A few years ago, I went to Rome with my family on a cruise. During the trip, I also visited other cities in Italy, such as Palermo. However, in this book, I will only talk about my experience in Rome.

The journey began in Barcelona, where we took the ship to Italy. It was October, so the weather was a bit cold.

When we arrived in Italy, we headed to Civitavecchia. Since Rome doesn’t have a port, we had to disembark in the nearest port city and then take a train that took us directly to Rome.

As soon as we got to the train station and had bought our round-trip tickets, we decided to take the latest return ticket possible. The cruise was leaving for its next destination at 10:00 PM, so we chose the return train at 9:30 PM. That way, we could spend more time in the city and arrive just in time for the ship’s departure. Everything seemed like the perfect plan.

When we arrived at the Colosseum, we realized we had very little time to visit. Still, we made the most of it. After finishing our tour, we checked the time and saw we only had ten minutes to reach the train station.

We rushed to find a taxi, only to discover there was a strike that day so none were available anywhere. With no other choice, we had to sprint across the city to make it on time.

Having arrived at the train station, it was exactly 9:30 PM, but we couldn’t find our train. Desperate, we ran back and forth until we finally saw it. At that very moment, the train was about to leave, so, by some miracle, we managed to get on at the last second.

However, just when we thought everything was solved, the train suddenly stopped. At first, we didn’t understand what was happening, but soon they announced that there was a mechanical failure, which caused a 20-minute delay.

Finally, when we managed to reach the cruise, we were the last passengers to board. We had arrived 20 minutes late, and we had almost been lost in Italy. All our clothes and belongings were on the ship, so the thought of missing it was terrifying.

Fortunately, this story had a happy ending: we made it on board just in time and were able to continue our journey without any further problems.

In the end, we arrived in Spain without any more problems and learned the lesson not to leave everything for the last moment because it can cause troubles. However, thanks to this experience, we now have a new family anecdote.

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