Civitavecchio, gateway to Rome, Italy

We didn't go to Rome. We must finally be getting tired of being tourists. (I'm still not tired of eating in a restaurant three times a day, and having someone make the bed and clean the bathroom. Although being crammed into one room is getting old, despite the extensive public areas on the ship.)

Anyway, we didn't sign up for an excursion to Rome or any of the other nearby towns. We slept until 9 a.m., took a leisurely breakfast, took the free shuttle from the ship, and walked around the port, Civitavecchia, that services Rome.

*	This was our first glimpse of the Italian coastline. You can see that the weather has turned colder. At dinner time, we could see the lava flow down Stromboli, one of two smaller volcanoes, 1/3 the height of Aetna. (Aetna's head was in the clouds.)
*	The gateway to Rome, Civitavecchio, lacks the charm that the gateway to Athens, Piraeus, has.
*	The weather wasn't so nice in Civitavecchio as in Piraeus, being cold with rain threatening. But apparently, they don't have enough port traffic to be motivated to brighten things with a little paint and some plantings.
*	And you know you aren't in Singapore when you see so much graffiti. This would have been a very pretty walkway to a breakwater if it hadn't been covered with graffiti.
*	We missed to see the inside of the fortress because it was only open in the mornings. Another sign that tourism is not big right here. From the outside, it reminded us of the old city of Dubrovnik.
*	That is a pigeon on Garibaldi's head. Next stop: Le Havre, France.

*Hover over pictures marked with an asterisk to enlarge them.