Rome Day 2

Tuesday May 17

Today we ventured out of Rome on two forms of public transportation. We walked over to the terminal and got caught in the crowds to board the Metro (subway) and ride out of the city for about 30 minutes, standing and holding on. We realized that we should have waited to ride the Metro after morning rush hour as we were squeezed in the car with everyone traveling to work and we now sympathize with sardines in a can.  Rule #3 for today: wait until after rush hour to ride the public transportation in Rome. Next we transferred to the train for another 30 minute ride to the ancient city of Ostia Antica, about 20 kilos SW of Rome. This was not crowded so we both got seats. This was Rome’s ancient seaport and was discovered in the early 20^th century. It was covered with mud for over a thousand years and is so well preserved that it is considered the Pompeii of the area. It is an ongoing archeological project. It took us about 5 hours to walk through the ruins of this massive city and we probably only saw about a quarter of what has been uncovered thus far. Much of it still has not been excavated. We even got lost in the ruins and realized that this was one BIG ancient city!

We reversed our travels and rode back to Rome and spent another hour or more visiting the National Museum. We were tired but still in awe seeing so many famous ancient statues, frescoes and mosaics. It was spectacular to say the least. It was almost sensory overload today but our Italian has sure been improving as we moved through the areas that we visited.

We were tired so we rested for a few hours after our touring and went out to eat at about 7 pm. We walked around the neighborhood until we found a trattoria (sp) where we ate outside and both of us ordered a small traditional pizza. These are so different than what we are used to in the US. The crusts are as thin as a tortilla and the topping is basically just tomato sauce and seasonings. Not all goopy with extra toppings so we really enjoyed being able to taste just the basic Italian pizza. How wonderful. Rule #4: don’t order water in Rome as they charge as much for water as beer. It is bottled water but the tap water is excellent in Rome.

When we returned back to the hotel, we forced ourselves to stay awake as long as possible hoping to sleep but unfortunately we both were awake much of the night again. Our bodies still have had difficulty getting used to the time difference.

Photos: ancient amphnitheater, Donna among the ruins.

All Roads lead to Rome Day 1

Rome wasn’t built in a day, but we tried to see it all in three days.

Monday, May 16

John had trouble sleeping last night.  He woke up at 3:00 and couldn’t get back to sleep.  We are 9 hours ahead of Pacific time.

On your marks, get set, GO!

Hitting the #64 bus at 9:00 am at the incredibly busy terminal, we know how sardines feel.  Watching out for pickpockets is essential in Rome.  We don’t carry wallets, only money belts and in busy areas, John wears his backpack in front.  So far no losses.

With 2700 years of history, we had to make some decisions.  Our first destination was the Pantheon.  We got off only one stop too late and had no trouble finding the building. This dome of all domes has stood since the first century BCE and is still one of the largest unsupported domes in the world.  It was done without electrical or steam power, algebra or computers.  The only math was clunky Roman numerals.  It truly has stood the test of time.

My Rome rule #1: If you turn around you will see a huge church.

Corollary:  You may not have to turn around.

What a day of walking we had!  Through the western end of Rome, over the Tiber to the very edge of the Vatican, back across the Tiber again.  We worked our way through innumerable piazzas, any one of which would have been a great monument for any other city.

We ended up passing the obscenely gross monument that Mussolini put of to Italy’s King Victor Emannuel that overshadows the wonderful ruins of the Roman Forum.  Most people agree that the monument was really to Mussolini’s ego.

We finally spent some time at the ruins of Trajan’s Forum and marketplace, probably the world’s first shopping center.  Those early Roman’s really thought of everything!

We found another #64 bus and worked our way back to our hotel.  A man even graciously gave Donna a seat on the bus.  Only 5 hours of walking through Rome’s busy streets.

My Rome rule #2:  If you don’t watch where you are going, you will probably get run down by a car, bus, or motorcycle.

Corollary: #1:  Even if you do watch out, there is no guarantee that you won’t get run down.

Corollary #2:  Crosswalks, stop lights and other traffic controls are only optional.

We dined at a neighborhood restaurant.  Surprise… Italian food! Donna had a bowl of minestrone and John had some home made ravioli.  No salads or side dishes included.  It ran us about $30 in US funds.  Rome is expensive!

We ARE getting somewhat city-wise.

Photos:  Donna with St Peters in distance, Piazza Navarona

Blogging on board

May 10, 2011

Santa Cruz, Tenerife, Canary Islands.

Land at last.  We haven’t touched land since May 2!  Everyone onboard is excited to go ashore.

Santa Cruz is a lovely city nestled between the mountains and the sea on the northeast part of the island of Tenerife.  We are about 100 miles off the coast of Western Sahara, Africa.

We really enjoyed the city.  It is modern, sparkling clean and has interesting architecture.  It is not hard to get around in.  We walked for four hours in the beautiful weather, visiting the African Market and the pedestrian friendly downtown area.  It appears to be a prosperous area and nobody pushes you to buy things.  Our Spanish served us well, although many people speak English here.  There was very little in the way of tourist goods to shop for.

We hit the ATM machine and now have enough euros for several stops.   Donna needed a new battery for her watch and we bought some toothpaste, a Spanish brand we will soon find out about.  WE found an internet café and got a few pieces checked, but did not have time to read any yet.  May 11-12 aboard the Navigator of the Seas. 4371 nautical miles completed so far.

We have continued to buck powerful headwinds since leaving Florida, leaving the open decks unusable much of the time.

We completed our last two of nine lectures with overflow crowds and rounds of applause.  Thursday’s lecture, Our roman Legacy, received many wonderful comments.  We are relieved to complete our lecture series.  Only one day off in nine days is starting to seem like work, but we love it!

Thursday morning we passed through the Straits of Gibraltar at about 7:00 am.  Everyone was up to see the Rock, but darkness, fog and high winds made it pretty much invisible. 

We are now nine hours ahead of Pacific Time. 

We are looking forward to visiting Mallorca tomorrow.

May 15^th-Rome Italy

We had two more wonderful ports of call for our final two days at sea. We visited Palma de Mallorca and it was lovely on this island paradise. It reminded us of a miniature Barcelona. We walked for about four hours throughout the town and enjoyed the lovely city and wonderfully warm weather. They have a lovely La Rambla with lots of gorgeous flowers for sale. We also found a central marketplace and a supermarket so we purchased some wine and gin at super reasonable rates. The wine cost about 75 cents for a liter! It was very good too. This was probably our favorite of all of the ports that we stopped at as it was so charming. It was also nice to be able to use our Spanish one more time.

Our next port was Ajaccio Corsica. This is a French owned island and is also very lovely. Lots of tourists here and lots of things to see on our walk about town. We spent abut 3 and a half hours walking around this lovely city trying to understand the language spoken here. It is a combination of French and Italian and Corsican so very odd sounding. They have some lovely beaches and great shopping areas but the prices are very high here just like other French areas that we have visited such as Tahiti so the only thing we bought was a loaf of  very good French bread which we had for our lunch as we walked around the city. There was a car rally in town which was part of a larger European rally so it fun to watch the cars from all over Europe as they left the starting gate right near our ship. We got back in time to have a few hours sun bathing on ship as the weather was perfect.

Our first part of our adventures ended today as we disembarked in Civiavecchia Italy and shared a town car with another couple into Rome. We have had so many great comments on our lecturers that we feel we had a very successful two weeks as lecturers on this lovely ship. We are now at the Hotel Montreal in the heart of Rome and will be here for four days of exploring the area.

We leave you with areviderce Roma,

Donna and John

When in Rome

We are currently in Rome and enjoying the many sights. We got off the ship yesterday after 2 successful weeks of lecturing. We visited Canary Islands, Mallorca and Cosica before we got to Rome and all three of these islands are lovely.
Today we walked about 8 or 9 miles and we were roaming all over Rome and it is spectacular to see so many sights. We dont have WiFi in our hotel as it not working so we are at an internet cafe right now and will not be able to answer any questions until we get WiFi back.
We will keep  you posted as we continue this spectacular journey Thursday we fly to Budapest Hungary to board the river cruise to Bucharest Romania so that will be exciting.
Best to you from Italy,
Donna and John

Hello from Tenerife, Canary Islands

May 8, 2011 Happy Mothers Day--Aboard the MS Royal Caribbean Navigator of the Seas-- Mid Atlantic, about 30 degrees North
We just finished day seven of our transatlantic cruise on our way to Rome via stops next week in the Canary Islands, Mallorca and Corsica.
We have now been at sea since May 2. There is no television out here and we have decided not to use the ship’s internet access, which is slower than honey on a frosty morning.
The first six of our lectures have been well received, most to overflowing standing room only crowds. Today’s lecture was titled "The Life and Times of Charles Darwin." We have had many wonderful comments from the passengers, although we have had some frustration, since the technical staff has not always had the equipment ready for us. We have three more lectures before landing in Rome.
We are now at Greenwich Mean Time, which seven hours ahead of Pacific time and we will advance our clocks one more hour before our arrival in Rome. That will be an eight hour time change in seven days!
We really like this ship. It is the biggest we have ever been, with over 3000 passengers. It even has an ice rink onboard, with ten professional skaters who give shows from time to time. The evening entertainment is also excellent.
The food here meets Royal Caribbean’s high standards for quality and service. I believe the only way that you could go hungry on this ship is if you would eat nothing but whale blubber, which does not appear on the buffet.
The last few nights we went dancing at some of the nightclubs and we spend what little free time we have enjoying the rest of the ship. The high winds across the decks, often exceeding 40 knots, have pretty much eliminated outside activities all days but Friday.
We hope to send this message when we get to Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, on Tuesday.
We wish all of our blog readers well.
John and Donna
At sea.
May 9, 2011-- Aboard the MS Royal Caribbean Navigator of the Seas--Eastern Atlantic off the coast of Western Sahara, Africa
We have presented another successful show for a full house. We have gained quite a following with many of the guests coming to every one of our 7 lectures thus far. Our nautical themes continued today with our presentation on Life on a Square Rigger. We have only two more lectures to present before we land in Rome on Sunday. We are both tired but enjoying this daily lecturing and rehearsing.
This lovely ship is continuing eastward with our first port-of-call tomorrow. It will nice to have a day off and get our land legs back when we dock tomorrow morning on the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands. This group of seven+ islands are owned by Spain but located off the coast of Africa. We are anxious to tour the island and buy some euros and find an internet café where we can up-load this blog and read our email for the first time in nine days.
We are also looking forward to seeing the capital city and would like to find the African/Spanish market to see what they have for sale. Since we will be traveling so much we don’t want to get too many things but always are in search for something authentic from each port.
Beautiful blue skies and blue waters, but a thirty knot wind across our deck makes outside activities impossible. It will be nice to be able to walk in town instead.
We wish all of our blog readers well.
We are now 8 hours ahead of you in time and will not be able to read your responses until our next port of call.
John and Donna
At sea.
　
　
　

Greetings from Florida

We arrived at our hotel in Dania Beach FL at about midnight and now after a good night's sleep, we are ready to start our first cruise. Here is a picture of our ship, The Royal Caribbean Navigator of the Seas. We have never been on this ship in the RCI fleet so it will be a day of exploring the ship to try and orient ourselves to this large vessel. It carries about 3000 passengers so we hope that we have large turnouts for all of 15 presentations. We will meet with the cruise director today and find out our schedule and expect to be off and running tomorrow with our first show on Pirates. The whole series that we have developed is nautical so it will be different for us as we usually do the destinations. There are only three ports with the first stop in the port of Canary Islands on May 10th. Then we will be in Mallorca on May 13th, Corsica on the 14th and Rome on the 15th. We will try to get an internet connection on one of more of those ports to update our blog.
When we got into the airport last night at 11:00 we heard about the long-overdue demise of Osama.  Everyone was really up about this.

Our trip across the Atlantic will reverse Columbus' first voyage.  Maybe we will discover Europe!

Off on our adventures

We took the bus from Lakewood to the SEA-TAC airport and it was an easy transport. Thanks to Bill and Barb for driving us to the the Lakewood bus depot. It is a beautiful day here in Seattle to see off on our travels. We will be boarding the first of many planes. We are now on our way to FL with a brief stop to change planes in Chicago. We get in late tonight in Fort Lauderdale and embark on the first cruise tomorrow. We will be lecturing on this 14 day cruise presenting 15 shows to the guests. We have three stops with our first one in 10 days at Canary Islands and then a stop at Mallorca and one at Corsica. We disembark in Rome. We will not be on line while we are on this first cruise but welcome your comments and we will read them when we disembark. Enjoy life just as we are doing