Saturday's Italian jaunt

Saturday, May 11th 2013

Today's port was Civitavecchia from where you could take a tour to Rome, or with a little skill in the use of Italian public transport visit under your own steam. Having spent a leisurely week in Rome last October Matt and I had decided before we came on holiday that we would be giving a day trip into the eternal city a miss.

If we had been a bit more organised we would have carefully investigated the alternative touristical options from Civitavecchia. But we were not sufficiently organised - not even to remember to pack our Italy guidebook or to borrow one from the ship's library - and we were unwilling to fork out for the expensive roaming charges for data via our mobiles. So it would just have to be an adventure.

Over breakfast (mostly fresh fruit to atone for last night) we narrowed down the options to Tarquinia, a bit north along the train line, or Ortobella, a bit more north along the train line. This semi-decision was made because:

• They both looked like reasonably sized blobs on the map - even though I have learnt (from meanderings in Cornwall) that this is not always a good strategy for picking locations for a day trip
• I had translated Ortobella as "beautiful garden" which I thought sounded nice.

We used our skills in Italian public transport and identified that we had just missed a train going the way that we wanted and the next one wouldn't be for over an hour. So we decided to investigate the buses. This would require a higher level of skill in the use of Italian public transport but surely there would be something connecting these reasonably sized blobs on the map. I maxed out my skills and found out that there was a bus to Tarquinia in 10 minutes - so that was where we would go. I also found out that I had misread Ortobella on the map - it was actually Orbatella (so may not have been so horticultural or beautiful after all); we could always go on there later if Tarquinia proved touristically inadequate.

But Tarquinia didn't disappoint. We arrived after a pleasant bus trip (not guaranteed with southern European bus drivers), were directed to the tourist information office (this really was a top notch bus driver) and collected a map and town guide.

 

It's a medieval town and was ideal for wandering; we didn't really need the map. We made our (slow) way to the opposite side of the town walls from where we had come in, from where we enjoyed some fantastic views across the Tuscania countryside (not to be confused with Tuscany which I was). There was no need to Go Up Something High today, which was a good job as although Tarquinia is well provisioned with towers none of them were available for touristical climbing.

Monday's energy savings

Monday, May 6^th 2013: continued

After yesterday morning’s oversleeping I made sure that I turned up my phone to full volume before going to bed. I awoke feeling pleasingly refreshed (maybe the separate beds?) so was surprised that the alarm hadn’t gone off. I was even more surprised to find that it was gone 10 o’clock. Evidently the alarm doesn’t sound if the phone is turned off.

Calorie saving of the day 1: skip breakfast. I persuaded Matt that as it could be less than 2 hours until lunch (we had already spent some time faffing) we could swim, shower and then eat. We headed to the largest of the ship’s 4 pools; it was overcast this morning and this pool has the benefit of being undercover in such conditions (like a convertible car). I did a 20 minute swim but not very vigorously (no risk of being mistaken for a channel swimmer) as I had my “beach” bikini on and was rather concerned about the security of various parts of my anatomy in it. I did however enjoy doing some forward somersaults (without any loss of anatomy).

Calorie saving of the day 2: opt for the lighter options. Which I enjoyed for starter and main at lunchtime. Followed by treacle sponge and ice-cream. We had signed up for a “soda” package (20 drinks for the price of 16 or something like that) and had spent quite some time deliberating as to whether to add 20 branded soft whipped ice-creams for an extra £7.50. While this seemed like a bargain (and I do like a bargain), 20 branded soft whipped ice-creams would be quite a lot to get through. It was not clear whether these branded soft whipped ice-creams would come with chocolate flakes and while I love ice-cream this branded soft whipped type is not my favourite and I figured that there would be good ice-cream opportunities available at the port stops. As it turns out there are also good ice-cream opportunities available every lunch time and dinner time. It is always a pudding option (seemingly different flavours on every occasion in addition to the standard vanilla) and, even better, it is possible to exchange whatever dessert condiment is allocated (e.g. custard for the treacle sponge) for an ice-cream “side”. You can even have ice-cream as well as the allocated dessert condiment. It was a good call to opt out of the branded soft whipped ice-cream.

Over lunch I practised my small talk. Today’s subjects included the various ways of travelling to Southampton (in particular from Edinburgh) and Scottish (and other bits of the UK) independence, which I suppose might really be classed as political debate rather than small talk. Although you couldn’t really class it as debate as everyone joining in had the same opinion.

Calorie saving of the day 3: avoid the afternoon tea buffet. We had spent most of the afternoon in the convertible area by the pool, reading and playing my favourite fruit based word game. A 4 o’clock hoards of people started walking through this area. It was a few hours since we’d eaten and we were getting a bit peckish. So I suggested to Matt that we pack up our stuff and get afternoon tea (rather than go for the poolside pizzeria). We had always intended to go to the restaurant for this, as it is a civilised thing to do that doesn’t happen in day-to-day life (well not in ours anyway), plus there would be several flights of stairs to navigate which would be good exercise. In order to get to the waiter service restaurant we had to walk through the buffet area. This was clearly where the hordes were heading and now settling with their plates piled high with cakes, rolls, scones, samosas and curry. Yes, samosas and curry: since when afternoon tea has featured these I do not know. In the restaurant I was much more restrained – it is somehow ore difficult to over-eat when other people give you food rather than you putting it on your plate yourself from a seemingly unending supply. The only disruption to the aforementioned civility was when I failed to differentiate between the butter and the cream on my mini-toasted tea cake. Retrospectively the difference was obvious since the butter was in those little gold wrapping papers.

Then we re-settled by the pool. I wanted to paint the mini-fruit tart that Matt and I had just shared. I am not particularly good at painting and I particularly not good if I am trying to do it from memory. So I braved venturing into the buffet to see if I could pick up a tart to model for me. Unfortunately I was too late – afternoon tea had been cleared to make way for the Enid Blyton character themed tea. I didn’t think that the under 5s would have appreciated me taking one of their jam tarts to help me with my art so I would have to rely on my powers of recall. Whether you would identify my creation as a fruit tart is doubtful, but it’s colourful at least.  

Painting a fruit tart