2004 Europe

ms Noordam & Jump Carrier Garabaldi in Civitavecchia, Italy

May 18 – A day at sea to finish packing and getting ready to leave the ship. With all Diana’s purchases we are already stretched to the breaking point. 99% of the items are picture books of the counties, cities and buildings we’ve visited. These are all heavy and bulky items. We’ve decided to pack all the things we won’t need at all until the Queen Mary 2 in one suitcase and all the things we probably won’t need but might occasionally have to get into in another. This will leave the third suitcase and our carryon cases to be unloaded from the bus every night when we join the OC tour. It seems like a workable plan and it will certainly save a lot of lugging of luggage.

Attending disembarkation meetings is the worst part of cruising, well, next to getting off the ship that is. The only thing that makes them tolerable is that you can video the cast singing their farewell song. You can’t video in the shows in the evening.

The show for this evening was a variety show with the four performers this cruise. The magician, the comic, the singer and the guitarist. Each did about 15 minutes. It was good to see them again.

May 19 – Disembarkation in Rome starts early. The first to get off go at 6:15AM and we are scheduled for 6:30AM. We got up at 5:15 and went to breakfast and then down to the room to wait for our number, 5, to be called to leave the ship. We have arranged a transfer to Piazza Barbarini in downtown Rome. The port, Cititevheccia, (above) is about a two-hour drive from the center of the city. We were about a half hour late leaving the pier, as there was a medical evacuation first thing this AM. An ambulance and medical team met the ship and a passenger was taken to the hospital. I believe that was our third medevac since Tampa.

The traffic was really bad getting into Rome. Just like rush hour at home. Once we were at the Piazza there weren’t any taxis there to take us to our various destinations. So our guide called some on his cell phone and once we were loaded on board we headed for the Villa Pamphilli, the hotel where we will meet the tour from OC on the 26th. We dropped off two of our suitcases there so we wouldn’t have to deal with them for the six days on the Amalfi Coast.

We were hungry so we decided to get a little lunch at the hotel. The only thing open was the bar so we had sodas and ordered sandwiches. When I saw the prices I thought we were in for a treat. My ham and cheese was 10.5 Euro and Diana’s chicken salad was 10. When they came I couldn’t believe my eyes. They were on white toast with the crust trimmed off. Mine was a single slice of deli-thin ham with an almost as thin slice of cheese. If you looked at the sandwich directly from the side you couldn’t see that the bread slices had anything between them. Diana’s had a little more in it but not by much. That’s the smallest $12 sandwich I’ve ever had. They did throw in a few potato chips and a little plate of candies. Ouch!!

After ‘lunch’ it was another taxi to the Eurocar rental office where we picked up our Fiat ‘Salunto’. It’s a nice little car, station wagon actually, with a diesel engine. We loaded up our luggage and set out for Praiano on the Amalfi Coast. The way out of Rome was pretty easy; we just made two right turns and drove out to the ‘Ring Road’. It’s just like a loop freeway in the US. From there it was around to the A1 highway to Naples, then the A3 toward Salerno. We missed our turn off, I never saw the city name I was supposed to look for so we wound up in Salerno and had to drive all the way back to Praiano on the coast drive. This was a drive of only 34 km but took about an hour and a half. The road is built into the cliff about 80% of the time. The other 20% is through small towns. In many places the turns are so tight you are going around 180 degrees, some even more. Often the road is not two cars wide and that makes meeting a big tour bus an adventure in itself. Several times I had to back up and find a place wide enough to let the bus get past me. The busses blow their horns on the blind curves to let you know they’re coming. They also use those large convex mirrors you sometimes see in parking lots in the USA to help you peek around the blind corners. That helps quite a bit. I’m guessing that if you know the roads it’s better to drive them at night. First there are few commercial vehicles (read busses) and the lights of oncoming cars will warn you way ahead that there’s a car around the corner. The narrow roads in the Pocono Mountains were that way. It was much easier to drive at night if you knew the road.

We arrived at our hotel, the Onda Verde (Green Wave) (below) at about 3:30PM. Our balcony is in the cut out portion of the white building at the top. From that balcony we have a gorgeous view south on the Amalfi Coast (below). The dining room is the building with the large windows all across the front just below the white building. The hotel is built right into the cliff face. In fact, the elevator that connects the parking lot (street level at the top of the hotel) with the Lobby (behind the dining room) is built into a shaft drilled down through the rock. At the Lobby level you walk through a tunnel about 15 yards long drilled through solid rock to get out to the lobby. On our floor the tunnel was only about 7 yards long to get to the hall leading to the room. We checked in, looked around a little and then took a nap. I only got about 3 hours sleep the night before and Diana didn’t get much more. We are on the full board plan so we get breakfast and dinner at the hotel. A good thing, because restaurant prices out here are very high. Tonight we had spiral pasta with a tomato based sauce, roast beef, and peas with ham, all followed up with a large bowl of fruit, a banana, apple, orange and three kiwis. The hotel is family owned and operated and the chef is the owner’s brother. The food was good with a local touch.
(c) 2004 Rod Longenberger