasn’t yet under control!

St Paul’s Outside the Walls

Cloister at St Pauls

St Peter’s in Chains

After we went to St Pauls and its cloister, it was about 4:30 pm. St Paul’s was breathtaking!! Milly normally wouldn’t have wanted to go to another church. She agreed that we could go to St Peter’s in the Chains. We got lost but eventually found it.

Last Dinner in Rome

We thought we would get a couple of Pizza’s at our favorite restaurant. We had been the variety of Pizzas they offered and thought they would be good. It was closed on Sunday!

We decided to go to a full course dinner place. We has a great 4 course dinner with half liter bottles of wine (white for milly and Red for Fred).  We had bruschetta, Spaghetti Carbonara followed by Veal and beef entries and then desert! All of this was excellent.

We take an 11:15 train to port to board the Cruise. We will be ready to board by 12:30 pm. We need a rest and a day at sea!

 

 

 

 

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