Planes, trains and automobiles - and boats

We ended up taking a ferry to Crete after the tour finished. We rented a car and drove to the south side of the island. There were a few wrong/missed turns but we eventually made it. We sat on the beach and ate some of our accumulated snacks. Dale went swimming again but I just couldn't face the cold water (although it might not be that cold to others). We then drove to the north side of the island to find a beach there. We found a sandy beach (the others were fairly rocky) and enjoyed the warm sun and surf there. We ferried back to Athens where we caught our flight to Rome.
We had a big "incident" trying to find our hotel. It seemed everything went wrong that day and by the end of the day I was tired and cold and so was the shower!! And they didn't have shampoo in the hotel. The next day was better. We took a bus to the Vatican and toured that on our own. We toured the Vatican Museum and it seemed to take forever to get to the Sisten Chapel. The ceiling was much different than I expected! We walked back to the hotel hitting different sites along the way. We had a wonderful dinner in a restaurant recommended by the hotel clerk. The next day we toured more sights throughout the city including the Colosseum and the Pantheon. More ruins! But the Pantheon was spectacular!
We were back at the hotels to pick up our baggage by 4 pm and headed to the airport for our 50 minute flight. We arrived at our hotel at 11:30 pm. It was a long day. We are just trying to figure out what to see now.
A few thoughts: In Rome, the buildings are all connected. There is only a space between buildings when there is a street. Cars are double parked all over the place (there are no parking lots). Traffic is unbelievable! Motorcycles just scoot in and out of traffic. Almost all the restaurants have tables on the sidewalks. Some of the streets are barely 2 cars wide and they have cars parked in them. The sidewalks, when they exist, are often very narrow.