Day 6 – Sicily – Fuggedaboutit!

I haven’t talked about our table mates at dinner yet. We are sitting each night with two couples from near New Haven, Connecticut. They all sound like they’re from Long Island, and they are a fun group to be with. Barbara and Joe have known Ed and Lena (short for Angelena) for more than forty years. They have taken over a dozen cruises together as well as lots of other vacations and are great friends. Joe is a retired printer, Barbara is a mostly retired hair-dresser, Ed is a retired truck driver, and Lena, retired from AT&T, works part-time as a bookkeeper. We are really enjoying them. We were worried that we had been seated at such a small table, but it has really worked out for us. They’re great. They’ve been to many of the places we’re visiting already and have given us good advice on things we are going to see.

I haven’t talked about the entertainment on board yet either. Almost every night they have live entertainment in the theatre. I guess the one night we didn’t go, they had a most fantastic act, but the rest of the nights have been just okay. They shows are the kind of thing you find in a Las Vegas lounge – not the headliners, but the ones who didn’t make it into the headliner show. It wouldn’t be so bad if they just had the hockey playoff games showing somewhere on the ship!

We landed at Messina, Sicily, and were signed up for a trip to Taormina. Glad we did, because Messina is kind of an ugly town. It was completely destroyed in 1908 by an earthquake and a tidal wave. 60,000 people were killed. The town was finally rebuilt in the 1930s, then along came WWII and it was completely destroyed again. The architecture is pretty much 1950s and 1960s blah. Taormina, on the other hand, is quite beautiful and charming, much like other hill towns we’ve seen in Italy. It has an amphitheatre that was built around third century A.D. As you might guess, it’s not in terribly good shape anymore, but a lot of the original structure is still intact. It is still used for concerts. A bomb was dropped on it during WWII which made a big hole in the backstage wall, but they’ve not fixed it because it leaves a great view of the valley below.

Sicily is the home of cannollis, (I don’t know how to spell it, but I know how to order it!)so I had to have one. It was good, but not to die for. Frankly, the gelato is better. We saw no gangsters wandering around, but some people on the tour told us to keep our eyes open in Naples. I guess the Mafia is alive and well in Italy, and out in the open in Naples.

Day 7 – At Sea

Not much going on. It was a relaxing day. I finished the Dennis Lahane novel, Darkness, Take My Hand. Very good, but not as good as Mystic River. Still, I recommend it to mystery lovers. Next on the list – Blood Memory by Greg Iles. Thanks, Tudy. So far, pretty good.

Day 8 – Split, Croatia

Not yet part of the European Union, we had to get different money here. This is a beautiful port city, and we were able to simply take a tender to shore and walk around. This town was originally settled around 300 – 400 B.C. by the Greeks. In 295 A.D., Diocletian, a Roman emperor, built a residence here and lived here until his death. This huge palace is now the old town of Split, surrounded by the ancient wall. The town has been occupied most of its history by Romans, Venetians, Austrians, French, and even the Italians during WWII, until it was liberated in 1944 and Croatia was formed. It was also part of Yugoslavia from 1918 until WWII. It has a beautiful cathedral, and the rest of the old buildings are now shops and restaurants. It’s quite pretty to walk around, but everything here is very expensive. It was a warm day and, after walking around for a couple of hours, we sat in a nice outdoor café and ordered beer. We figured we’d get some exotic Croatian beer, but when they brought it, it was Budweiser! Okay, it wasn’t the same Budweiser we get at home, but it said Budweiser on the label and, underneath in small letters, it said Czech Imported Lager. It was good, but not great.

Day 9 – Venice and more sore feet

When we woke up this morning, the ship was coming into Venice. It is the most beautiful port we’ve come into. We had no tours planned here, but decided to do this on our own. The ship was offering water taxis to San Marco Square, but that was pretty expensive, so Dave and I walked (and walked and walked) to the nearest vaporetto stop. Dave says it was only about a half mile away, but my feet think longer! A vaporetto is a water bus. It’s what people take to work or school. We bought day passes and cruised up the Grand Canal to San Marco Square. If your vaporetto stop is on the wrong side of the canal and there is no bridge close by (there are only three bridges over the Grand Canal) you can get a ride across. The little ferries look kind of like gondolas, but don’t have any seats. Everyone just stands in the middle while the guy paddles across. I decided to only use bridges! Venice is really beautiful. The buildings along the Grand Canal are all very old and most are very ornate. Most buildings are three or four floors high. The first floor was for warehouse space, the second for offices and business, and the upper floors were living quarters for the wealthy people who ran the trading business in Venice. There is clearly a lot of Turkish influence in the architecture here, as you will see when Dave gets home and can set up a slide show. I just can’t post pictures now. The internet on the ship is slow and costly ($.55 a minute!). The canal is very busy with low boats, maybe twenty to twenty-five feet long and about eight feet wide carrying all kinds of goods. Some were piled high with boxes, some had bags of fruit or grain, some had scrap lumber or other goods. They whizzed by us as we chugged along. There are even police and fire boats. When they came by, the other boats seemed to idle and stay in one place, letting the emergency boats find their way through the traffic. There are hundreds of little canals cutting off the Grand Canal, like little streets. Much like Rome, there seems to be no real plan here, and some of the canals are very narrow and crooked. Beautiful little bridges cross the little side canals everywhere. We found the Bridge of Sighs behind the Doge’s Palace in San Marco Square. It leads from the Doge’s Palace (the seat of local government) to the prison behind it. It is named the Bridge of Sighs because when prisoners were condemned, they would be led from the Palace to the prison and would get their last glimpse of beautiful Venice and sigh. Not the romantic story I expected to hear!

The cathedral of San Marco is amazing. The entire ceiling is a mosaic –all Venetian glass, mostly gold, but other colors are used to make pictures of holy scenes, all surrounded by this amazing gold. The floor is a beautiful mosaic of many colors of marble. It’s not very big, but it is truly one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately, they don’t allow cameras, so maybe you can look it up on the internet to see some of the mosaic pictures, or come and visit us. We bought a book that shows its beauty. After walking around the area for quite awhile, we got back on the vaporetto and headed to the Rialto Bridge area. We walked all over this area, shopping and looking for a trattoria that we’d found in Rick Steve’s book. We finally found it and sat outside under the wisteria and had a wonderful lunch. We wandered back through the Rialto Bridge area and got back onto the vaporetto to come back to the ship. We discovered that rush hour begins around three o’clock here! We were packed onto the vaporetto like pickles in a jar. All the seats were full and all the floor space was full of standees as well. They didn’t stop loading until there was absolutely no way to get more people on. We made it back to our stop and began the looooong walk back to the ship. My dogs are barkin’! I finished Blood Memory this morning (Thanks, Tudy!). It was a real page turner. Now I’m on to The Vig by John Lescroart (Thanks, Gordon!) and so far I’m liking it. Ah, vacation!