late for Italy

Ahoy,

Oops. Did I skip Italy? I don't remember. And free wi-fi is akin to an endangered species in Croatia, so I haven't looked at this blog since my first entry. I've just been e-mailing my entries. We stopped in Civitavecchia first. They originally were only going to stop in Naples, but they added Civitavecchia so we could go to Rome.

Civitavecchia is the port to Rome, and they don't fail to advertise that aggressively. Trains to Rome are 9 euro round trip, a little less than an hour. I went twice. Rome was way more metropolitan than what I had seen in Spain. There were a lot of cars and roads. There were practically no pedestrian only streets. Stuff was spread out more.

It was a touristy city. All the attractions, things to do, things to see were catered to tourists. But I guess you can't blame them for taking advantage of all their cool, old stuff. People like cool, old stuff usually. There was so much cool old stuff. And everything is so grand. Everything was hugenormous. Go big or go home, I guess.

I saw the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, the Colosseum, Castel Sant'Angelo, Spanish Steps, Roman Forums, Piazza de San Pietro, outside the Vatican, and a bunch of piazzas. The usual tourist agenda.

The gelato was yummy, as always, but I couldn't tell if it was better than the gelato I've had in the States, or if I was convinced to believe it's better in Italy.

Civitavecchia is a small port town. The beaches are awful. There was so much litter/marine debris. They are rocks, not pebbles, rocks, not boulders, rocks. I don't know how people are supposed to enjoy the beach when there is no sand. But these people are so tan. This one guy was out there laying out, and he was so dark already. How do they not burn? The speedos. They're everywhere. The topless. They're in most places.

Siestas happen in Italy too. At least in Civitavecchia. It was just so hot out there, having nothing to do in town is fine with me. There was a really big and cool market-place in the morning for everything (food, clothes, electronics, crafts, toys, everything). And they had all packed shop by mid-day. What I've been doing in port is waking up, getting breakfast at 8, and then going out. By the time noon rolls around, it's so hot that staying out is not desirable if I'm still in the port city. I go back to the ship and around then, everyone's pretty much closing down for siesta anyway.

We went directly from Civitavecchia to Naples with no days in between.

running ragged,

JT