ITALY AND MEDITERRANEAN CRUISE

The room is fresh and clean and comfortable - nicely decorated and with a view out the open window of a corner of the Vatican City in the distance. Thanks Lisa and Quintin for suggesting this place!! Jan napped while Larry got out the laptop and figured out the internet connection.

In preparation for this vacation I watched the movie Roman Holiday and the building our room is in is just like the one where Cary Grant had his apartment, though without his view. After our rest, we walked over to see St. Peter's Square - words fail!! And then we had an hour or so before the Basilica closed, so we wandered through it -- Again - no words!! Perhaps the most interesting thing was after we were out, we realized Larry left a camera case away deep in the cathedral. Because it had closed we had to get an armed escort back in to get it. The place was absolutely empty and errily quiet except for a choir which was rehearsing a recording in one of the chapel areas. Magnificent!

Dinner afterward at a small nearby restaurant was nice but not spectacular. We were tired enough not to really care. Back to our room before 9 pm to rest up for tomorrow - our hop-on-hop-off tour day.
Selected Rome Photos

We certainly slept well in this very comfortable firm bed. Rome seems surprisingly quiet during the night, but there were very peculiar thumps and bumps inside the building. This morning we were ready for breakfast as soon as they started serving it at 7:45. Wonderful cappuccino to start the day, along with pastries and sandwiches. Then we walked to the Vatican Museum. We joined the queue about 2 blocks from the entrance but it moved quickly so we were inside in about 20 minutes.

By the time we left, the queue was much longer - about 2 hours, and continuing to grow. Inside we were stunned by the amount of priceless art in such large and beautiful surroundings. It defies description, and our photos tell only a miniscule part of the story. We both enjoyed this museum more that the Hermitage, but occasionally the lack of information left us wondering what we were looking at. Eventually we made our way to the Sistine Chapel, which was packed shoulder to shoulder and very warm. Guards were directing traffic and reminding people to maintain respectful silence - largely unsuccessfully. We both thought it was entirely unlike our expectations, but extremely impressive, of course. Afterward we wandered through a few galleries of contemporary art that we had entirely to ourselves. Eventually we found the beautiful double spiral staircase and made our way out ot the street.

We picked up our hop-on bus tour in front of St. Peter's and rode as far as the Coliseum, catching glimpses of many parts oft the city along the way. We have tickets for the Coliseum on Thursday, so just walked around the area and ate lunch from a street vendor. We walked all around the outside of the Form/Ancient Rome and could see many of the excavated ruins. We picked up the tour again for a short hop to the Campidoglio where we admired a different view of the ancient city ruins.

Another short hop took us to the area of the Parthenon/Basilica of Mary and the Martyrs -- what an astonishing place!! It's been there for nearly 2000 years and is still intact and very beautiful. It was taken over as a Christian place, but still is in its original state otherwise. From there we walked to the Piazza Novorna here we had coffee, beer and biscotti while we enjoyed the passing scene. Then we wandered through the artists' vending areas and enjoyed their displays.

After a fruitless attempt to find the bus stop to rejoin the tour, we walked across the bridge to the Castel Sant Angelo - an impressive place. Then barely missing the tour bus again, we wandered back to the hotel, picking up supper makings at a deli. A drink in the bar, little walk in our neighbourhood and we're done for the day. Whew!! Saw lots and really enjoyed Rome today. More Selected Rome Photos

We slept a bit later this morning and found the breakfast room quite crowded. The cappuccino was still quite wonderful though. We caught our last ride on the hop-on-hop-off tour before our 24 hours pass expired, and went the Trevi Fountain to begin our day. We arrived there with no coins to throw over our shoulder but enjoyed the early light on the fountain, and then set off for the Spanish Steps. We had difficulty getting the streets to match our maps so joined forces with another North American couple and found it fairly easily. We climbed the steps, enjoyed the view and then toured the Trinita dei Monti church at the top.

We strolled along the upper road to the gardens overlooking the Piazza del Popolo. On the way down to the piazza we discovered an exhibition of Leonardo Da Vinci’s works – primarily his inventions modeled with his original drawings.

We couldn’t get into the Santa Maria del Popolo church, so strolled on to the Mausoleum of Augustus (circa 28 BC). There’s a lot of excavation around it and we couldn’t get too close, but it’s certainly impressive.

Across the Cavour Bridge we hoped to find a café for lunch, but no luck. Too much construction. Eventually we made our way to Castel Sant’Angelo where we lunched on street food. We climbed to the top terrace of the Castel, to take in the astonishing views of Rome from that vantage point. By the time we came down again we were ready for a rest, so made our way back to the hotel.

We’ve walked a lot here, and so have interesting street-level impressions of the city – the amazing smell of good espresso on nearly every corner — the insane traffic and proliferation of scooters and small cars ( “Smart Cars” are the norm here ) – archaeological excavations everywhere and amazing antiquities - many men in clerical collars and women in habits everywhere.

Today we saw a nun with a sun visor over her veil. Mostly friendly, helpful people with patience for non-Italian-speakers - marble cobblestones – women in crazy high-heeled shoes and boots. How do their ankles survive? – everyone eating gelato – How do their waistlines survive ?

After our afternoon break we walked to the closest piazza and had a gelato ( before dinner ! ), then sat at the outdoor area of the hotel’s café. We got chatting with an interesting couple, named Marian and Harry, from Glasgow. They’re off to San Giovanni tomorrow and we’re looking forward to hearing how their experience there goes.

The first of two consecutive days at sea, so time to relax and recuperate from all the touring. Unfortunately, we hit rather rough weather early in the day, and many people became sea sick. Both of us felt it, but made it through without incident. Enough onboard activities to enjoy ( quizzes, bingo, port lectures ) but the evening show was cancelled out of concern for the safety of the dance performers. Instead, a rather good vocal concert was given by 2 of the regular show performers . Also most decks were closed because of gale force winds and spray.
 

Late in the evening there was the high drama of a med-evac event. With the bad weather and no helicopter landing space, it was all quite dicey, but was successfully completed in short order with a stretcher/cable procedure. From the first ship-wide page (`Code A Gold') to the departure of the helicopter to Crete was under 2 hours.

The weather continued rough through the morning, but became significantly calmer by late afternoon - those who had been seasick began to reappear around lunch time. We got a good laugh when one of the housekeepers lined up about 30 barf bags along the hand rails in her section - open and ready for use.

During the morning some of my quiz buddies asked if I was going to the Canada Quiz that night - 'well', I said,' I must be doing the Canada Quiz after all!!' I had offered, but never heard back, so I checked the Daily Schedule Paper and sure enough it was published to the ship! I tracked down the host and made our arrangements and WE WERE ON!

Meanwhile, we'd heard that there were several other Canadians onboard - a group from Calgary, mostly in their 20s. The rest of the day was the usual round of daytime activities and a good show at night. After that we donned our CANADA shirts and set up for the quiz. The place was packed! We handed out CANADA pencils to everyone - actually ran out. Larry passed around chocolate Loonies and Toonies. The quiz was a great success and the prizes went over well. People keep stopping us and mentioning it. Fun! The normal quiz host got so excited he said he had never seen anything like it on any cruise, and called in the ship photographer to take photos for HQ.
Click for Quiz Photos

Early morning found us tying up in the harbour at Valetta, Malta. We went ashore after breakfast and took a bus into town. It's a lovely little city! What contrast to Port Said, Egypt! We strolled the main street, drank some cappuccino and did some shopping. We caught the bus back to the harbour and had lunch at café on the wharf, where Larry was successful at linking to internet service but was unable to upload photos. 
 

Back on board we got ready for the afternoon excursion around the island of Malta. We visited a botanical garden around the Presidential Palace, then a craft village that is housed in buildings on an old RAF base from WW2. The filigree-making and glass works were very interesting to watch and we did buy a few things. After that, we went to a local winery, also on former RAF land ( a torn-up runway is part of it) and sample white and red wines and local cheeses. Yummy!. 

Then on to Moska to visit the beautiful domed church. A bomb came through the dome during the WWII, but it failed to explode and non of the 300 or so worshippers was hurt. This was considered and documented as a miracle by the parishioners. 

Back aboard we were ready for a bit of rest before the Captain's Farewell Cocktail Party, and final formal dinner - including a parade of servers in the dark with baked alaskas topped with giant sparklers - very impressive and fun. Later the evening show was put on by the ship staff. Also fun, including some Pilipino dancing and singing as well as a rousing rendition of YMCA and Chippendale sendup that was a 'Half Monty'. 

The bad news did go around today that the gentleman who was medivac'd the other night died in the hospital.
Selected Photos - Malta

It was certainly an organized departure this morning. Everyone had colour-coded luggage tags and a time to leave that coincided with their flights/tours etc. Being "Independent", we were free to go any time from 8am, so we aimed for 8:30 to make our car pickup reservation of about 9. We picked up our luggage in a shore-side depot and took a shuttle to the port exit. Then we walked several blocks to the car rental agency dragging our 4 suitcase in a "train". The agent there gave us a good map and excellent directions and we were on our way! Navigation was simple as far as Pompeii and we found good parking in a campground opposite the Pompeii excavation/archaeological site.

We spent a few hours wandering through the ruins Amazing how much survived being buried in volcanic ash for nearly 2 millennia. The murals, mosaics and monuments are astounding, and the ordinary homes interesting.

Leaving Pompeii, the challenge was one of navigation. There are not a lot of signs on the smaller roads, and when there are, they are in clusters right at the intersections, so snap decisions are necessary - oh and did I mention that Italian driving is to North American driving as Snoop Dawg is to Mozart?? Lane markings are purely decorative, "STOP" means "YIELD" and "YIELD" mean "WHO-ME?". Motorcycles and scooters zoop in and out everywhere and generally consider the line between lanes an extra lane for them ( which makes it real interesting as cars ignore lanes anyway). Plus of course it's narrow, hilly and bendy. I tried to navigate while Larry drove ( standard transmission, just to add a level of complication).

Eventually we found Vico Equense, where our hotel is situated, but had no idea how to find it. We asked a cop in the middle of the street and he waved a hand and said "toward Sorento". That seemed vague, but about 10 minutes later - voila! Of course getting into the Hotel involved a 180 deg left turn and then a steep uphill, followed by several more steep turns ( requiring use of the emergency brake/clutch combo ) before we reached the parking lot. But Larry managed it, and the hotel is great. We have a balcony ( the size of our deck at home ) over hanging the road ( great thrills watching the traffic ), and overlooking the Gulf of Naples. We are drinking from the mini bar and planning on room service tonight. There's no way we want to go out on that road any more today. Also the view is too spectacular to leave...especially at sunset.

Note: Photos have been uploaded right up to today's photo from our balcony. ( The internet connection here is fabulous - just like our home connection.
Selected Photos of Pompeii