Sunday, September 26

Given that an 8 hour flight is never fun no matter what class you are flying, mine was okay...except for the fact that Jill wasn’t on it with me. Her original flight from Denver was cancelled, and the flight she got on arrived in D.C. five minutes after mine left. She got rerouted via Frankfurt, Germany and arrived in Rome about 10 or 11 hours after I did. So we missed the tour of the Vatican Museum that we had arranged  for yesterday afternoon.

My seatmate on the flight was a gentleman who very much reminded me of my and Jill’s friend, John, and we had some lovely conversations.

Our hotel in Rome was the Visconti Palace right in the middle of the city. The decor was thoroughly “Mid-cnetury Modern” or maybe “Italian Sleek.” There was a lovely little patio off the lobby with a large ball-shaped fountain. The rooms were smallish, but very adequate with a nice marble bathroom.  The beds were rather hard, but we slept like logs anyway.

We left Rome about 11:30 a.m. by bus to Civitavecchia where the ship was docked. A nice ride through the countryside with lots of those fascinating Italian trees that look like someone made very tall lollipops out of pine trees. I will try to get some photos of them when we return.

The Prinsendam is wonderful, as always, although updated in some areas with a much bigger Library/Internet Café than before. We got upgraded to a Veranda suite and were instantly quite spoiled by all the extra space in the room, on the veranda and in the closet and bathroom area. It’s all about twice the size of any cabin I’ve ever had before. Two desk areas, a large couch and sitting area, two sinks in the bathroom, a walk-in closet, etc. As always on board, the first go at the plumbing was a learning experience...especially the shower controls, but once figured, all was fine.

Monday, September 27

Things were a little bit rock and roll leaving Civitavecchia yesterday, but by the end of dinner the sea had calmed down considerably. That amount of motion isn’t a patch on what we’ve been through on previous trips so didn’t slow us down a bit.

We passed Stromboli with its steam plume this morning, and, around lunchtime sailed through the Straits of Messina. Both were “narrated” by our Travel Guide Frank Buckingham. He’s been on previous trips we’ve taken, and mostly we’ve learned to tune out his British accent. He has the amazing capacity to natter on for up to an hour without appearing to breathe. The photo is looking back at the narrowest part of the Straits which is about three quarters of a mile from Italy to Sicily.