 |
Rates per vehicle for this
tour:
sedan (1/4 persons) 670 €;
minivan (4 persons) 700 €.
minivan (5/6 persons) 730 €;
minivan (7/8 persons) 770 €. |
Driving times:
Civitavecchia/Rome: 1hr
Rome/Civitavecchia: 1hr'
|
 |
 |
|
|
The rates include:
VAT (value added tax 10%), 10 hours of touring in the requested vehicle
conducted by driving guide.
Each additional hour will be charged 1/10 of the total of the tour's
rate.
Rates do not include:
Entrance fees, meals, drinks, personal purchases or any thing not specifically
listed as included. |
|
This is the
tour for those who already visited Rome but didn't have the
opportunity to visit the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel and
those who rather see that instead of other places in the city of
Rome. It's mostly centered on the Vatican, but includes also stops
to visit the Colosseum, Trevi Fountain and other shorter stops. |
|
|
 |
|
We start from Civitavecchia
at 8:00 am. You'll find the vehicle waiting right on the pier where the ship docks. It
will parked as
close as possible to the footbridge and your name will be posted on its windshield. The tour takes
between about 10 hours,
from when we start until we return to the ship, around 5.30 and 6.00
pm. We'll start the tour from the Colosseum and end with St. Peter's
Basilica. |
|
|
We should be arriving in Rome
around 9.00 am and the
Colosseum
will be our first stop. I
will tell you all about it and then let you go and explore the
inside on your own. I'll also help you to buy
your entrance tickets without having to stand in line. After the
visit of the Colosseum we'll drive to
Trevi Fountain
via the
Aventine Hill
and
Piazza Venezia
where we'll stop to take a look at the
Monument to Victor
Emmanuel II
and
Mussolini's balcony.
Leaving the
Trevi Fountain
we'll head for
Piazza di Spagna
(Spanish Steps)
and
after a short stop there we'll make another one in the
Borghese Gardens to see
the
panorama of Rome and the Vatican
from the
Pincio
Terrace.
|
 |
|
 |
Our final stop for the morning
will be the famous Piazza Navona
one of the most beautiful in Rome.At this point
you'll probably start to get hungry and the possibilities are the
following: a snack in Piazza Navona, some pizza in the cafeteria of
the Vatican Museums or a typical lunch in a little neighborhood
restaurant.
We should than
start the tour of the Vatican around 2:00 pm.
The
Vatican Museums
are enormous, about 1500 rooms, but we'll only see about 20% of what
they have there on our way to the
Sistine Chapel.
|
 |
|
|
Because of the way they regulate
traffic inside the
Museums,
they close portions of them when
they get too crowded and detour visitors to a different wing, the
itinerary can change from time to time.Normally we
visit the
Cortile della
Pigna,
Belvedere,
Pio
Clementino Museum,
the
Gallery of Candelabra,
the
Gallery of Tapestries,
the
Gallery of Maps,
Raphael's
Rooms
and
finally the
Sistine Chapel.
From the
Sistine
we'll go directly to
St. Peter's
Basilica,
saving a lot of time which would
be necessary to walk back to the car through other museums, driving
around the outside of the Vatican
|
 |
|
|
City walls, find a parking place
again and line up again to go through the metal
detectors in
St. Peter's Square.By this time we
will have spent about two hours between the
Museums and
Sistine Chapel
and we'll spend about one hour touring
St. Peter's
Basilica,
where we'll see the
Pietà
by
Michelangelo
and other fantastic
masterpieces made by
Bernini
and
Canova.
|
 |
After visiting
St. Peter's you'll want to take some pictures of the square, shop
for souvenirs and/or get a drink. While you do that, I'll walk back
to get the car and drive it to St. Peter's to pick you up and drive
you back to
Civitavecchia.
|
 |
|
 |
On Saturdays
the Vatican Museums close earlier and that makes it a little
difficult to do this tour because of the long line of people trying
to get in before 12:20.On Sundays instead it's practically
impossible because they're just closed for the day. Only the last
Sunday of each month they're open and they don't charge for
admission, so the place ends up being very crowded.
It is notorious that the lines to get inside the Vatican Museums can
be tremendous, but normally the situation gets better around
11/12.00 o' clock, though not all days are the same.
|
 |
|
 |
The best time
of the week to visit the place, if the Pope is in residence, is on
Wednesday mornings. Most of the people go to the Papal Audience
(Wednesdays 10:00 am to 1:00 pm.). What causes the formation of the
line is not the purchasing of the admission ticket, but the fact
that the space inside is limited and therefore the guards stop the
line from time to time when they see that that it's getting too
crowded inside. Since 9/11 one also has to go through metal
detectors and that made the lines become even longer. |
|
