Civitavechia—by Train from Rome to the “Navigator of the Seas”
Sunday, May 29, They got up and selected a table in the Hotel Giuliana breakfast room. Once again, the magic cappuccinos were drawn from the coffee machine. Back in their room, each member of the team packed his or her suitcase. LT’s suitcase weighs in at 42 pounds, and he suspects that the baggage of Eli and Allie weighs just as much. At 10:00AM they left and walked across the square and then four blocks “up” Via Cavour until they reached the train station. With help from one of the Trenitalia employees, they bought one-way tickets (a total of 12 Euros) to Cittavechia and walked and walked and walked the long way to binario 29. Once they arrived, they expected to have a 30-45 minute wait, but a helpful employee at the “Leonardo Express” desk informed them that the 10:45 train on binario 25 had not left yet, so they hoisted their luggage and hustled aboard. Moments later, the train took off. This was a very crowded train. Eli and Allie located actual seats inside the passenger section, while LT sat on two suitcases in the outside passageway as more and more and more folks climbed up into the train. It was very crowded. Kind of like those fraternity contests back in the 60’s when college freshmen would try to see how many people could be crammed into an old-fashioned telephone booth.
In a little over one hour, none too soon, the train arrived at Cittavechia. They exited the train station, got directions from a train station employee, walked to the right for about 10 minutes and found a Royal Caribbean bus ready to take them to the boarding area adjacent to their ship—the Navigator of the Seas. At about 1:30PM, after getting through the document-filing area, they entered the ship on the first level and walked up 8 flights of stairs to level 9.
Their stateroom is 9531—an inside cabin with no widows—located near the front of the ship. There is a big double bed for LT and Eli, and Allie has a “bunk.” Our stateroom attendant is named Marta.
Once settled in their room, they walked aft and up 3 flights of stairs to the perpetually open “Windjammer” where lots of food was available. Eli ordered glasses of chardonnay from “Rindi” our Indonesian waiter and we selected food items from the endless buffet—chicken vindaloo, salmon in dill sauce, heaps of lettuce, sliced cucumbers and tomatoes for salads, rolls, fruit, pizza. There was lots of choice.
At 8:30PM, we entered the Nutcracker Dining room and had our first “sit-down” meal. Our long oval table seats 11 and is located near the windows on the left side of the ship. There are two Italian couples, two middle-aged sisters from Argentina (whose husbands let them travel together), a couple married only 9 months—and thus on a delayed honeymoon-- from Ecuador, and the 3 travelling Thomases. We drank a French Chardonnay with our first meal. LT had an onion tarte and pork medallions. Allie had an Indian styled vegetarian dish, and Eli had the low-calorie recommended Pan-fried Sea Bass. Eli engaged in hand and sign-language with the Italian couple on her left—they were celebrating their 50 year anniversary. The two sisters from Argentina were very lively—talking Spanish with the married couple from Ecuador.
Sailing to Messina, and the Train to Taormina’s Greek Theater
Monday, May 30, After carefully studying the maps of Taormina, they decided that they could skip the expensive “Shore Explorations,” (which would cost around 89 Euros each) and make the trip from the port at Messina to the Roman ruins at Taormina (25 miles away) on their own. After a substantial breakfast, they waited in their room until 10:15AM when the captain announced that it was now OK to disembark. They exited the ship, resolutely threaded their way past the various taxi shills and touts who tried to talk them into 120 Euro “rides” to Taormina, and got out of the port. Walking left, and asking for help from “locals” (“Dov’e il stazione del treni?”) they found the Messina train station. However, when they bought tickets (24 Euros total for 3 “andata e retorno” tickets), it turned out that the “next” train was not scheduled to leave until 12:20PM—nearly 2 hours later. This would make it very tough to reach Taormina, travel to the top of the hilltop village, visit the ancient Greek Theatre, and then travel all the way back to Messina before their ship left port at 6:30PM. When a couple of tourists from the ship heard about the 12:20PM train, they cursed and decided to pay for an expensive taxi all the way to Taormina. Unfazed, LT, Eli and Allie bought tickets anyway. This turned out to be a very lucky decision. As they walked to the correct binario, they met one British couple (from Birmingham, near Stratford upon Avon) who had misunderstood the instructions and thought the train left in 20 minutes. Arriving at the correct binario, they were all informed that although there was a 10:30AM train about to leave for Taormina, it was a sleeper train—all cuchetti—and would take no passengers. They asked several more times and each time were courteously, but firmly informed that they could not board the train.
However, the assistant conductor who explained this to them several times must have had a change of heart, because just after Eli and Allie, and the British family had started to trudge down the stairs and back towards the main waiting area, he said “OK.” LT quickly summoned everyone back, they all boarded the train, selected a spacious and empty compartment and made the 45 minute journey to Taormina in comfort and style. Getting on this “early” train saved them nearly 2 hours and gave them lots of leisure wit which to explore Taormina. As the train glided by the sea on one side and the rocky cliffs on the other, Allie remarked that the landscape looked like the Pacific Coast Highway must have looked 400 or 500 years ago—same types of rocks and dirt, same types of “Mediterranean” shrubs.
At Taormina, they caught a big blue Ekho bus—for 1.70 Euros each—and were given an uphill ride through severe hairpin turns until they reached the bus station halfway up the Taormina hill. Getting out, they followed the flow of foot, vehicle and motorbike traffic uphill, turned left at the Roman arch, and then left again, and eventually reached the entrance to the Teatro Greco-Romano, along the way passing souvenir shops, gelatti stands, and pizzarias.
The theatre (entrance fee 8 Euros each) was at the top of the hill and the seats were set into a very steep bowl. While standing in line for tickets, they met the travelers from the Messina train station who had cursed and given up buying train tickets; instead they had spent 120 Euros on a taxi. They were visibly shocked to see the travelling Thomas family. It was like a scene out of “The Amazing Race.” LT, Eli, and Allie’s persistence had been vindicated. Getting on the early train had saved them 100s of Euros and nearly 2 hours.
They climbed the steps and entered the theater. The Taormina theater was majestic and beautiful. Surrounded by tapering hillsides, spectators could see the Ionian Sea to the east and Mt Etna to the southwest, and attending a performance here must have been a very dramatic experience even before the actual “drama” began. 30 years earlier, LT had travelled further south all the way to Syracuse to see another ancient Greek-Roman theater, but it had been located on a much smaller hillside—perhaps more of a slope or gentle incline than a hillside-- and had been much less steep. So finally getting to visit the Taormina theater was a great thrill.
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| Lunch in Taormina. Funicular behind us. |
After absorbing the atmosphere of the theater, they walked down the hill a bit (after all the uphill climbing, anything “downhill” seemed easy and refreshing) to the Bel Blu restaurant, which had a commanding view of the hillside and the ocean. Based on the Frommer Italy guidebooks’ recommendations, Eli and LT had pasta with sardines, while Allie, more wisely, had a pizza with a few sardines on it. Allie’s pizza was the better choice. LT and Eli were treated to a dish of penne-type pasta covered with a thick, dark semi-tomato, semi-sardine sauce. There were no recognizable sardines in the sauce—they must all have been mashed up into the sauce. In contrast, the red and mozzarella cheese surface of Allie’s pizza clearly had the outlines of 5-6 small but perfectly preserved sardines imprinted in it.
Since catching the 10:30AM train has saved them so much time, they indulged in a funicular gondola ride down and then back up the mountainside—giving them great views of the countryside. At about 2:30PM, they caught the Ekho bus ride back down the steep hillside. This time, the bus driver kept his hand on the horn the entire way down, and the bus riders were treated to the sight of small cars veering way over to their right, or backing up sometimes 50 or 60 yards, so the bus could enjoy its “right of way” down the mountain. They arrived at the Taormina train station in plenty of time to catch the train back to Messina. There was a bit more drama at the train station, as the official return train to Messina was supposed to leave from binario 1, but was switched at the last moment to binario 2—requiring the travelers to quickly race down and up a set of stairs to reach the new boarding point.
After the long, hot walk from the train station to the port, Eli desired more shopping, so she left Allie and LT to reboard the ship. They did so and managed to walk up 11 flights of ship stairs to the Windjammer eating area, where they drank glass after glass of water, lemonade, punch, and orange juice.
In the evening, it was formal night at the Nutcracker Dining Room. Eli wore a white and blue dress that seemed to match LT’s Jerry Garcia tie. LT wore his blue camel hair sports jacket and his new charcoal gray slacks. Allie wore her basic black chemise with the bow in the back and sported her favorite black flats. Once seated at their table, wiht “Branka” as their headwaiter, the two ladies from Argentina, the young married couple from Ecuador, plus Eli, LT, and Allie talked a lot more than the previous night. Eli and LT had escargots in a pesto sauce and roast duck and selected a Trumpeter red “Malbec” from Mendoza Argentina to go with it. Allie had roast beef. All three of them had chocolate soufflé for dessert. LT and Allie loved the dessert, but Eli felt it wasn’t dark or chocolate-flavored enough.
Travelling to Athens, All Day at Sea
Tuesday, May 31, The clocks were switched an hour ahead early in the morning, so our 7:30AM wake-up call seemed very early. When we got to the Windjammer, it was nearly empty. LT quickly secured lots of smoked salmon, scrambled eggs, and a few choice sausages. Eli got Japanese “miso” soup and plenty of coffee.
The sea beside the ship is a calm, deep blue—very glassy, with seemingly gentle waves caused by hour ship’s passing. It’s too bad there aren’t dolphins jumping alongside.
After breakfast, Eli and Allie visited the Fitness center, while LT preferred to work out with the computer (typing 1500 words into this blog—and covering our journey from Sunday evening to Tuesday morning). They re-joined each other at the 11:00AM “Destination” talk delivered by Kamla a tall, thin, young woman from Kusadasi who has a very distinctive kind of “sing-song” accent where every third word seems to be “so,” “and,” “then,” or “but.” Arabic-based languages such as Turkish, must be so different from English.
Allie and Eli had booked into a 50 minute SPA treatment at 12:30PM, so they will input that exciting experience when they return—if they are not too “blissed out” to recall the details.
In the meantime, LT found a comfortable deck chair on the 4th level and read a George Simenon detective novel “The Madman of Bergerac” all afternoon. When he needed a break, he’d walk around the entire ship. On the 4th or 5th level, at the very front of the ship one can actually walk out onto the prow at the very front of the ship, look down 50 feet into the sea and feel a bit like Leonardo di Caprio in “Titanic” when he says “I’m the king of the world.” Surrounded by the calm, blue Mediterranean, or actually the Ionian Sea near Greece, with the ship purring along at 10-15 knots, and no other passengers in sight, it was wonderfully restful to stand there, feel the delightful wind rushing past his ears and anticipate the next day’s arrival in Athens.
In the evening, Allie had caprese salad, baked eggplant/mozzarella, and Eli and LT had scallops and risotto, and lamb shanks. They had a nice French red wine to go with dinner. They enjoyed taling with the couple from Ecuador—with the husband who is bilingual and speaks such good English and who translates all the good jokes that are in Spanish—and the two sisters from Argentina, who are very funny.
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