Morocco Malta and The Med: Alboran Sea and the Rock of Gibraltar
Heading out from Algiers, at sea, en route to Casablanca on the Alboran Sea.
This is exactly what our early morning looks like – dark and filmy. It’s not the camera – it’s the reality.
It is a very flat day. It is a great day to read books, listen to some music, eat a light meal or two, hang out in the spa, and snooze a little.
Flat flat and gray gray.
Late in the afternoon, the Captain announces we will be passing The Rock of Gibralter. We have passed the iconic rock many times by ship – but always at night. This is our first daylight passage. But look at the sky, so flat, the light, so flat. Oh well, you take the shot you have.
And then, just as we are passing The Rock of Gibralter, Jebel Tarik, we hit sunset and a band of light shows up, just for moments, the only band of light all day. It’s as good as it’s ever going to get.
Tomorrow we dock in Casablanca.
Morocco Malta and the Med: Algiers!
We are excited. Algiers is one of the reasons we booked this tour, knowing that things can happen, and that for political reasons, or because of weather, it might not really happen. When you travel, you just have to accept that things are not always going to work out.
(On this trip, by the grace of God, every single thing worked out.)
It’s still dark, and we are sailing into the harbor at Algiers. On the hill I see – A Christmas Tree??!! No, as it turns out, this is a memorial to the martys of the war, the Algerian war for freedom from the French.
Algiers is the only port in which I heard the call to prayer. It was hauntingly beautiful. The mosques do not all start at the same time, so there is a kind of cacaphonic beauty from a large number of prayers going up at the same time.
The Hall of Honor is where we process through to get to our buses.
We used to see these “Palm Trees” in Kuwait, really communication towers.
You may be thinking, “Some of the photos here are not the quality we expect!” So, I will explain that I am shooting as fast as I can, surrounded by people I am trying to keep out of my shots, so I can give you an idea of what we are seeing. There is one group after another, all holding up their cameras, getting in one another’s shots. I try to stay ahead or behind, but trust me, the pressure is on. Each group is about twenty-five people, each group with five poorly disguised armed guards, trying to not look like armed guards. They turned out to be really nice guys. Trying to keep American tourists in a line going at a steady pace is a thankless task.
To me it was a little weird that every rectangular plastic basket I saw was purple.
I find some of these construction techniques and electrical wiring workarounds concerning.
We are taken to a hospitality villa, where they serve fresh dates, mint tea from fresh mint leaves, and fresh baked cookies and pastries.
We think our guide is terrific. First, we love that he showed up in old traditional garb (which we learned he had specially made for this very purpose.) He is full of great information, very patient with his flock, and somehow he manages to get us all going in the same direction and is able to keep us somehow together.
I love this photo. The shopkeeper, trying to keep his street clean and orderly; the donkey, picking up garbage on the street impossible for a garbage truck (and with steps!) and our guide in his traditional garb.
I believe this is the shop that made the traditional outfit for our guide.
I am betting this is the fish market.
Now I am pretty sure it is the fish market!
We reboard the ship. We can’t get off again. We are really glad we chose the Casbah walking trip, we feel we got a good feel for that part of town. We never felt hostility, only curiosity, even though a huge crowd of Americans in groups of twenty-five on the narrow, normally quiet pedestrian streets must have been disruptive.
For many of the people who chose this trip, the terrain was challenging. It was stone, sometimes slippery due to sand or moisture. The steps were uneven, the stones rough and irregular. For many, the poverty was distressing, and the dirtiness and disorderlyness made them uncomfortable. I think, too, that it would have been good to let them do a little shopping, good for the tourists and good for the Algerian merchants, but the security concerns were so great that tourists were not given any time to interact with the people or the economy. Too bad. We learned that Algiers will not be included in future Morocco Malta and the Mediterranean trips.
I think, too, maybe it felt familiar to us because the slice of Algiers that we saw was very like Tunisia in the late 1970s, and it was at first a challenge to us, but we learned and adjusted.
Farewell, Algiers!
Morocco Malta and the Med: Between Tunis and Algiers, A Day at Sea
Awaiting the Sunrise and anticipating a quiet day.
We are mostly of a demographic, the 900 odd passengers on the Viking Saturn, and the pace has us wearing a little around the edges. Today, the washing machines in the laundry started very early, according to the woman whose cabin is across the hall from the laundry room.
We were in the back of a Land Rover heading into Wadi Rum a couple years ago, on a Oceania trip that went from Barcelona with stops en route to Haifa and the entrance to the Suez Canal, through the Canal and down the Red Sea turning east at Yemen to get to Oman, and eventually Abu Dhabi. We hadn’t been on the ship all that long, maybe a week. One of our companions bouncing around in the back of the Land Rover had been on the same ship as the Captain several times, and told us the Captain said that the worst problem cruise ships have to deal with is passengers getting bored.
They are contained. They rush rush rush at each port and then a day at sea seems very long. He was telling us this because we were approaching four concurrent days at sea. I guess they didn’t want to stop in Saudi Arabia, or the Sudan, or Yemen, LOL.
The ship has a lot going on this sea day – several scheduled tours of the Bayeux Tapestry panels, which has proven very popular, and two or three other lectures, trivia games, movies, tea in the Winter garden. My husband and I sleep in, have a lazy breakfast and then we hit the spa. We love the spa. I love trying to swim against the waves and turbulence and hitting the snow room, and then flopping on a lounge and falling into a deep stuporous slumber. Then, when I gather the energy, I head upstairs and hit my book.
I should be taking notes, or something, I am sure, but I am happy just to have a day off.
Many passengers are a-twitter about the announcement that in Algeria, we can only get off the ship in official organized groups, and that those groups will be accompanied by armed guards. Actually, before the ship sailed, we got e-mails explaining the situation, and I think most didn’t pay any attention. We changed our tour from the panoramic tour, after which we intended to take off on our own and explore the Kasbah. Once we learned that wasn’t going to be possible, we booked the walking tour of the Kasbah. We think you see and experience more on the ground.
We think this is going to be interesting. We were never allowed to go to Algeria when we lived in Tunis. It was considered too dangerous.
😁😳😎🥸
Morocco Malta and the Med: Revisiting Life in Tunis
Sunrise getting close to Tunis.
You may be a little hazy on where Tunisia is:
We recognize Carthage and Sidi Bou Said, but everything is so much more built up.
Saint Louis Cathedral up on the hill, we remember. Oh wow, Wikipedia tells me it is no longer a cathedral: Since 1993, the cathedral has been known as the “Acropolium”. It is no longer used for worship, but instead hosts public events or concerts of Tunisian music and classical music. Currently, the only Roman Catholic cathedral operating in Tunisia is the Cathedral of St. Vincent de Paul in Tunis.[1] Hunh. Acropolium.
We had exactly the day we needed in Tunis, thanks to this fine man, Noureddine Boukari. We found him through Tours by Locals, and he corresponded with us to determine exactly what we wanted to see and experience in our precious few hours in Tunis.
He was there to pick us up as we exited the boat. He took us directly downtown, along Habib Bourgiba to the Central Market and the souks as they were opening. It was a great beginning; the Central Market hasn’t changed much in forty years; people can still find the freshest fish and local vegetables as they do their daily shopping.
LOL this thrilled my heart!
This was so much fun for me – probably because as a young wife, shopping for food was challenging at first – buying by weight in the markets, always carrying our own bags to put our vegetables in. I have so many hilarious stories, mostly because I was so ignorant, and had to learn new ways.
Noureddine introduced us to friends who were shopkeepers, and they had a great time talking with AdventureMan.
As I type this up, I hear the words in French and Arabic for eggs, parsley, pumpkins – it comes roaring back, words I haven’t used in a while.
And we head for the souks, which are just opening. The whole medina area is SO clean now!
The Hotel Royal Victoria on the right used to be the British Embassy a long time ago, right at the main entry to the souks.
I didn’t do a lot of shopping on this trip, but I found in these souks a beautiful silk scarf hand woven in Mahdia for my daughter-in-law and a huge red sefsari in the old pattern for the woman who stays in our house and cares for the cats while we are gone, and who, like me, loves textiles.
These date pastries/cookies are so delicious. Noureddine is taking a box to his family.
Our chariot awaits. We drive around Tunis and arrive at the Bardo just as all the tour groups are leaving. Noureddine leads us through the centuries of mosaics. The Bardo is more beautiful and more organized than it was all those years ago.
The Bardo itself is a former palace. Now it holds priceless mosaics taken from ruins of houses built throughout Tunisian history (Tunis, Carthage, Dougga, Kairoan, Djerba – it is impressive.)
The imagination and the execution of the work is exquisite.
Below is an intricate ceiling.
View of Tunis from the Bardo Palace.
A treasure discovered with hundreds of gold coins and one silver coin (at the bottom).
Ancient Punic Gods. Some are really hideous.
This is the house where once we lived, but not in this house, in the house that used to be there. I am glad Noureddine found the address, but it is not the house where we lived. But it IS on the way to Carthage and Sidi Bou Said, and to a delightful lunch of bric, and couscous.
Brik!
Fresh fish, which Noureddine skilfully deboned for us.
Vegetable couscous. I’ve never tasted carrots as delicious as those grown in Tunisia.
We have a lovely walk around Sidi Bou Said before heading back to the ship.
On return to the Viking Saturn, as instructed, we had our shore passes out and ready to give to the official collecting them. But there was no official collecting them! No one was collecting them! We still have them! Just in case.
The sun is setting over Tunis.
As we sail away, a flock of gulls trail us, hoping for a hand out!
Just in case you are, like me a map person, this is a general idea of the route we took today:
Morocco Malta and the Med: Tunisian Interlude
We aren’t just sailing away from Malta. We are sailing toward a part of our history, and please pardon that these photos are not that great; I don’t even know what kind of camera we were using and they are now very old.
We lived in Tunis for two years, courtesy of the US Government, wanting us to be linguistically and culturally more fluent. For me, it was scary at first – coming from Monterey, CA and entering into what seemed to be a very alien culture.
It began a great leap in opening our visions to other ways of thinking.
Below is our old villa – I am showing you this because when we went to visit it, it looked entirely different.
Our son went to a local Pre-School, Joie de Vivre, the Joy of Life 😊. This is his class photo.
AdventureMan on our back porch, where we often ate. We only had air conditioning in our bedrooms. The candelabras (there were two) were made for us in Binzerte.
My French teacher, Madame Huguette Curie invited us into her culture; she lived on Avenue Habib Bourgiba in a palatial apartment and had this seaside cottage where we could swim and picnic together. She was beautiful and cultured, and helped us learn about and love our time in Tunisia.
My parents came to visit, and we had a wonderful time showing them Tunisia. This was at the Ampitheatre in El Jem.
We camped in desolate areas – now built up – in our Volkswagon Bus.
Once a year, there was a Bedouin festival in Douz (where much of the original Star Wars was filmed.) We camped there, too, and have never been colder in our lives than in the Tunisian desert in late November.
The Camel Market in Nabuel was a great weekend favorite.
So my friends, on! on! We are on our way back to Tunis, 46 years later.
Morocco Malta and The Med: Malta Day 2
Just being in Malta was a thrill, and waking up to this sunrise in Malta and knowing we had a FREE day we could do whatever we wanted as long as we were back on the ship for Sail Away at two, what freedom! We are up early and we are going walking. Across the street is a hill that goes straight up to the top where the Fort Saint Elmo is, and Saint John’s Co-Cathedral and downtown Valetta!
A cat sanctuary! With food and water and shade from the sun and protection from the cold!
We find the Museum of Archaeology! And it’s open!
Yes. We are such history nerds; this museum thrills our hearts. We want to come back to Malta!
We are a little giddy with our freedom to go wherever we want. We hike this narrow peninsula, check out a few of the shops, we use up all our time just being free to go where we want to go. One jewelry shop we found had a large sign posted that said something like “Viking Ships recommended shop”. We didn’t buy anything there; he didn’t have what I was looking for (anchor studs in 18k gold) but he was a very good salesman. (No, I never did find the earrings, I am still looking 😊)
This is our last Euro stop for about a week, so we need – again- to replenish our tipping change and bills. Malta has done something very strategic with the Cruise ships. It’s easy to leave, to go out walking and shopping, but to get back to your ship, you have to go through a maze, in theory to get your cruise ship card checked, but there wasn’t anyone in the checking place to check our cards. In that maze are a lot of shops, many with higher quality wares, good pottery, good local foods, wines, honey, nicer than the lower end souvenir shops.
We do spend a little here to get Euro change.
So the reality is “two days in Malta” is really from 8 a.m. one day to 2:00 p.m. the next day. I get it, our next stop is Tunis, and we probably need that extra time to get there, but oh, we hate sailing away from Malta.
Oh my friends – if you get a chance, go to Malta.
Morocco Malta and the Med: Concert at St. John’s Co-Cathedral in Malta
This was a lot of fun, mostly because it also involved walking along Malta’s main street at night.
A concert in one of the most beautiful and unusual churches in the world – Saint John’s Co-Cathedral, and everyone’s first question is “what is a co-cathedral?” I don’t pretend to understand this explanation from Wikipedia:
St. John’s remained the conventual church of the Order until the latter was expelled from Malta with the French occupation in 1798.[12] Over time, the church grew to equal prominence with the archbishop’s cathedral at Mdina. In the 1820s, the Bishop of Malta was allowed to use St John’s as an alternative see and it thus formally became a co-cathedral.[13]
It seems to have to do with two bishops sharing a church.
Yes. This church is spectacular and unusual and has a Caravaggio. The squares in the floor are vaults where Knights of Malta are buried.
The concert was truly lovely, instrumental and vocals, beautifully done.
I was fascinated by this very manly, muscular John the Baptist.
Caravagio’s Beheading of John the Baptist:
I love the whole idea of this. Malta attracts a lot of large cruise ships with young people and has a lot of active things for them to do. Creating a good orchestra and choir attracts also an older crowd, and gives us a chance to support the Valletta community in a meaningful way while we get a chance to sit and absorb the music in a beautiful cathedral we might be rushed through during the day. This gives us time and space to truly appreciate our time in Malta.
Morocco Malta and the Med: Malta!
First, real life. “Two days in Malta” is not two days. The first day, we arrive mid-morning, and have tours scheduled which allow us a large overview of the Isle of Malta:
You might wonder why there is a line from Valetta to Mdina that shows it takes two hours and 39 minutes (on today’s roads) to walk from Valetta to Mdina. This is because at lunch, AdventureMan, who is reading The Sword and the Scimitar, expresses skepticism that a young girl could walk from Valetta to Mdina, as she does in the book. On our tour, it seemed like a very long way. So I looked on Google Maps, and it gave me the walking time.
Then, as best I could remember, I figured our where our bus panoramic trip had taken us, which is this:
Last, the geography of Valetta is astonishing, and fascinating, so this is what the harbor of Valetta and Birgu (across the harbor from Valetta) looks like. I want you to try to imagine this geography from the point of view of Ottoman warriors who want to take Malta (back; they had once occupied Malta.)
These are things to be thinking about as we start our day.
Sunrise, still on the open seas. While we arrive in Malta around eight in the morning, our tour will not leave until 10:40.
My guilty pleasure, a thin slice of Norwegian breakfast bread with an almond cream filling.
We are coming in between Fort Saint Elmo and Fort Ricasoli and heading towards the Valetta Waterfront (you can see them on the map above, if you care.)
Doesn’t Valetta just knock your socks off already? It is SO beautiful. The is the only day of the entire trip where we have rain, and it’s like five minutes of rain. A mere blip.
We have breakfast while we wait for our tour.
This is a thrill. We are docked right in the middle of town. We can walk where we want! We see a lot of Hop On Hop Off kinds of buses go by – and here, in mid-November, these buses are packed. We begin to be happier we will have a tour of our own.
I think this is Fort Saint Elmo. Look at those sheer walls!
Malta has been discovered. We are not the only ship in town.
Finally, our tour begins. I am embarrassed to tell you, I don’t always know what my photos are. There was so much information. I remember this is a port, and it is very costly to moor a boat here.
We are headed up the coast, and this is one of several watch towers built which were within eyesight of one another so if invaders came, the entire island could be warned very quickly.
I’m pretty sure this is Saint Paul’s Bay, where Paul got all the crew of the ship he was sailing on safely to shore, and stayed here until he could continue his journey to Rome.
We spent quite a bit of time here.
We had a rest stop in this restaurant.
I think this is the anciety city of Mdina, where the nobles of Malta lived and live still.
Mdina was thronged with people. It’s one of the Hop On Hop Off stops.
The very Arabesque kinds of window balconies many of the buildings have.
There are walls like this everywhere, blocks of stone without mortar which divide properties.
Hagar Qim archaological dig. This is the trip I really wanted to go on, but it was already booked when we tried to sign up for it. We found items from Hagar Qim the next day at the National Museum of Archaeology, many of which came from this dig.
f I had known how small Malta is, and how easy it would be to get to this dig, I would have booked a private tour to get us here. I found many online, but was concerned about the time, and the boat departure.
Every town has it’s own patron saint, and there is a festival for a saint in some village almost every weekend.
This was a disappointment; this is a fishing village famous for it’s blue boats, and we were supposed to stop here but we zoomed through.
Coat of arms for one of the Knights of Malta
Panoramic trips can be hit or miss. This one was good in that it covered a lot of ground, and disappointing in that we didn’t really always know what we were seeing and (probably in the interest of time) we zoomed right by some of the most interesting things to see (the fishing village with the painted boats, the Blue Grotto, Hagar Qim,Mdina).
Fort Sant Angelo, in Birgu, just across the waterway from Valetta.
We are not concerned about the panoramic tour; we are going to a concert this evening at Saint John’s Co-Cathedral and the evening is great fun and a wonderful experience.
Morocco Malta and the Med: Thank God, A Day at Sea
Actually, the “day” in Rome did not end as expected. After the lecture, we ate dinner, and the captain announced we would be departing early (thank goodness we didn’t plan on dinner in Rome, as the first departure time was 10 pm) due to upcoming bad weather. Other cruise ships were also departing, trying to get out of Dodge (so to speak) before the heavy winds and tumultuous sea hit.
Sea day means time to do laundry, and realizing there would be a lot of people wanting to do laundry, I grabbed our bag right after dinner and was able to find a washing machine that was free. Another woman was actually quicker than I was, and had two washers, but even with my one, there was still one left. The instructions appeared simple, lots of pictures, but I still had a problem figuring out how the detergent works (you have to press a button in another place). When I got back, just in time, there was one dryer and zero washers, and people waiting for my washer, so I felt really good about my timing, and getting it done. Now my Sea Day is all mine!
And, of course, on the first morning in a week that I could sleep in, I have adjusted to local time and I am wide awake at 5 a.m. when I normally get up to swim. There is NO ONE else up at 5 a.m. except the people who make coffee, thank God, and are busy getting breakfast ready. I had the Explorer Lounge all to myself for the first hour while I caught up on my Lectionary readings, my e-mails, and the news. And captured the rising sun 😊.
I truly need a sea day. While my normal life is active, it is not as quickly paced as this week of travel days has been, and I need time for absorption, for processing what I observe, what I see, and what I experience.
I have found an old book about Malta, The Sword and the Scimitar, by David Ball, which has tiny print, but oh, I loved reading this book which starts in Malta with two Maltese children and the Knights of Malta, and takes us from there to the slave markets of Algiers, and the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople, Pirate ships, and the great battle for Malta! I am a fast reader, and this book took me weeks to finish, but I found it memorable and addictive. My husband is reading it now, equally addicted. At last, I have time to read, and to nap!
We have also signed up for the tour of the Bayeux Tapestry murals aboard the Viking Saturn with resident historian Knut Nesse, which was fascinating, and we all learned so much from him because it was limited to eight people who asked excellent questions. I had read David Howarth’s book 1066 which covers the eventful year from beginning to eventful end and refers to the tapestry, among many sources, as he sketches out how narrowly William the Conqueror achieved his 1066 victory.
And with no time at all to lose, we had another lecture at 3:00 with Professor David Rohl discussing “The Bones of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.” You know you are on a Viking ship when you have such great lectures that you can’t resist attending, and, in fact, the lecture hall was packed for Doctor Rohl’s presentation.
Have I told you about the Viking Spa? It’s our favorite luxury on board, this highly heated pool with bubble massagers and waves and an attached hot tub? It is surrounded by flat lounge beds with thick warm thirsty towels, cold water in nice glasses, a snow room, a moist steam room, and a water wall that creates a white nose to lull you into sleep. So relaxing.
The sea is rolling. Not all passengers are feeling well. We didn’t entirely escape the rough weather. As we prepared for this trip, we kept seeing projections for rain, but we haven’t seen any rain until today, just droplets, not a storm.
I’ve never been to “Tea” on a Viking ship, so I talk my husband into going with me – only to discover that it’s too late, every table is taken, every chair occupied. I think this is God’s way of telling me I didn’t need tea today, LOL, so we head for the bar and a quick espresso to celebrate our day at sea. Tomorrow we start two days in Malta; we are excited.
Sunset over the Tyrrhenian Sea
Morocco Malta and the Med: Not Even a DAY in Rome
Viking Saturn arrives in Civitavecchia, not Rome. It’s a couple hours plus to Rome.
OK, real world stuff here, I am about to do what we call a First World Whine. Meaning in the larger scheme of things, we know how very lucky we are to be able to do these trips. And we are having a ball. And – I think I may be getting old. It feels like there are not quite enough hours in the day. Not to see all we want to see, or to understand all that we see, or take notes on what we see so I can make sense when I share these trips with you.
So today we are “in” Rome, but we are docked in Civitavecchia, a port about two hours drive from Rome. We signed on to a sort of Rome on Your Own kind of thing because we have never been to Rome before, we know what we want to see and do, and we want to do it at our own speed. We’ve signed up for the earliest trip into Rome, and we plan from there to catch a shuttle to the Coliseum, because, well, you go to Rome and see the Coliseum and the Trevi Fountain.
This won’t even be a “day” in Rome, this will be like five hours in Rome, and I am trying not to feel the pressure. Whatever time I have, I want to experience Rome, I want to feel Rome but oh, the pressure is mounting. Aargh.
Our guide is delightful. She hands us a map, and she hands us a card, and tells us where we will need to br to catch the bus for the ride back to the ship. This is the card for the tour company:
Civitavecchia is a pretty cool old city on its own. If I ever have a chance to spend four or five days really seeing Rome, then I would choose the next time I landed in Civitavecchia to just visit Civitavecchia. It’s full of old structures, and it’s been featured in several Dan Brown-type novels where the characters travel impossible distances in impossible times and solve ancient mysteries with intuitive leaps.
So Plaza de Popolo; our first stop so we can catch the shuttle to the Coliseum; we will finish up here at the end of our few hours.
Love Viking signage!
It’s early. And there are already hundreds of people. We take the requisite selfies and skedaddle.
Check!
It’s supposed to be cold in the morning, maybe a little rain, and warm in the afternon. We carry go-bags with the minimum to meet all the requirements, plus water and something chocolate in case of emergencies.
We have several things we want to see – AdventureMan has found the Pantheon on our map, and the place our guide recommended for a lunch were the Romans might eat, and the Trevi fountain, and between the Coliseum and Plaza de Popolo we can see those, and whatever else we see. We just want to soak in a little flavor of Rome, and we can do that by walking, and hitting some of the back streets and lesser-known sights.
Actually, once we shoot those photos with the Coliseum, we start having a good time. There is really nothing we HAVE to do except be at the meeting place at 3:15.
Now comes another small adventure, and another wonderful hairdresser story. We can see the restaurant we want to go to on the map, but no matter how we try, we can’t seem to get there. AdventureMan sees a hair salon, and pops his head in to ask for help. A guy sitting there asks what he is looking for and when AdventureMan tells him the name of the restaurant, he gets a big smile on his face and says “My friend works there! I will take you there!”
AdventureMan had thought he was a customer, but no, he was a hairdresser and was relaxing between customers. He was a very nice man; we talked as we walked to the restaurant, and when we got there, he found his friend, introduced us and told him to take good care of us, that we were his friends.
We loved the place. And we loved the food. And we loved the nice young man who took such good care of us. He looked at me and said “I know you are American, but I think you family is from here.” I said no, we were mostly Swedish, and he laughed and said “You look like you are from here.” And he approved of everything we ordered, and brought us good wine.
These were roasted artichokes, Jewish style, and you could eat the whole thing, even the stem. SO delicious!
I love this baker in the background, with his load of bread, phoning someone to say he is here.
We find the Trevi Fountain, under construction, OK, check. LOL.
We found the river, and walking alongside it was so relatively serene.
AdventureMan has a philosophy that if it isn’t forbidden, it is permitted. He loved this driver’s panache.
We have fifteen minutes before meetup, back at Plaza de Popolo. We’ve had a great day. We grab a couple espressos at a cafe so we can use the restroom before the drive back. AdventureMan discovers he actually likes espresso and says it is a lot like Turkish coffee.
The Christmas markets are just starting to set up, but are not open yet.
My FitBit is confused by the time change; keeps track of steps but not hourly requirement.
This is so frustrating. Back on board, we attend a lecture by Professor David Kohl. It is speculative and also entertaining, but I wish I had heard the lecture BEFORE the Rome visit as he mentions two of the oldest churches in Rome that I would have loved to see.
So the sun is setting over Civitavecchia and we are getting ready once again to sail away.
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