What a day we had! It was fun, it was challenging, it was exhausting…at 8pm we are back in our hotel in Civitavecchia. Stick a fork in me, I’m done!
It was nice to see sun again this morning when we woke up. Actually, shortly after we woke up; it was still dark when the alarm went off at 6am. We finalized packing up our cabin (the over the door shoe rack and all toiletries were packed in a Princess tote bag for fast unpacking tomorrow on the Norwegian Spirit). By 8am we were in the Horizon Court Buffet lingering over breakfast. Our tentative walk off time was 9:45am.
It was a rather strange turnaround day. I suspect a large percentage of passengers were staying on until Dubai or Singapore, so disembarkation seemed very easy, and very fast. By 9:25am they were making the last and final announcement for all disembarking passengers to go ashore, and that was our cue to go down to Deck 7 to disembark. Our two suitcases were among only 20 or so still remaining in the terminal.
The waiting game then began, as taxi/shuttle after taxi/shuttle would pull into the parking lot in front of the terminal, and a driver would emerge, carrying a piece of paper with a name on it. Couple by couple, the waiting guests were picked up, most of them bound for Rome. Finally a van arrived and the emerging paper contained our name, and we were off, heading to the Hotel Traiano in.Civitavecchia.
I don’t remember exactly why I chose this hotel for our one night stay. I knew it had an elevator (very important) and very good reviews. The price was certainly right (€81, including transfers and breakfast tomorrow morning). They do a big cruise business here. When we arrived this morning, the lobby was busy with people who were boarding the Sapphire today.
We were assigned a room shortly after 11am, a nice corner unit on the fourth floor with a wrap around balcony.. It’s very basic but very clean and extremely quiet (which the hotels closer to the waterfront are not). It took us a few minutes to get settled and lock up our valuables in the safe, and then we set out to walk about 15 minutes down to the Civitavecchia train station. Our goal for the day was to go to Rome for the afternoon.
We purchased tickets for €4 each. Our outbound train was in a newer, two level car, and it was nearly empty. We watched while the train traveled south along the water and then did a big left turn toward Rome. I think it took less than an hour; this train was fast, reaching speeds of 92 mph. We disembarked at Stazione San Pietro, about a 10-minute walk from St. Peter’s Square.
We first walked to St. Peter’s Basilica, thinking we might go inside again (and maybe even stay for the 5pm Mass), but were met with long, long lines waiting to see inside. Someone who worked there estimated it was a 75-90 minute wait to enter the basilica. When we were here two years ago, we had entered from the Sistine Chapel and avoided the line altogether. We didn’t realize until today what an advantage that had been!
St. Peter’s Square
Directional tiles
St. Peter’s Basilica
St. Peter’s Square
Vatican City parking
Lunch stop
Love these balconies!
HATE this trash!
Instead we just walked around Vatican City awhile, and finally settled on a restaurant to have a late lunch/early dinner. It was close to 5pm by the time we finished, and we headed back to the Stazione San Pietro to take a train back to Civitavecchia. Oh my. The next train to Civitavecchia was cancelled altogether and the one after that was about 15 minutes late. When we boarded, it was standing room only and these were old cars with no bars to hold on to. I inched my way toward the sliding door at the back of the car, where it was hooked together with the next car and I held on to the door handle, hoping that I would not inadvertently open it while we were speeding across the countryside.
It was dark when we arrived back in Civitavecchia, but we thought we could carefully find our way back up to the hotel. We stopped at a small store on the way to pick up beverages and snacks for the evening and are back in the room. Unfortunately, the WiFi that worked fine in the lobby isn’t working at all in our room, so I am typing this post on my iPhone. It’s good practice for the next ten days. On NCL we’ll be crossing to the dark side, and I will have to rely on publishing my blog posts the next day, pending a decent cellular signal in our ports. I will continue to write, even if I can’t publish, and will get caught up as soon as I can.
G is fully absorbed in a show on one the TV’s few channels called Container Wars. It’s apparently an American show dubbed in Italian, so he doesn’t understand a thing that is being said, but is watching anyway. I remember he did this same thing in Papeete, Tahiti, only there the shows were in French or Tahitian, but I don’t get it. We have hours of shows downloaded on our iDevices. Shows in English. ;-)
No TV for me; I will soon be asleep. We walked over 21,000 steps today, on rough cobblestones and uneven pavement, and I am sore (that foot!). And wiped out. And really, really, really sore.
I felt again today what I’ve felt before... I wish I had visited places like Rome 50 years ago. Sure, I would have been a kid, but setting aside that reality, I have a feeling that all of these places were much less crowded with much less security a few decades ago. They are close to be ruined by both for me. (When did we get used to visiting tourist sites accompanied by camouflaged soldiers carrying automatic weapons? You don’t see that in the travel pix!)
And cell phones don’t help the situation. G said today that, at any point in time, half the people are talking on their phones and the other half are taking selfies with theirs. He was right. He usually is.
And it didn’t even add to my hurts to admit that. ;-)