Civitaveccia to Rome, Italy

This post will be mostly photos and a story since I didn't get to do much sketching in Rome.

Our last port on the cruise was Civitaveccia which is about 1 1/2 hours from Rome.

Before I left home I had contacted an internet artist friend, Celia Blanco, who lives in Rome. If you want to visit her blog you can find it along the side of this blog in my links. I told her I would be in Rome on Sept. 25 and asked her if she would like to meet me for part of the day. I think it is great that we can meet people from other countries so easily through the internet.

 I arranged to take a bus excursion "Rome in Total Freedom" that would drop me off in Rome and then would come back in the afternoon. I let Celia know where they would drop us off at the Marcello Theatre and told her what I would be wearing so she could find me in the crowd. I knew what she would be wearing too...and we had seen photos of each other on the internet.

The ride went through the countryside which had some farmland, hay bales, and buildings that reminded me of Tuscany.

When we arrived in Rome and the bus dropped us off, I saw Celia across the street and started waving wildly. It was so great to meet her in person!!! We decided to just walk around Rome and see what we came across. I am not good at identifying all the sites, but I do know some of them.

Celia said the bear is the symbol of Rome.

 The ruins are amazing. The buildings are so old...unlike here in the USA where we think buildings are old if they are 200 years old. The Roman buildings are just amazing.

The Colosseum is so impressive.

See that smile on my face?

It started to drizzle while we were walking and neither of us was prepared for that since the forecast was not for rain. Rome looked good even in the rain. Eventually we had to buy umbrellas because we were getting soaked. LOL

Here is the inside of the Pantheon with the opening in the dome.

 There was a pianist playing outside in the rain.

Celia and I had a wonderful lunch...pasta of course. She brought me some lovely gifts of soaps, lavender and candies from the local area near Rome. I brought her a copy of a book I published of some of my Long Island sketches.

When the rain stopped we decided to head for the Spanish Steps to sketch. We climbed all the way to the top, but we thought the view was a little too overwhelming to sketch.

Instead we walked back down a ways and focused on one building. We were comfortable sitting on the steps to sketch until it started drizzling again. Then we had to put up our umbrellas.

Here is Celia sketching before the showers started again.

Here I am tucked under my umbrella.

Here is my one sketch from the day.

Back at the bottom of the Spanish Steps we got some nice tourist to snap a photo of the two of us.

Celia walked me back to my bus about 4:00 so I wouldn't get lost.

It was so great to spend time with her and share stories about our lives, our loves, and just be together.

My thanks to Celia for making my visit to Rome so special!