We arrived in Rome four days before our cruise to get into the time zone and spend a little time wandering around the sights.

We stayed at Hotel Vilon, a boutique hotel centrally located. We had a spacious room with a terrace that overlooked the gardens of the Palazzo Borghese.

The dining area was intimate with an outdoor terrace as well.

One night we had the tasting menu which was very interesting.

The desert was a lemon mouse coated in white chocolate, coloured and shaped to look like a lemon. It was served with a bowl of real lemons and finished with liquid nitrogen before serving.

Click on the links below to see a video of the desert.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dIPZyzgHepdqV_qVLZgVRKa7o3WQ1JvF/view?usp=sharing

and

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dO00vYDpM3kSjjEN8cut40qYvreTKp0f/view?usp=sharing

The weather was very pleasant with temperatures in the mid 20s and sunny. Thanks to Sue’s new hips we were able to do a lot of walking around to see the sights. One thing that was amazing was the crowds of people – this was at the Trevi Fountain.

Although we spent the first day on a hop on tour bus it was disappointing as it was very crowded, the windows were dirty and very hard to see anything from the bus. It was so busy that you didn’t dare get off the bus as you could spend an hour or more waiting for a bus with room. Consequently for the rest of our time in Rome we toured on foot.