Doris Visits the Vatican and Rome 2025 in 4K

All roads lead to Rome, but all ships lead to Sivitavecchia. And you could be joining, leaving, or just having the day out. But whichever way, this is the route you're probably going to take. The shuttle bus is at the end of the port. If you've left the ship, you have to pay 6 euros. It will take you to the station. And the train is the cheapest way to get to Rome. It's also very quick. But look up the times on your Google Maps and meet the train at the time it is expected. This is the Sivitavecchia Promenade just by the station. Very pebbly beach here. Where the bus drops you off, you'll see a sign under information saying train tickets to Rome. What it's actually trying to sell you is a hop-on hop-off bus tour, which is a great idea if you're new to Rome. And we'll show you some of it from the bus. But if you want a train ticket, just go straight into the station. There are queues for tickets everywhere. Just find an empty machine. No queue. Buy your ticket. Roma-San Pietro. One way. Two tickets. Continue. If you want to visit the Vatican, get off at San Pietro, not the Terminus. And you can actually see it as the train pulls into the station. So you're going to walk down from the station. Pretty simple. Oh look, that's what you're looking for. So now we go left down Piazza del Sant'Officio. We'll take you to all the places you're going to want to see. Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, Colosseum, Navarro Square, Pantheon. We'll show you a little bit of the bus tour, which is great. And also some of the angels and demons clues we did years ago. This is the second time we visited the Vatican at night. And this is really the time to come. The lights are on until midnight. And it's so beautiful. And you feel like you've got it all to yourself. There are lots of ways to see Rome. Tuk-tuk, sidecar and motorbike. The big bus. They're all great. You can walk and you can get lost. But the best way is to see it here on Doris Visits first. And then plan your route. So please subscribe and share this film with your friends and others visiting Rome on a cruise. Doesn't it look fantastic at night? We'll show you the angels and demons clues that apply here a little later on. Because there is so much to see. We'll get on with it. And in fact, the angels and demons filming in this position was all done on the back lot of a studio in Hollywood. One thing that we've noticed since we were here before is they seem to have stepped up security since the last time. I mean, maybe that's because there's an American Pope now. Time to wander away from the Vatican and see some of Rome. The bridges, apart from the Vatican, are probably the most spectacular part of Rome. And if you look down them, they all kind of point to Navarro Square. Well, the Romans did like a straight line, didn't they? If under siege, the archbishops run away from the Vatican to here, Castle de San Angelo. And one thing Hanks did point out, which you probably wouldn't see on a normal tour of Rome, is there is a pathway, a tunnel up on a bridge that runs between the two buildings. We'll show you that later. We've been reliably informed by someone trying to sell a bus tour that the bridge is closed because any moment now Dorothy, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion are going to come skipping down the yellow brick road. Oh, how Dorothy has changed. The whole of this city is used for filming. Many days you'll find crews around and roads closed. This concrete vegetable terrain and the church behind it both are pointed out on the bus tour. If you're walking around Rome, the churches you see will depend on the route you take. But the bridges all kind of point to the same square. As a cruiser visiting Rome, there is a lot to do. So hopefully this film will help you research where you want to go and you can pinpoint the places on your Google Maps. The same as you can with all of our Doris Visits films for every city and every port. These are the churches that we passed on our first walk up to Navarro Square. We took the main road up, which is kind of the long route. You can't go to Rome without going into one or two churches and the churches you pass will depend on the route you take. Now, if you want to go straight to Navarro Square, I'd go along the embankment and cross here. A stroll along the embankment is a lovely walk and when you get to the building that looks a bit like a cake, well, that's the court building. If you keep that behind you and cross the Umberto Bridge and carry on straight, you'll come to Piazza Navona. Previously, the square was in the open-place stadium of Domitian, built in the 1st century AD and known as Circus Aguinali. The Piazza Navona is a great place to come, particularly at lunchtime, because there are lots of lovely cafes, but there are great water features and statues here as well. The beautiful church of Saint Agnes in Angone is dedicated to Saint Agnes, a young Christian martyr. The church is 17th century Baroque style and its architects include Girolamo Reinaldi, Carlo Reinaldi and Francesco Borromini. The church is said to be situated on the exact spot where Saint Agnes was martyred. The interior of the church features a Greek cross plan and a large dome with ornate decorations and chapels. Entrance to the church is free, but if you want to visit the crypt, you will have to pay. The square became public in the 15th century and the fountain of the four rivers features an obelisk topped with the Panfili family emblem. The Baroque fountain represents the reach of the Catholic church across the globe. The river god of the Ganges lies back on the rocks with a snake wriggling at his feet. The god of the Nile covers his face in a shroud. The god of Rio de la Plata is symbolic of the riches of the new world and god of the Danube sculpted by Benigni himself. On the southern end of the square is the Fontana del Moro. This is where the fourth cardinal was drowned. The fourth clue was water. The murderer drove a van up in the road right next to it, dragged him out and pushed him into the fountain. Rome has been pretty hard work in this heat, so we've bailed out and we've had my favorite, spaghetti bongole and a rose wine in the Osteria Navona, which I would recommend. Limoncello on the house. Tuk-tuks, scooters, walking tours, all available. Now we're going to take a route from here, Navona Square, to the Pantheon. Stuart reliably tells me, and he's not always right, mostly but not always, that the only bigger man-made dome than that one on the Icon of the Seas is the one on the Pantheon. You do have to pay to go inside the Pantheon, but it's huge, so the queue goes down very quickly. There are different queues to go into the Pantheon to pay. The far one is cash only. You pay cash and go in. The middle one is card and cash, where you pay and go in. And this one here, you pay in a machine, you get your ticket, but then you have to queue again in the middle one to go in. The best way is to scan the QR code that's outside, pay online, and then you go straight in through the middle. As the Pantheon was almost the only place they did film in Rome for Angels and Demons, I guess we should tell you the story. The giant hole in the centre of the dome is called the Oculus, and originally it served as a kind of chimney for the smoke from ceremonial fires that were buried in the temple floor. In Angels and Demons, the detectives mistakenly assume it is what is meant by the Demon's Hole in the first riddle. Hanks finds a plaque which says that the body of Raphael was relocated to the Pantheon. You won't find it here because it was only in the movie. He has this confirmed by a nun, so he goes off to the Santa Maria del Popolo, where the body originally was. The wall on the left side of the Pantheon, as you look at it, is in the shade. It's a great place to sit, and this is where the drivers wait for you. If you've gone on a pre-booked tour, they'll also get your tickets in advance, so it's quite an advantage. You skip the queue. Let's show you the next Angels and Demons clue, because it's not a bad way to see Rome, and that tour does sell out. As squares go, Piazza del Popolo is quite impressive, and those in power at the time, in 1826, were still holding public executions here. The execution bit is relevant because Dan Brown claims in his book that the Illuminati, a group of scientists, were reaping revenge on the Church, who in former times had persecuted them for their beliefs. They were seeking a different kind of truth. Santa Maria del Popolo was designed by Benigni, and it was here that the first cardinal was found, dead on the floor with his mouth stuffed full of carbon. The first clue was earth. Another way to see Rome is the horse and track. That's a great tour as well. Quite amazing to think you'd pay to go inside the Colosseum, and yet all around there are these incredible buildings. Just think what the Hungarians would do if they took over Rome. This would be a million film sets. Just as a tip, we saw something here. If you're using an electric scooter to go around Rome and see it, two people were going the wrong way down a street, on the edge, quite innocently, but right past a group of policemen who did actually give them a ticket. Practically all of Rome, whether it's modern Rome, Christian Rome, or the Roman ruins, it's all been built by hundreds and thousands of slaves. This history goes back years and years and years. And here are the fascinating bits, the actual real Roman ruins. This really is old Rome. The ruins, as we head down towards the Colosseum, which is at the end of this path. Whilst the Colosseum is in the other direction to most of the things you want to see in Rome, it is on the big bus route. It does have a metro station next to it. And of course, if you use your Google Maps, you can walk to it. The Colosseum is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Rome. It's depicted on the Italian five-euro coin and is one of the new seven wonders of the world. The Colosseum was built under the Flavian emperors of Rome and is also called the Flavian Amphitheatre, apparently, although I've never heard it called that. It's visited by six million people annually. It opens at 9am and the last entrance is 6.15pm. The Colosseum hosted fights between gladiators, naval battles, and simulations of hunting wild and exotic animals. It's 189 metres long, 156 metres wide, and over 48 metres high. It extends over 24,000 square metres. This is bus stop five at Circus Maximus and this is where the Romans used to race in their chariots and it seated 150,000 people. I'm on the Spanish Steps, which is near bus stop number eight on the blue line of the big bus tour. And now we're going to walk down there and towards the Trevi Fountain. Gorgeous. From the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain is straight down this road and you'll pass the Column of the Immaculate Conception. It's actually not that old, it's 19th century. Look at the crowds here. You may wonder how you're ever going to get a picture. The best view of the beautiful Trevi Fountain is from the clothes shop over the road, upstairs in the children's department. Legend has it that if you toss a coin into the fountain, you'll come back to Rome. If you toss in two, you'll marry the man of your dreams and if you toss in three, you'll get divorced. And every night they drain the fountain and give the coins to charity. The Trevi Fountain measures some 20 metres in width by 26 metres in height. It was built using local travertine stone in 1762. Back to angels and demons. The plot, and there is one. The bad guys, more about them later, have stolen some antimatter and hidden it in a canister looking like this. We have four hours to save the Vatican. The battery goes dead, the Vatican blows up. Well, unless they're supercharged batteries, then we have a bit longer. Hanks needed to get into the Vatican library. It was built in a studio, which meant they could damage it in a fight. Apparently, the clue was in a book. I'm in the Vatican library and I'm glad to see they've got all Dan Brown's books on their shelves. Go to the Pantheon. You could buy a 1.50 ticket in it, or you could do the whole angels and demons tour on the tube. After a disastrous start at the Pantheon, Langdon comes back to the Vatican. While walking across this car park, well, not this actual car park, Langdon realises that the second clue is air and that the angels on the tiles at the base of the Egyptian obelisk are all blowing air. The cardinal was found dead with his lungs punctured on these steps at the base of the Egyptian obelisk. Obviously, it couldn't be done here. It was done on a back lot in a studio in Los Angeles. There are 16 tiles around the base of the Egyptian obelisk and they all represent different points of the compass and they're of angels blowing wind. You may think the tile doesn't look like the one in the film. That's because it isn't. That one was made in a plasterer's shop in Los Angeles. This points to the third clue. This is the Piazza Barberini where they placed the church, the Santa Maria Della Vittoria, although it's not where it actually is. This is the church of the Santa Maria Della Vittoria where the third cardinal was found dead. The clue was fire. He was found dead in front of a statue of Saint Teresa. She claimed that an angel had pierced her heart and she was on fire with the love of God. Hanks is looking for a manhole cover. Not this one. Not that one. It's one where there are a set of cross keys which tells him that Saint Peter was crucified upside down. He knows he needs to lift it and go down the manhole. Hanks runs away from the castle to the Vatican. He runs along this wall. This wall is 800 metres long. Guess what? He never did it here. He did it in a studio. Rome and Vatican City were CGI'd into the wall section. The popes are voting in the conclave. The people are in the square waiting. They want to see the smoke change colour from the chimney above me. As you can see, there's no chimney there at the moment. Firemen erect the chimney for each vote for a new pope. I hope you enjoyed our film of Rome. We loved making it. And the fun bit about Dan Brown is still relevant. Those tours sell out. Now the restaurant's just away from the centre. Look how much more seafood you get in your linguine. Hey, please tell your friends about Doris Visits. Not even two minutes away from the shuttle bus is the Grand Square. And in the Grand Square, you'll find the cathedral. There's the historic area. There's the Venice area around the canals and the modern front along the promenade. Livorno is a real mix of old and new buildings. Behind me is the old fortress, which is the most important historic monument here. And it's right next to the new marina with all the modern shops and cafes. You can probably get around Livorno quite quickly, looking at all the monuments and churches, etc. So you might be happy to come to this modern complex, where there are definitely good toilets inside and restaurants for refreshments. The information and tourism office is exactly where the bus drops you off. The unexpected is dark, intense and sophisticated. It blends pulse-pounding action with emotionally rich character drama, balancing suspense, sharp humour and cultural insight. It's layered with complexity and always emotionally resonant, where freedom dances on the edge of betrayal. The Cruise Crime Novel with Espionage. Out now on Kindle, paperback and audiobook.