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…

Santorini, Greece

Wednesday - An early morning today. A small group met for coffee at 6:30 when we discovered that the coffee place didn’t open until 7. At 7:30, we wandered down to deck 2 to get loaded on tenders for the short ride into Santorini. No boat docks.

This place is very photogenic. All of the buildings are painted white as electricity didn’t arrive until 1967 and the white kept the buildings cooler. The blue trim was mandated by the government for uniform appearance. And is the color of the Greek flag.

We took a cable car to the top of the cliff. The other options were walking and donkeys. The €10 for the cable car seemed like a bargain. 

This picture was the start of the tour. The first stop was at a black sand beach (next picture), where we had a mid-morning snack. I had the grilled sardines just because I wanted to try something different. 

We had about 1½ hours of free time at the beach. 

The next stop was Megalochori or huge village in Greek. Cobblestone streets and lots of hills. We visited a historic cave dwelling. 

We then went to Oia, where the stereotypical photos of Santorini are taken. It was extremely crowded and the prices were steep. Lots of people taking selfies. 

Our stop here was only about an hour as the tour guides thought that the group would enjoy more free time in the reasonably priced location at the top of the tram. 

We were told that real estate prices were completely out of hand here. Some hotel rooms have been known to go for over €10k per night!

We had a very late lunch back in Fira, the village at the top of the tram. 

Sea Day

Tuesday - Just before we returned to the ship, we stopped at a cathedral. B this time, most of the group, including me were pretty tired. The ship time changed at 2am to the time zone of our next stop. We didn’t actually change time zones at that point but more for convenience. There was a meetup this morning with pastries and coffee followed by a group photo. About half of the group showed up initially and we guessed that the other half didn’t get the time zone memo. 

I had eggs Benedict and wedge salad for breakfast. The menu was both breakfast and lunch, which was nice. And the bacon was actually crispy, unlike the bacon in Italy. I guess the cruise company caters to Americans. Well, sort of. The couple at the next table complained about everything they brought out to them. Their toast wasn’t freshly toasted, the hash browns were a patty, and the eggs weren’t cooked perfectly. Almost everything was not satisfactory, to them. They were Americans.

Afterwards, I checked out the Solarium up on deck 14 at the front of the ship. Very nice and quiet. At least initially. The hot tubs were pretty empty and the view was nice. 

After about an hour, it started to feel more crowded and warm. I turned in my towel and headed back to the room. Our balcony is facing north as we are headed almost due east towards the southern Greek islands. It was nice to be out of the sun for a bit.

We had lunch at the Solarium Bistro. A much smaller selection than the regular buffet but a fraction of the people and no kids. I just had a hot dog, some fries, a small caprese salad, and a bit of penne with a white sauce.

We walked three laps around the running track on deck 15 but it was a zoo as people were watching the belly flop contest while drinking and smoking like there’s no tomorrow. So many more people seem to smoke in Europe. Or at least smoke where there are a lot of other people around.

Tomorrow, we will be in Santorini, one of the iconic locations in Greece. The first time I ever heard of this location was in the movie Tomb Raider. The white buildings all built along a cliff in the initial scene with the earthquake. 

Messina (Sicily)

Monday - This morning, we arrived in Messina located between Sicily and mainland Italy. We have an all-day bus tour scheduled with some free time in the middle for lunch.

Earlier, a subset of us met up for coffee and breakfast at Two70 located at the stern overlooking the water. A pretty nice location for breakfast. 

We stopped at a roadside rest stop for a bit for a bio break. It’s a two hour ride to our first stop, Mt Etna. 

It was a narrow, curvy road up to 6,100’ on the side of the volcano. 

At the stop, we were able to walk up to craters with recent activity. 

When we arrived, the clouds opened up a bit showing more of the surrounding landscape. 

This is one of the craters that you could walk into. The ground was all packed ash and lava but walking wasn’t difficult though you did need to watch your step. 

We then went to the Greek Theater in Taormina. We heard the history from when the Greeks built it and the changes when the Romans politicized it. 

From the back of the theater, there was a wonderful view of the town and the beach. 

Well?

Sunday - Another high stress day. We filled out our Royal Caribbean “Health status” questionnaire and reported that I had two of the symptoms listed. Basically, a cold. We’ll see if that gets us dumped to the do-not-allow list. I don’t think I’ll be able to relax until we are onboard.

The included hotel breakfast was decent and included cappuccino, so no complaints. All of the breakfasts in Italy really focus on sweet offerings. The savory options seem limited to eggs and floppy bacon. 

Checkout time is 11am and our overpriced shuttle to the ship is scheduled for 11:30. 

Later - It turns out that the “Health check” wasn’t very stringent. They asked us a couple of questions and a supervisor came by and said no problem. We were on the ship by noon. Way less stress for me at this point. We are on Odyssey of the Seas, a Royal Caribbean cruise ship, on a 7 day Greek Isles and Italy cruise. This trip was organized by two RV YouTube channels, Less Junk More Journey and Finding Our Someday. 

We ran into a couple of the cruise organizers and they mentioned that we could drop our stuff off at the conference room they were setting up for distribution of packets. We then had a light lunch at the buffet before going back, picking up our packets which includes tickets for all of the excursions. 

Travel Day to Civitavecchia

Saturday - That name is a mouthful. We took the public transit bus to the train station, with plenty of time to catch our first train to Pisa. After boarding the train, Bridget got an email saying it was cancelled. We got off the train and sought out customer service who told us to go to another platform and get on that train. The electric status board on the train wasn’t displaying the expected information. Being clueless, I asked the person I was sitting next to and found out that we were  headed towards Pisa just later than planned.

We missed our connection to Civitavecchia, so we waited in line to talk to an agent and verified that we just needed to wait for the next train.  The train wasn’t crowded at all compared to the one from Florence. Maybe because it’s Saturday afternoon. I’m not complaining. The train was traveling at around 160 mph between stops. Smooth and quiet. We arrived a couple of hours later than planned. 

Later - We arrived at our hotel, which was only a short walk from the train station, around 5pm. It is an old building but has some real oddities. Such as, our room has two floors. The bedroom is up a flight of stairs. And the mini split made a horrendous noise when first powered on. But it was set for 16°C and dripped a lot of water initially. Maybe there was ice built up. Anyway, it’s working fine now.

We had dinner at a bistro with outdoor seating. Again, my main complaint is all the cigarette smoke. I have gotten really used to no smoking in most businesses in the U.S..

Florence Rest Day - Day 4

Friday - Today was a rest & recuperation day. Bridget was concerned about my cough and had a doctor come by the hotel room. I guess house calls are still the norm around here. He said I had bronchitis, not contagious, but aggravated by all the smoke in the narrow streets, restaurants, and shops. He prescribed some antibiotics and something for my cough. 

Not that I’m getting tired of Italian food, but yesterday, I had a burger and roasted potatoes. Today, we had dinner at a Thai fusion place and I had the ramen and gyoza. The chicken was dry and addition of tomatoes made it “fusion” but it was decent. 

Tomorrow, we catch a couple of trains to Civitavecchia, Rome’s seaport. There is a very short stop in Pisa and we need to switch trains there. 

Siena & San Gimignano

Thursday - We met out tour bus near the train station for an all-day road trip south to Siena and San Gimignano. I picked up a cold probably from the never ending crowds here in Italy and on the flight over.

The tour bus was huge relative to size of the streets and the driver didn’t seem to have any issues. It was a couple of hours to Siena and we wandered around the Piazza del Duomo for a bit. 

This was the one place I’ve heard about and it was very picturesque. It’s hard to see it in the pictures, but the plaza slopes up all the way around. 

It wasn’t too crowded today. The plaza is surrounded by restaurants and tourist souvenir shops like most of these places. 

We then ventured a short distance to the Siena Cathedral. Bridget is off exploring. Being the old guy, I’m sitting down on the steps. Back to the bus for San Gimignano. 

Another beautiful town though I needed to find a public bathroom. Hard to find and they charge money to enter. 

The historic part of town was located on a hill so you had stunning views of the surrounding area. It’s great for views but made for tough walking. 

It was several hours on a very comfortable and quiet tour bus.