Rome, IT - Day 1

Sunday - Departure day from the ship. We had an early breakfast at the buffet. Made-to-order omelet was good as were a few other items. Some items were were barely mediocre. We were off by 7:45 and took off on foot to the train station about 3.2 km away. 

All of the ticket machines at the station were down because of a computer issue. The customer service agent told us to get on the train and purchase the ticket from the agent on board. 

We arrived in Rome about 9:45am, and started walking to our hotel, a Best Western kind of near the train station. We stopped for coffee (and more importantly, a bathroom) at a sidewalk cafe about ¼ mile from the hotel as we assumed that the room wouldn’t be ready for several more hours. We checked in and, surprise, the room was ready. 

Mid-afternoon, we went in search of a grocery store. Not the ones in the tourist areas labeled as “supermarket” but one of the ones off the beaten path where you can find bananas or bread, and other normal grocery items. 

We just wandered out of the hotel and looked at menus of the many small restaurants we passed. We picked one almost at random as the menus seemed pretty similar. As a side dish, I had Roma artichokes, considered a must-try if you are in Rome. 

The other dish was spaghetti all’amatriciana. The sauce was not the typical marinara that it resembles. And there was a lot of Pecorino Romano melted in. Delicious dinner. All this delicious food we’ve been having in Italy made the cruise fare seemed average. 

Naples, IT - Sorrento & Pompei

Saturday - We tried to get an early start this morning to try and beat the morning traffic. But tour bus delays got in the way. Our first stop was Sorrento, about an hour south of Naples.

It was hectic at the cruise terminal trying to find our bus tour. I don’t know what the old, castle-like building is, but it looked cool.

Sorrento is well known for lemons and everything there had lemons as an ingredient or decoration. We spent about an hour there then headed for Pompeii.

Mt Vesuvius is just north of Pompeii and when it erupted, the ash and lava covered the city. I have a lot of pictures to look through. 

Another Sea Day

Friday - Today is a sea day. Our next stop is Naples, IT. Today’s event is a get together with our group of mostly RVers for hors d’oeuvres and give aways. This trip was put together by three RV YouTube brands. Finding our Someday (FOS), Less Junk More Journey (LJMJ), and Driven to Venture. And, they got some donations to give away as door prizes.

After a morning, informal meetup for coffee and a light breakfast, I headed to the solarium. It was much more crowded than before but, then again, yesterday’s numbers was a pretty low bar. While there, we went through the edge of a rain storm. The rain on the glass roof was a relaxing sound. And the unlimited Coke Zero is a nice perk, at least to me. 

Around 11, the solarium was getting warm so we headed indoors and sat at Giovanni’s Wine Bar. These locations are very comfortable and even though we weren’t purchasing anything, we were more than welcome to enjoy the quiet,comfy seats.

After lunch/brunch in the main dining room, we went to the theater in the stern for a technical demonstration of the different technologies used for their shows.

The group had a get together before dinner where there was a Q&A session, hors d’oeuvres, and door prizes. They also mentioned that they were thinking of next year doing a repositioning cruise from Vancouver, BC, to Hawaii. But it’s just in the thinking phase. 

Over the PA system, the cruise director mentioned that around 10pm, we would be passing an active volcano on the port side. Our room is on the port side so we should be looking around for something. 

We passed San Vincenzo right at 10:00pm and it is an active volcano. Google has images from just four days ago showing lava spurting out on the northern slope. Once we were north of the island, we were able to see the orange lava spurts. And that the clouds that looked like they were from the top was also from the vent. The pictures are just from the iPhone camera in night mode. I had to manually set it to do a 10 second exposure. I didn’t even realize that it was an option. 

Mykonos, Greece

Thursday - After yesterday’s long “excursion-ing” day, I’m all for some quiet time. I met with a small number from our group at 6:30 for coffee at the nice shop in the stern where we’ve been meeting most mornings. Some coffee, light breakfast, and good conversation. 

I then headed to the solarium at the front of the ship to enjoy the hot tub. I was almost the only one there. Most people were probably getting ready to go ashore as we just docked at Mykonos, Greece. After our stay on Santorini Island, I’m good to spend most of the day on board. 

The classic white-painted buildings are nice but not as picturesque as Oia, our last stop on yesterday’s bus tour.  This may be a lot less touristy as yesterday’s stop. So we might venture into the port area a little later. The deadline for re-boarding is 4pm, so not as much time as yesterday. One change was actually docking instead of tendering. Much more convenient.

On port days, the North Star, a spherical capsule at the end of an arm, is only allowed to go up and down. While the ship is underway, they can move it horizontally over the sides of the ship. So on port days, the attraction is free. 

We got a nice view of the port area of Mykonos as well as a nice view of the ship. We would need to take a water taxi to get to the old city. 

Tomorrow is a sea day as we head back towards Italy. Our next stop is Naples and Pompeii. 

The afternoon was spent working on blog posts, catching up on email, and other things that need Internet. This is the seating area for that coffee place I mentioned at the beginning of this post. It is also a theater in the evening. 

On this cruise, I had not picked up the Internet package but relying on Saily, an eSIM provider. Much more cost effective but it only works while we are in a port. And, is data only. No associated phone number. For voice calls or texts, I have a Google Voice number. So I can write this post while we are here but tomorrow is a sea day, so that post gets written in notepad then cut-and-paste into Blogger when we get to the next port. In this case, that will be Naples, IT. Only a couple more days…