Italian Cruise 2021 - Day 7

Friday, 10/22 - Pisa

I don't remember where we had breakfast on this day. Possibly in the Taste, one of the main dining rooms, since our excursion didn't leave until after noon. Or shortly before noon. We started off with a long bus ride to get to Pisa.

We were there to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but the bus didn't take us all the way there. It took us to a bus parking lot near the edge of town, where we switched to a 'train'. It was an open air vehicle, as the small cars didn't have any windows in the window slots. And it didn't operate on rails; it used rubber tires like a car. I am reminded of 'trains' that the Shriners and some other organizations use in parades, only the one we rode in wasn't painted so brightly.

The train was packed rather tightly as it drove us through the city streets and deposited us about a block from the Tower. We hadn't gotten a glimpse of the Tower as we approached, as it is located in a religious complex, and there were some large buildings between the streets and the Tower.

There we were met by the specialist guide, who led us through another open market selling trinkets and souvenirs until we could see the Tower from a particular angle. It looked to be perfectly straight up and down. I wondered if engineers had actually managed to correct its leaning proclivity, but as soon as we changed our position, it became clear that the Tower had been leaning right at us. That gave me a little bit of a chill.

We walked a quarter of the way around the Tower and listened to the guide tell us all about the history of the Tower, and the efforts made to make it cease leaning. When the guide continued to walk on, directly away from the Tower, and around the church, John was busy trying to get a good picture of the Tower. I wasn't even sure he was aware we had continued on, and as the minutes ticked by, I began to wonder if he would ever catch up to us. But eventually he did. I still don't know if he got the picture he wanted.

For some reason, this church had been built in two pieces; the main portion with the pews, which we were not allowed to enter, and then a round or octagonal piece several yards away, which we were also not allowed to enter. But the guide filled our ears with 'interesting' facts about the church, like pointing out that the details carved into the 40-foot tall doors got larger and more exaggerated as they went up the doors, so that they could be seen by those standing on the ground. And a lot of other facts that I can't remember now.

Then we walked around the other side of the main portion of the church, and were soon looking at the 'backside' of the Tower. Now she told us that the Tower actually has a bit of a bend to it, as the architects tried to compensate for the leaning by adjusting the length of the pillars as they went around the outside of the Tower. But she got me confused when it seemed she said the pillars were longer on the side that was on the 'top' side, which would have made the lean worse. Consequently, even when she took us to a position 3/4 of the way around the tower, I could not see the bend that she kept trying to point out. My brain was confused, and my eyes would not cooperate.

Finally, she took us back to our starting point, where the Tower once again seemed to be standing up perfectly fine, right after telling us all that if it were to lean just a few more degrees, it would come tumbling down!

Well, I was ready to leave. So we walked most of the way back to the 'train stop', where we were given half an hour to go in the restaurant, use the bathrooms, visit the gift shop and get some snacks, if we wanted. But please do not wander on our own. Well, somebody got the memo that tourists were not to wander around on their own.

As we all collected in a group across from the restaurant at the end of our half hour, some merchants from the market came over to try to sell us things. The guide finally got a count to make sure she had all of us, and took us back to the train, which took us back to the bus.

Traffic on the bus ride back to the boat was horrendous, and at least once came to a complete standstill as emergency vehicles made their way past us. It took us much longer to get back to the boat than it took to get to Pisa, and we were beginning to get worried that we wouldn't make it back in time, but we did. Later than we expected to get back, but we got back in time.

I'm not sure where we ate that night. It might have been the Irish pub in the middle of the casino, which seemed to have some of the best food on the ship. But their menu didn't change from day to day, so I guess they got lots of practice with what they made.

We didn't have any excursions the next day, but we were still pretty worn out, so we went to bed.

Italian Cruise 2021 - Day 6

Thursday, 10/21 - Pompeii

Now these blogs will become a little hazy, because despite my best efforts, I didn't get a chance to write on them while we were still on the ship. Consequently, I'm working from old memories, and I probably don't remember a lot of detail.

On Day 6, we visited some city (I didn't catch the name, I was still worn out from Rome.) and Pompeii. I dozed during the bus ride to the city, and don't remember much until we stopped in the city limits, the bus stopping in a bus parking lot just long enough for everybody to get off, and then it scooted off somewhere else. Then we walked 4 or 5 blocks to our first stop. You guessed it, cobblestones, but at least we had sidewalks to walk on, and didn't have to share the roadway with the vehicles.

They took us inside a big furniture shop, where we were given a lecture about how difficult it was to do inlay. There were probably dozens of ways the worker could mess up during the process and have to start all over again. Their inlaid furniture was absolutely beautiful, but I was afraid to brush up against any of it, for fear I'd have to buy it.

Then they gave us half an hour to walk around and see a little bit of the city. (I was surprised by this, because didn't the government object to us tourists walking around on our own?) Anyway, there was an ice cream shop across the street, and I was still tired, so John bought me an ice cream cone and let me sit at one of their outside tables while he wandered a few blocks away. He came back having bought a small bottle of lemon liquor, which is a known commodity in this city. It still sits, unopened, on our kitchen counter, having made it home with us. Well, we don't drink much, and not very often, but it will be taste-tested one of these days.

Then we all gathered together and walked back to the parking lot, where our bus waited for us. We were off to see Pompeii!

There is a modern Pompeii built up around the excavations. I didn't expect that, but I'm not sure why. The excavations are a tourist attraction, after all.

After the bus parked, we had to walk about 3 blocks, and about half of that distance was through an open-air market, past booths that sold all sorts of trinkets and keepsakes. But before we got to see ancient Pompeii, we were taken into a small shop, where we got a 3-minute lecture on how cameos are created. I knew about as much about the art form coming out as I did going in.

There was a pizzeria attached to the cameo shop, and we were given about half an hour to get ourselves something to eat and drink, if we wanted any. At the end of that time, our 2nd tour guide showed up, the group split in two, and we were off.

We entered ancient Pompeii through the gladiator school. It was, I have to admit, the cleanest, well-kept and greenest spot in the town, having a grassy spot in the middle arena. Of course, if that's where the gladiators practiced their fighting, it probably didn't have much grass growing there back in Roman days.

After that, everything was cobblestone or gravel and dust. We saw one of Pompeii's auditoriums, and our guide discussed the ingenious way they constructed it so that all the audience could hear what was said on stage. Then we were taken through a narrow alleyway to a street.

It was obviously a street, complete with raised sidewalks. All cobblestone, and big stones, at that. The guide tried to impress upon us how much shorter people were 'back then', and I couldn't help but wonder how they ever managed to cross the streets, because the difference between street level and sidewalk was about a foot. I wasn't the only one who needed help getting up and down every time the guide decided to cross the street!

She paused to tell us that Pompeii was a dusty town, and every time it rained, the streets became muddy rivers as the water rushed down the hills and out of town. Then we walked to the corner, where this street crossed another, and 3 big blocks semi-blocked the street, stretching from corner to corner, while other blocks crossed the others corners of the intersection. So it wasn't necessary to cross the street in the middle of the block, you had the option of walking to the corner and walking across these stepping stones. But there wasn't a lot of room between them, and I wondered about horses threading their way between them. Also, it meant all the carriages and carts had to be a standard distance between wheels, or the vehicle would never get between those stepping stones!

So we walked all over ancient Pompeii for weeks (or so it seemed). Despite my efforts to 'get into shape' for this excursion, and no matter how close I was to the guide when she started walking again, I would always wind up at the end of the group, trying to keep my balance and keep track of where the group was headed.

Near the end of the tour, we visited the 'red-light' district of town. Back then, the method of attracting the attention of potential customers was to howl like a wolf. This is where some of the best kept murals in town were found, a series of 7 or 8 pictures showing various sex positions. That way, a visitor who didn't speak the language could merely point to a picture to indicate what he wanted.

One of the last places we visited was a series of semi-buildings that were being used to store what had been excavated. In those, we saw 3 plaster casts of people who had been covered in volcanic ash. The cast of the small child actually had a bar between the legs for support, and thus made me think of a body cast.

Then we were headed out of the ancient city. It didn't take long for the guide to leave me behind again. I found myself at the top of 2 sets of stairs going in opposite directions, and I had no idea where I was supposed to go. Thankfully, John had heard her say, "Just keep turning left.", so we did that until we got to the gate and got out.

So, I was sort of disappointed in my exploration of the ancient town. I wish I had been in even better shape, but I am not a fast walker, and my balance isn't the best, so I'm not sure I could have kept up with the guide anyway. And while we got to see the 'summer' master bedroom and the 'winter' master bedroom in one house, I'm not sure why they needed 2 bedrooms. As always when it comes to excavations, I am always interested in the daily life of the people who lived there. Much more interested in that than in holiday festivities and religious rites. Or who knows, maybe the guide went into that sort of thing when I was trying to keep my balance and not get lost.

And then we had to wait for the other group to join us outside in the marketplace. Then we retraced our steps to the bus and were taken back to our ship.

I think that was the night we ate at the Moderna, a Brazilian Steak House. If you've never been to one, they had a 'salad buffet', which had more than salads. Then when you returned to your seats and were ready for meat, there was a card you turned over, and various waiters came around with chunks of meat on skewers. If you wanted lamb, you told that waiter, and s/he would carve some off for you. Chicken drumsticks, pork, beef, just tell them you wanted some, and they'd deposit it on your plate.

John tried everything. I guess I wasn't paying much attention until I finally got a filet mignon deposited on my plate. I cut into it, and... I swear it mooed! Okay, maybe not, but it did bleed. I caught the attention of the main waiter, and explained that I liked my meat well done, so was there anything we could do about this bloody piece of meat? I expected them to take it back and let the cook show it to the flames a few more times. And maybe they did. I can't say, because what came back looked much different than what they took away.

But I liked their cocktail so much, I had 2 of those.

Our excursion the next day was not until the afternoon. But we were tired, so we were soon setting our alarms and going to bed.

Italian Cruise 2021 - Day 5

Wednesday, 10/20

Rome

Walking til the cows came home

Another breakfast in the buffet, at about 6 am, because most of the restaurants didn’t open early enough to let us eat and get to the auditorium on time. I had one skinny little omelet, 4 pieces of bacon, 2 slices of pineapple, and some orange juice. I dawned on me that I wasn’t eating much, but honestly, nothing else appealed to me.

Rome is not a port city, it was located about 70 km from the port. It took us about an hour to reach the city, where the guide immediately started pointing out churches, the old city wall, important buildings, while the driver took the bus off the highway and through progressively skinnier and skinnier streets. Eventually, the bus stopped, and we all got off, were introduced to the woman who would be leading us through town and to the various sights we would see.

First was a famous fountain, but to get there, we had to walk about 45 minutes through very narrow streets over cobblestone sidewalks where the stones were not necessarily sturdy, some of them wobbled as you walked on them. We were given about 15 minutes to admire the fountain, and then we were off again.

Walking, walking, walking, until we reached a ‘new!’ monument, only 100 years old. According to the tour guide, nobody liked it because it was the wrong style, and didn’t fit in with its surroundings. Here we were given a few minutes to take some pictures of this unliked monument, and then we were off again.

We could see a bit of the coliseum from that monument, 3 or 4 blocks away, and that was where we were headed next. On the way there, we walked past excavations of pieces of ancient Rome, and the lady guide occasionally stopped to tell us about one or another. Otherwise, I would not have managed to keep up.

We reached the Coliseum about noon, and had to show our vaccination cards and go through a security check point to get in. We were about to climb a couple of staircases to the third floor when Philip, the tour guide from the bus, gathered a group of about 6 who were having trouble keeping up, and took us to the elevator to go up to the 3^rd floor. I found out later that the coliseum originally had 28 elevators in it, each operated with weights, ropes and the muscles of 40 slaves to transport them up and down. These days, the coliseum only has 1 elevator, or, technically, 2; 1 to go up only, and 1 to go down only.

On the 3^rd floor, we reunited with the group, and walked past various displays explaining the history of the coliseum. After the games were discontinued, it became homes for the poor, and sometime after that, the rich moved in, making homes for themselves. The footing we were walking on was not very smooth, and I was rapidly losing my capacity to pay attention to the voice in my ear. (Each member of the group had been issued a small radio and an ear phone, so the tour guide did not need to bellow for us to hear her.)

The same small group that took the elevator up was peeled off to take the elevator down with Phillip, while the rest of the group followed the woman around the 3^rd floor of the coliseum. When we met up again, the group was headed for the Forum. But Phillip took pity on 3 fat old ladies (myself included) and took us to a small ‘snack bar’ about a block away, where we sat and cooled off and had a drink. After a while, Philip took us to the bus, which had relocated to be closer, and a few minutes later, the rest of the group appeared and rejoined us.

This time when we got off the bus, we walked ¾ of the way around a city block to get to a restaurant. We went inside and down the stairs to what appeared to be an ‘event’ room, where we all took seats. This was around 2 in the afternoon. We were served some pasta and bread to start with, and the wine was opened. John told me it a dry wine, so I didn’t bother to get any. The 2^nd course consisted of some sliced beef and French fries, and neither one of us can remember if there was anything else. Dessert was a wedge of two-toned gelato (ice cream). Certainly nothing to write home about. The meat was so bland, it reminded me of my mother’s cooking, and not on a good day. We were, to put it mildly, disappointed in the meal.

Then we had one more thing to see, and that was the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City. Vatican City, it turned out, was just the other side of the street, but once we crossed that street, we still had to walk 2 or 3 blocks to skirt around the edge to an entrance. After giving us a short talk about the chapel, and pointing out where we would meet, we were given 15 minutes to snap pictures and shop. John bought a magnet from the shop and 4 bracelets from a street vendor. I found a stone to sit on and waited for the tour guides to take us back to the bus.

Finally, it was time to go, and the bus was around 4 or 5 blocks away. I was beginning to think the walking would never end. But we finally reached the bus, and bade good-bye to the lady tour guide.

I had dozed on the drive into Rome, but dozing was beyond me on the way back to the ship. It was horrifyingly fascinating to watch the drivers in Rome. Philip had already mentioned that Romans park wherever they liked, and there was certainly plenty of evidence of that! Vehicles were parked with mere inches between them, and sometimes perpendicular to the rest of the cars parked there. Or double-parked. Motorcycles were parked on the islands between lanes. It struck me as madness.

I am left with a definite impression of Rome as a dirty city. Graffiti was everywhere, but I kept telling myself that it was a time-honored tradition, because the coliseum had had lots of graffiti dating all the way back to the early days of its existence. Some of the ‘dirt’ was probably leaves that had fallen off the trees (it was the latter part of October, after all) and been trampled into something resembling dirt. But everywhere I looked, there were bits and pieces of paper scampering about on the breeze.