Shore excursion to Rome, 9 hours

The shore excursion to Rome Includes all the major highlights of the city and when you'll return to the port you'll be able to say: "I've seen Rome" It takes 9 hours, counting from when we start at the port until we return there. Depending on traffic conditions and on your own requests, it can include more or less sites, but for sure you'll always return to your ship satisfied of the number of places you saw and the narration.

We meet in Civitavecchia at 8:00 am (vehicle will be parked on the pier with your name on its windshield) and drive to Rome.

I list here Rome's major highlights, the sights you don't want to miss, and how long we'll be there for:

St. Peter's (1 hour or more), Piazza Navona (20'), Pantheon and St. Mary's above Minerva (20'), Trevi Fountain (20'), Capitol Hill (Roman Forum view) (30'), Colosseum (about 1 hour).

These are the other sites that we'll just be driving by and making short stops for pictures at:

Palazzaccio (Old Court House), St. Andrew's, St. Mary's Above Minerva, Piazza Venezia (Monument to Victor Emmanuel II), Piazza di Spagna (Spanish Steps), Theatre of Marcellus, Synagogue, Mouth of Truth and Keyhole (Roman Curiosity), Circus Maximus, Palatine Hill.

Several other attractions will be pointed out just while you'll be driving by them, such as:

Castle St. Angelo and its bridge, Italian Senate, The Marble Foot and Cat Street (Roman Curiosity), Trajan's Column, Imperial Fora, Trajan's Market, The Maps of the Empire, Arch of Constantine, Marcus Aurelius's Column, Parliament and Council of Ministers, St. Nicholas in Chains, temples of Apollo, Vesta and Janus, Quirinal Palace.

More sites and curiosities, less known than the places listed above, will be brought to your attention while driving. Remember: you'll always see more than you'll be expecting to see!

We start from Civitavecchia around 8:00 or 8:30 am. I'll be waiting right on the pier where the ship docks. I park the car as close as possible to the footbridge and you identify me easily because I post your name on the car's windshield.

The tour takes total 9 hours, from when we start at the port until we return to the ship. The drive to Rome takes about one hour and the trip back to the ship takes just the same amount of time.

We'll do a sort of a loop tour. Depending on the day of the week and traffic conditions, we may start from St. Peter's Basilica and end with the Colosseum or vice versa. Saturdays and Sundays are the best days to sightsee in Rome, most of the locals leave for the week end and consequently traffic is easy and you cover more ground.

A rapid calculation will tell you that just these few places will take about three and a half hours to see, but also you have to consider the time needed to go from one to the other and the stops you'll want to make to look at the sites on your way. There are in fact several very interesting places you get to see as you drive through the city, some of these places aren't easy to find because kind of hidden or not easy to notice. You'd have trouble finding some of these sites, presuming you'd be informed of their existence, but for us it's only a short stop on the way!

These places are:

Palazzaccio (Old Court House), St. Andrew's, St. Mary's Above Minerva, Piazza Venezia (Monument to Victor Emmanuel II), Piazza di Spagna (Spanish Steps), Theatre of Marcellus, Synagogue, Mouth of Truth and Keyhole (Roman Curiosity), Circus Maximus, Palatine Hill.

Several other attractions will be pointed out just while you'll be driving by them, such as:

Castle St. Angelo and its bridge, Italian Senate, The Marble Foot and Cat Street (Roman Curiosity), Trajan's Column, Imperial Fora, Trajan's Market, The Maps of the Empire, Arch of Constantine, Marcus Aurelius's Column, Parliament and Council of Ministers, St. Nicholas in Chains, temples of Apollo, Vesta and Janus, Quirinal Palace.

This is the usual itinerary, it takes you to the major highlights of the city of Rome and at the end of the day you can sure say you've seen Rome!

Please remember that basically you hire a driver/guide for 9 hours and you're free to change anything,

Shore excursion: Rome and Vatican including the Sistine Chapel. 10 hours

The tour takes between about 10 hours, counting from when we start at the port at:8:00 am, until we return there, around 6.00 pm. This tour focuses on the Vatican, I recommend to make a Vatican entry reservation to make sure you don't waste your time standing in line to get in the Vatican. Depending on traffic conditions and on your own requests, it can include more or less sites, but for sure you'll always return to your ship satisfied of the number of places you saw and the narration.

We meet in Civitavecchia at 8:00 am (vehicle will be parked on the pier with your name on its windshield) and we drive to Rome. We should be arriving in there around 9/9.30 am and, if you want me to make a Vatican entry reservation, the Vatican will be our first stop, otherwise we'll reverse the itinerary and go there in the afternoon. Being the tour centered on the Vatican and since you'll end up using most of your limited time ashore to visit just this one place, realistically, I can only guarantee that we'll the following: Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's (3 hours or more), Colosseum (about 1 hour). Trevi Fountain (20'), Piazza Venezia (drive).

It will depend on other factors, traffic and you personal interest mainly, if we'll be able to include in the tour these other sites: Capitol Hill (Roman Forum view) (30'),  Piazza Navona (20'), Pantheon St. Mary above Minerva (20/30'),

More sites and curiosities, less known than the places listed above, will be brought to your attention while driving. Remember: you'll always see more than you'll be expecting to see!

More about this tour:

We start from Civitavecchia at  8:00 am. I'll be waiting right on the pier where the ship docks. I park the car as close as possible to the footbridge and you identify me easily because I post your name on the car's windshield.

Here below you can read how the day evolves if we don't make a Vatican entry reservation, but in case we do make a reservation, the itinerary will be reversed and we'll tour the Vatican first thing in the morning.

We should be arriving in Rome around 9/9.30 am and, if you want me to make a reservation, the Vatican will be our first stop, otherwise we'll reverse the itinerary and go there in the afternoon. This tour is obviously centered on the Vatican and, be prepared, that's a tough one. The tour, which includes obviously St. Peter's Basilica, takes about three hours. During this time you'll not have the chance to take a brake and sit down. There's no air-conditioning, except when you're in the Sistine and in the Gallery of Tapestries and so it's hot. And it's crowded, which makes it even more hot. Do I sound like I don't want to take you there? Wrong! I do, but I would love you not to go it within a tour of Rome if this is your first time here. I'm used to all this, but I know you'll be exhausted. Anyway, if you decide to pay the 30 Euros to book your entrance, we can go first thing in the morning and that's a little better. It's better because it's cooler, but also because at the end we can go and sit down and have some lunch, so you rest before you start touring again. I said the tour of the Vatican takes about three hours, but between getting there, getting in and getting out, almost four hours easily pass. Then you go for lunch which takes at least another hour. At this point there will not be much time left to see other sites. I said from the beginning that including the Vatican in a shore tour of Rome forces you to leave out of the tour other sites, but I can guarantee we can include at least the Colosseum and the Trevi Fountain. For the rest, it depends mostly on how you move around and how traffic moves around the day we'll do this tour.

These places are: Palazzaccio (Old Court House), St. Andrew's, St. Mary's Above Minerva, Piazza Venezia (Monument to Victor Emmanuel II), Piazza di Spagna (Spanish Steps), Theatre of Marcellus, Synagogue, Mouth of Truth and Keyhole (Roman Curiosity), Circus Maximus, Palatine Hill.

Several other attractions will be pointed out just while you'll be driving by them, such as: Castle St. Angelo and its bridge, Italian Senate, The Marble Foot and Cat Street (Roman Curiosity), Trajan's Column, Imperial Fora, Trajan's Market, The Maps of the Empire, Arch of Constantine, Marcus Aurelius's Column, Parliament and Council of Ministers, St. Nicholas in Chains, temples of Apollo, Vesta and Janus, Quirinal Palace.

This is the usual itinerary, it takes you to the major highlights of the city of Rome and at the end of the day you can sure say you've seen Rome!

Please remember that basically you hire a driver/guide for 10 hours and you're free to change anything,

Shore excursion to Tuscania, Montefiascone and Orvieto. 9 hours

Short description of the itinerary for the shore excursion to Tuscia and Umbria, 9 hours:

We meet in Civitavecchia at 8:00 am (vehicle will be parked on the pier with your name on its windshield) and we drive to Tuscania. Then we stop in Montefiascone and finally arrive to Orvieto for lunch. After visiting Orvieto we head back and, if your not too tired and if time allows, we stop in Civita di Bagnoregio, Vulci, or Tarquinia on the way back. We return to the ship around 5:00 pm.

More about this tour:

The tour I suggest includes Orvieto (1 hour from Civitavecchia) and other charming little towns we can visit on the way to Orvieto or on the way back: Tuscania, Montefiascone, Orvieto and Civita di Bagnoregio. I have done this tour several times and the people I took always enjoyed it very much. Leaving Civitavecchia at about 8:00 a.m. ours first stop is Tuscania. Founded by the Etruscans, it became a Roman colony in the 3rd Century b.c. and it appears today as a charming little medieval town. Unfortunately it was badly damaged by an earthquake in 1971 and they haven't finished refurbishing the old buildings yet. On a Saturday or Sunday you may run into some Italian or German tourists but any other day of the week you feel like the city is yours! We can use one of the local coffee shop for facilities and buy a drink from them just to return the courtesy. Continuing towards Orvieto we stop briefly at the town of Montefiascone, also a town founded by the Etruscans, a quaint little medieval town. Sitting right on top of a hill overlooking the lake Bolsena about 1800 ft a.s.l. Montefiascone offers a great panorama. We will stop there shortly just to admire the view and eventually a walk though the narrow streets. Montefiascone is known also for its production of white wine which they call "Est! Est!! Est!!!" (meaning it is! it is!! it is!!!) named that after the German traveler Defuk who, not speaking Italian but only a few words in Latin used that exclamation to show his appreciation for the local wine. He ended up dying in Montefiascone from drinking too much of that wine, they say, and he's buried in the local church of St. Flaviano. We'll finally reach Orvieto, the largest of the towns in our itinerary, around 12:00 noon. We'll be coming from the West and we'll stop to admire the view of the city sitting on its plateau formed by the volcanic "tufah" stone. Time for lunch! In Italy people have their main meal in the middle of the day after which they like to nap. Shops in fact close at 1:00 pm and don't re-open any earlier than 3/4:00 pm. Famous Italian "siesta". You can choose between a light lunch at the wine shop (enoteca) on the main square (weather permitting you can eat outside) or local cuisine in a typical restaurant. You'll have the time to visit the magnificent Cathedral, one on the most beautiful in Italy, and stroll down Orvieto's quaint narrow streets crammed with colorful shops selling beautiful ceramics. On the way back, if you're not too tired and it isn't too late we can stop and visit  Civita di Bagnoregio. This charming little town was also founded by the Etruscans around 2500 years ago on top of a hill formed by "tufah" stone.

Please remember that basically you hire a driver/guide for 9 hours and you're free to change anything,

Shore tour to Caprarola, Cerveteri, Bracciano and Ceri. 9 hours

Short description of the itinerary for the shore excursion to Roman Tuscia, 9 hours:

We meet in Civitavecchia at 8:00 am (vehicle will be parked on the pier with your name on its windshield) and we drive to Caprarola. After visiting Caprarola we start heading back in the direction of the port Ceri where we can have lunch. On the way to Ceri though, If time allows it, we can stop to visit the castle of Bracciano. After lunch we stop to visit the town of Cerveteri and the Etruscan necropolis “La Banditaccia”. We return to the ship around 5:00 pm.

More about this tour:

Leaving from Civitavecchia around 8.00 am we’ll head for Caprarola. Driving through the woods the Romans called “Silva Cimina”, along the lake of Vico we’ll arrive to Caprarola; a beautiful little medieval town founded in the 10th Century. The place is famous for the beautiful palace erected there by the Farnese family. The Farnese Palace, started around 1530 as a castle by the famous architect Antonio da Sangallo for Pope Paul III, was completed by the architect Jacopo Barozzi, better known as “Il Vignola”, for the Pope’s nephew Alessandro Farnese in 1575. Il Vignola was able to transform Sangallo’s austere, sturdy castle into an elegant residential palace. The pentagonal structure of the Farnese Palace dominates the town of Caprarola which was redesigned to provide a triumphal access to the Palazzo. The finding of Etruscan tombs in the area testifies the existence of settlements in the area before the Roman Era, but the town of Bracciano is only officially mentioned since the 13th century The city was built around the impressive Orsini castle which dominates the town itself and the vast lake. The lakes originated from the crater of a volcano and its circumference is 20mls. Willingly you can experience the emotion of visiting a perfectly preserved medieval castle before we get back in car to drive to Ceri. Most of the cities castles in Italy originated from castles. The nobles were assigned a fief and they built their castle were they lived themselves but also accommodated their army and their peasants. It didn’t take long before the population grew to the point that they had expand and build houses outside the castle itself. That didn’t happen in Ceri and the town and castle are still one unit. The castle is isolated in the woods and not many people know of its existence except for some contemporary Romans who love to have their Saturday night dinner or Sunday lunch in one of the two great restaurants that are in it. We will arrive to Ceri around 12.30 or 1.00 pm and we’ll have the opportunity to try one of those restaurants ourselves. Leaving Ceri we’ll head for the town of Cerveteri where we visit the little town itself and the Etruscan necropolis in the locality called “Banditaccia”.  A place one must see. A unique atmosphere. The Banditaccia necropolis brings you back to the days of the Etruscans. Visiting it is very emotional experience. The place is like a city for the dead just carved out of the “tufah” stone. Each one of the cylindrical tombs has been sculpted like a house of stone. The diameter of the tombs is between 30 and 90 feet. Inside you find a hall and bedrooms for the master, his descendants and even for the slaves. The domed roofs are built using tufah blocks up to 3 feet of length, result of the carving of the cylinder. The room inside was decorated like a rich home, with paintings and bas-reliefs. When these tombs where found they contained the items that we can now see in the museums: arms, jewels, pottery, statues, mirrors etc..

Please remember that basically you hire a driver/guide for 9 hours and you're free to change anything,

Shore excursion to Etruscan sites: Tarquinia, Ceri and Cerveteri. 9 hours

Short description of the itinerary for the shore excursion to Etruscan sites, 9 hours:

We meet in Civitavecchia at 8:00 am (vehicle will be parked on the pier with your name on its windshield) and we drive to Tarquinia, just a few miles away. Then we go to Ceri, where we'll have lunch. In the afternoon we drive to Cerveteri to visit the little town itself and the Etruscan necropolis in the locality called “Banditaccia”. We return to the ship around 5:00 pm.

More about this tour:

The room inside was decorated like a rich home, with paintings and bas-reliefs.

Find out more about the Etruscans here.

When these tombs where found they contained the items that we can now see in the museums: arms, jewels, pottery, statues, mirrors etc.The Etruscans were mysterious people who populated central Italy long before the days of Rome's greatness, People far advanced in civilization the Etruscans (apparently they called themselves Tyrrhenians) rose to prosperity and power, then almost disappeared from history, leaving behind themselves unsolved questions about their origin and culture. A common theory is that they came from Asia Minor and they would be the Lydian's described by the Greek historian Herodotus who left Asia because of famine and colonized northern and central Italy. They commenced with the Greeks, the Phoenicians and the Egyptians and they were obviously influenced by those cultures. They tried to overrule the Romans by merging with them rather than trying to conquer them; the last three of the “seven kings of Rome” were in fact Etruscan. It seems that the Romans changed from kingdom to democracy just to get rid of the Etruscan kings. The Etruscans were than expelled by the Romans who later conquered and absorbed them, finally adopting many of their advanced arts, customs and institutions. Little remains of the Etruscan literature and their language has been only partially deciphered. The knowledge we have of the Etruscans only comes from studying the remains of their city walls, houses, monuments, and especially their tombs. The tombs in fact contained weapons, exquisite jewellery, coins; statues of stone, bronze and terra-cotta. Plus their famous black pottery (bucchero). Grecian and Oriental influences are seen in the style of their pottery.

Shore excursion to Castelgandolfo and Nemi. Wine tasting tour. 9 hours

Short description of the itinerary for the shore excursion to Etruscan sites, 9 hours:

We meet in Civitavecchia at 8:00 am (vehicle will be parked on the pier with your name on its windshield) and we drive to to the hilltop towns south east of Rome. We will visit the towns of: Grottaferrata, Frascati, Marino, Castelgandolfo and Nemi and the return to the port by 5:00 pm.

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Excursion to Ostia Antica, Castelgandolfo and Nemi.

Wine tasting tour. 4 hours

Short description of the itinerary for the shore excursion to Roman Castles and Ostia, 9 hours:

After meeting at the port at 8.00 a.m. (vehicle will be parked on the pier with your name on its windshield) we  drive to Ostia via the motorway and, after the visit, we go to Castelgandolfo and Nemi and we'll stop in one of these two places for lunch or we can have a light lunch by the lake. We'll return to the port by 5:00 pm.

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Shore excursion to Tivoli, Castelgandolfo and Nemi.

Wine tasting tour.  9 hours

Short description of the itinerary for the shore excursion to Tivoli & Roman Castles, 9 hours:

We meet in Civitavecchia at 8:00 am (vehicle will be parked on the pier with your name on its windshield) and we drive Tivoli (vehicle will be parked on the pier with your name on its windshield) we  drive to Tivoli. After visiting Villa D'Este we drive through the olive groves and vineyards to Castelgandolfo and Nemi and we'll stop in one of these two places for lunch or we can have a light lunch by the lake. We'll return to the port by 5:00 pm.

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Shore excursion to Villa D'Este and Hadrian's Villa. 9 hours

Short description of the itinerary for the shore excursion to Tivoli, 9 hours:

We meet in Civitavecchia at 8:00 am (vehicle will be parked on the pier with your name on its windshield) and drive to Tivoli. In Tivoli we'll visit Hadrian's Villa first and then, after stopping for lunch at an authentic Italian restaurant we drive up the town and visit Villa D'Este. We'll return to the port by 5:00 pm.

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