Civitaveccia

Back in the Explorer's Lounge, second level, looking out at darkness. Very mellow instrumental music playing, I've got jazz on the headphones, because it's the middle of the night back home and jazz is what you get in the middle of the night. I slept late today! Six o'clock.

And soon after I sit down and settle in, a faint line of lights appears in front of us; we're heading directly for them. Civitaveccia, on the west coast of Italy, is the port of Rome, because Rome is not on the coast. There's what looks, on Google Maps, like a man-made harbor on a coast where there was no harbor before that, so no sheltering hills will surround us as we approach the pier. And now there is the faintest hint of light in the east, just to the right of dead ahead.

Civitaveccia is more than fifty miles drive from Rome; you head down the coast for a while from Civitaveccia and then inland. Rome is on the Tiber River, which flows into the sea (the Tyrrhenian Sea, for those who are keeping track at home), and the distance from Rome to the sea in a direct line, which is essentially how the Tiber goes, is about fourteen miles. Ostia, on the Tiber at the coast, used to be the port of Rome, even back as far as the Roman Empire and before, but by the second century AD the port had silted up enough, and also for history and politics reasons, Emperor Trajan built a new port to the north. And here we are, heading into Emperor Trajan's new port city nineteen hundred years later. The dawn is showing us what look like moderate-sized mountains running along the coast; they may, as they did yesterday, turn into something more than moderate-sized when the sun comes up. It's looking like it might be a “sailors take warning” kind of sunrise.

And here we are, sliding into the the pier, the very long, narrow enclosure of the man-made harbor. There are already a couple of big cruise ships here – one really big – with bright, vibrant murals on the sign, and the huge word “MOBY” on its back quarter. I looked it up – turns out it's part of a fleet of ferries, and they “are easily recognizable by their exterior decoration of Looney Tunes characters.” Now I see it. Sylvester and Tweety Bird.

Once again, we're turning around, and the whole port swings by. Tank farms, tankers, freighters, container cranes, a couple acres of identical cars, and two more enormous ferries in the distance. Ferries, I'm beginning to see, are a very big deal in the Mediterranean.

There's a glow on the horizon, in front of the clouds, like something's burning just over the hill. That's where the sun will rise. And here it comes – another “sailors take warning” sunrise.

Last night we watched the Port Talk on the stateroom TV. The Port Talk is: everybody gathers in the theater to hear a brief overview of next day's stop. Then the Excursions guy goes over each of the shore excursions available. The talk is recorded and available on the ship's TV in a couple hours, which is how we watch it.

Yesterday afternoon's talk was about today's stop – Rome. Those of us who enjoy history might have been amused at the attempt to compress all of Roman history into about three minutes. It wasn't actually that bad. Then the description of the shore excursions, with the included tour first. Here it is:

Two hour bus ride to Rome

One hour bus ride around Rome, narrated by tour guide

Four hours on your own in Rome

Two hour bus ride back to ship

So – four hours in a bus, and four hours in an unfamiliar city, on foot, where we didn't speak the language and held no currency. Abbey's been to Rome twice, once with her singing group in college, and once with the boys and I and my mother on a Tauck tour, which spent, as I remember, three days in Rome. It was really great – St. Peter's, the Sistine Chapel, the Forum, the Colosseum, Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, the Hippodrome, St. Paul's, the Roman walls. We walked through the Vatican Museum, which was a treat in itself, even though we didn't go in any of the display rooms. Whitsun decided he liked cappuccino. I remember it being a big city where everything was far apart. Also that the only way we got into some of those places was because we were on a tour.

It was not an engaging prospect, to say the least. Abbey went down to the excursions desk to get details and none of the details made us feel any better. So we canceled our included tour, and spent some time looking up what there was to see in Civitaveccia. Within walking distance from the pier we were told we were pulling up to is a Renaissance era fort designed by Michelangelo, and a national archaeological museum – a bigger deal in Italy, close to Rome, maybe, than many other places. The city of Civitaveccia was running a shuttle into town every half hour. So that's what we decided to do.

In December

So this morning we were able to be a little more relaxed about breakfast, since we were not hurrying off to catch a bus. We disembarked, found the shuttle, and boarded. After some complicated conversation with the driver, and consultation with other passengers, we discovered that the archaeological museum was closed on Monday (no hint of that online) and the fort was actually now administrative offices and closed to the public. I hate to stereotype, but among those who do stereotype, Italy is seen as inefficient, and this seems to fill the bill.

The shuttle actually just went from the ship to a bus-to-ship terminal on the edge of town. We got off and were immediately besieged by a dozen or more entrepreneurs anxious for us to take their tour of Civitaveccia or even Rome. We fought them off and found a lady running an information booth who had a map for us. She spoke very quickly, and with a very strong accent, but eventually we figured it out. The old town is here, the Cathedral is here, and everything closes at 1:00. OK. We set off.

It was maybe a half mile into the center of town, and the Cathedral. More entrepreneurs accosted us; some were, as Abbey noted, “interesting personalities.” One fellow in brightly-colored clothes seemed to show up four or five times on our route, then across the street, or walking with someone else in the opposite direction. One guy jumped up from the wall he was sitting on as we approached, with a handful of baseball hats with “Italia” or “Roma” on them, and said “Hat? 12 Euros?” and when we said 'no,' said “five euros?”

We walked to the Cathedral through a pretty standard town, shops on the ground floor, apartments

above. Twentieth century architecture, nothing very distinguished. There was one apartment building with a kind of sinuous modern design in concrete which was really interesting, but the concrete was falling off and it was being repaired. Abbey remarked, “Good design, corrupt contractors?”

There were five policemen writing out a parking ticket for one little car parked in a handicapped spot.

There was also a statue of a samauri.

We looked at the statue, looked at the inscription below it, along with the inscribed map, and said, “There's a story here.”

There is. Hasekura Tsunenaga was a Japanese aristocrat who had converted to Christianity in the seventeenth century. He headed a diplomatic mission to Pope Paul V, traveling from Japan across the Pacific to the New World, crossing Central America and sailing to Cadiz, Spain. He traveled overland in Spain and resumed sailing in Barcelona, and at some point landed in Civitaveccia, on the way to Rome. And then home again. It took him seven years. Political and economic realities that seemed to be out of his hands kept him from completing the trade agreements and religious understandings he set out to accomplish, but man! What a trip that must have been.

There is also a Roman wall, sort of. We would have felt cheated if there hadn't been a Roman wall. This was actually a wall built only about a thousand years ago, but it used a lot of the stones from the original wall built in Trajan's time. The eleventh century entrance to the port is also still intact, allowing us to actually visualize the traffic and life of the port a millennia ago.

The Cathedral was pretty normal, dark inside until your eyes adjusted. We sat for a long time, resting

and looking around. We translated the messages on the wall - “I am the way, the truth and the light.” There were six side chapels, three on each side, and in one was what looked like a Renaissance era painting. I took a picture of it and when I can turn my phone on I can use recently-discovered Google Reverse Image search to find out. I love Google Reverse Image! Is that what it's called?

Outside the cathedral in a prominent spot overlooking traffic, was the statue of San Giovanni Paolo II who, Google assures me, was really Pope John Paul II. Apparently he made a pastoral visit to Civitaveccia in 1987, although the statue was placed only two years ago. There's also a huge plaque high up on an inside wall saying about the same thing.

Apparently, lots of interesting things happen when you're on the way to one of the most important cities in the world.

We walked back along the marina, with the port in the background. On the shuttle back we talked to a woman from New South Wales, Australia who also stayed around rather than trekking to Rome. It took her 24 hours on airplanes to get to Barcelona to begin the cruise.

Another long lunch at the ship, this time inside, since the breeze was a little much for eating outside. Our view was the artificial harbor right outside the window, then the pier, and then the Tyrrhenian Sea. A big bulky ship shaped like the ferries we've seen has been at anchor not far offshore all day. The entertainment was watching a storm loom ominously offshore. I had a slice of pizza with spinach and salami sliced so thin I thought it was cellophane.

Back to the room and onto the balcony, with the same view. We were actually just one deck below

where we had been eating. The storm was still messing around offshore. Soon we began to hear thunder, and then, very occasionally, lightning. The horizon began to get misty, and then we lost sight of the anchored boat. Another huge ship – which turned out to be another ferry – appeared faintly in the mist, then grew more substantial as it approached the shore. Two big tugs chugged right past us, followed by the smaller, faster pilot boat, which overtook them and swung out to sea, to meet the ferry. The ferry entered the harbor, flanked by the tugs, turned around neatly, and backed into the pier next to a Grimaldi ferry. That made four ferries docked at Civitaveccia, each as big as a cruise ship. It was all pretty interesting; we're easily amused. Actually, I'm easily amused; Abbey went in to take a nap.

The storm continued to thunder and lightning, but never quite got to us while I was out there. Some lightning and thunder combos were nearly simultaneous, but I didn't see the lightning bolt; just a bright flash. Thunder rolled on for fifteen or twenty seconds. It finally rained much later.

The steward came to do the room while we were on the balcony, and when we came back inside, he had left a nice Viking bookmark on top of the book Abbey had been reading.

[Abbey: I dragged Gary to the daily afternoon tea as he is a tea drinker now. I love their mango strawberry infusion. We unsuccessfully resisted all the goodies served us on an etagere...look it up, I had to!]

There are two specialty restaurants on the ship, and reservations to each are included; the number of reservations you get depends on your room type. The Chef's Table has five menus, each a five course meal, and only one served each night. Each menu features a national cuisine. Tonight was our night to eat Korean at the Chef's Table. It was awesome. Strong, distinctive tastes and textures. Each course had within it the five basic taste sensations: sweet, sour, spicy, salt, and bitter. They were all in there. And then there was a sharp and pleasant aftertaste. It was way better than I expected. Abbey was in heaven. We got to keep the menus, so anyone interested in details, let us know. We will also be eating Chinese and British there (hey – no jokes about British food: fish and chips, Yorkshire pudding, trifle – eat your heart out).

Along with the meal came a progression of wines which had been paired with the particular course. Abbey, our supertaster, could identify the common themes; I, who am an oneonlogical pariah, couldn't.

A great experience. There had to be, of course, a whole kabuki theater experience of presenting the wines and the dishes formally, as if we knew a thing about them, and this was at time off-putting and amusing, but the waiters were good-natured and we enjoyed talking with them outside their formal roles.

After dinner we watched – live-streaming – an entertainment from the theater – a group of six Italian singers who were all very good, but whose presentation was more crowd-pleasing than informative – a little over a half hour of singing the very most identifiable of Italian opera and popular music ever: O Sole Mio, Figaro, Finiculi Finicula, etc. Nothing challenging or interesting. They even did a “name that tune” segment, and the winners came up to sing with them.

Thus ends what I hope will be my only rant about the music on the ship, which is no better than on the river boat.

Now we're moving, late at night. We slowly glide out of the harbor, even more slowly making that great left turn to start heading south past Sicily to Malta. There's a brightly-lit ship around where that anchored ship was/is, and another ship very far away, lit up in blue and yellow, I think, to the northwest. Very far beyond that, a massive thunderstorm lights up that section of the sky, throwing bolts down into the sea, flashing for five or six seconds at a time. It's too far away to hear the thunder.

Time to go to bed.

In the Cathedral: