Return

Tuesday, June 23 and we are back in the port of Civitavecchia and on our way home. Baggage must be outside our cabins by 7:00 am, with color coded tags based on what airport terminal we are going to. In port the water is calm and I feel fine. I ate a light breakfast and at 9:00 am we boarded buses to go to the airport.

Continental Airlines flight 0043 from Rome to Newark aboard a Boeing 767-200 took the scheduled 9 hours and 55 minutes. This plane was a little smaller than the previous one; it seated 174 passengers, 25 business class and 149 economy. The overhead displays were similar to what we saw on the trip out. Except this time we had a vento contrario, a head wind, and we flew at altitudine 10973 m, altitude 36000 ft.

The only hitch in transportation for the entire trip was with New Jersey Transit from Newark Liberty International Airport Station to Princeton Junction. There was a disabled train between Newark Penn Station and Secaucus Junction where there are only two tracks. So I was delayed for about an hour. Not bad for a trip that involved over 8000 statute miles by air and over 1000 nautical miles by sea. By about 9:00 pm, still June 23, I was home.

Above, I've repeated the map from the trip brochure. Images of things we saw and stories the guides told us keep popping into my head. Following are some repeated blog pictures and some new stories.


Our guide in Florence told us an interesting story. In the 1960s three high school students each made a sculpture in the style of a famous Florentine sculptor. (I wish I could remember which one.) They took their sculptures and placed them in a canal in Florence. Some time later the sculptures were discovered. The experts were called in and the sculptures were declared authentic. At which point the three young men came forward; announced that they had made them; and that they would make more--for a fee. Our guide told us that we had seen the original Michelangelo statue David inside the Academy of Fine Arts and a copy outside the Old Palace. But there is another famous statue where the original is outside and there is a copy inside a museum. Then he just shook his head. (Image: Inside of the Brunelleschi designed dome of the Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral--the Duomo.)


In Nice the local guide told us a fantastic story about composer Hector Berlioz (1803-1869). Verifying the story in Wikipedia indicates that the guide embellished it quite a bit. The story consistent with Wikipedia goes more along these lines. Berlioz, living in Paris, was engaged to be married. (This woman was not the beautiful French actress with whom he was obsessed most of his life.) He won a music prize which included two years of study in Rome. While there he received a letter from his fiancée's mother saying that her daughter was marrying someone else. Berlioz decided to kill his former fiancée, her husband, and her mother. Berlioz bought a dress with a hat and veil that he planned to use as a disguise to get into a house when the three of them were there. (In the local guide's version, this was a wedding dress.) But, on the way back to Paris by mistake he left the dress on a carriage. Berlioz had gotten as far as Nice. At this point he realized killing the three of them was probably not such a good idea. He stayed in Nice waiting for permission to return to Rome. (In the local guide's version, Berlioz fell in love with Nice.) While in Nice he wrote two overtures and the sequel to Symphonie Fantastique. And he returned to Rome. ('Self portrait' dog sculpture by Alberto Giacometti at the Maeght Foundation and Museum.)


In Bonifacio on the Rue des Deux Empereurs is the house where both Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire and Napoleon Bonaparte stayed while visiting the area, over 200 years apart. There is a plaque on the outside wall. While there Napoleon rode his host's best horse. After he left, the owner shot this horse. Out of respect for Napoleon he didn't want anyone to be able to say: I rode the horse that Napoleon rode. After Bonifacio we had our second night of stargazing. It began later--a little after sunset. One person spotted a moving light. The cruise director identified it as a satellite. Then someone noticed one moving in a different direction. That was a satellite in polar orbit. (Bonifacio citadel.)


The meal of local cuisine on the island Sardinia ended with an delicious myrtle liqueur. (Roman amphitheater.)


When we were in the Old Medina shopping area in Tunis with its warren of corridors among the stalls our guide told us: Be careful that you don't get lost. Even GPS doesn't work here. (Now that's an example of hyperbole!) (Roman cisterns.)


As we approached a castle in Erice, one person asked: Can we go in? The answer: No, it is being made into a hotel. (Street scene.)


The people on this trip certainly were very interesting and pleasant. In addition to people who were members of the American Museum of Natural History, there were people from the Archaeological Institute of America, the University of North Carolina Alumni Association, Dartmouth Alumni Association, Georgetown University, and people who found out about the trip from travel agents. (Corinthian II.)

This trip certainly whet my appetite for more. So now I am thinking, what exotic place would I like to go to next?

Trapani and Erice, Sicily, Italy

The next morning, Monday, June 22, we were in Trapani. I was pleasantly surprised that with the ship in port and stable and with a breakfast of dry toast and hot tea I was ready to go.

The choices for the day were Segesta with its Greek Doric temple or the medieval hilltop town of Erice (pronounced eritche).


After a bus ride up a mountain on a road with hairpin turns we reached Erice. In my photo above you can see a church from Crusader times, and behind and above it a fort built on the site of a temple of Venus. We had a walking tour in another picturesque medieval town. We passed Maria Grammatico's world famous marzipan (ground almonds and sugar) shop. Many were colored and in the shapes of different fruits. She learned the art of preparing marzipan and other sweet treats in an orphanage run by a convent. The children sold the delicacies to raise money for both institutions. We saw a large tower, built as a watch tower and converted to a church bell tower. We had free time in the town square.


One of the unsolved puzzles of physics involves Sicilian born Ettore Majorana (1906-1938?). He had been working with Enrico Fermi and had knowledge of research to build an atomic weapon. He is known to have boarded a boat from Palermo to Naples. And that is the last time he was seen. Did he commit suicide by jumping off? Did he accidentally fall off? Was he kidnapped? Did he disguise himself to hide? It is a puzzle. We passed this research institute named in his honor.

We returned to the ship in time for lunch. The ship headed back toward Civitavecchia, where we originally boarded. The sirocco was still blowing and the seas were rough so it seemed wise to skip lunch. At 4:00 pm we had a briefing and were given disembarkation instructions. I also skipped the captain's farewell dinner. The next day I asked someone if many people didn't go to the dinner. The answer, about half the people.

Tunis and Carthage, Tunisia

On Sunday, June 21 we arrived in Tunis, Tunisia. This is my first time on the African continent.

We started the morning off with a Sid Horenstein lecture, Mediterranean Geology. The oldest land in the area is 4.2 billion years old. The oldest seabed is 170 million years old. Due to evaporation the Mediterranean Sea is 4 to 6 inches lower and has higher salinity than the Atlantic Ocean. At the Strait of Gibralter, for the most part water flows into the lower Mediterranean Sea. But below that flow there is a high density outflow. During World War II German submarines took advantage of these facts to pass into and out of the Mediterranean Sea silently.

Before disembarking our faces (remove your hat and glasses) were scanned by a woman using an infrared camera. She was looking for anyone with Swine (H1N1) Flu. We were told that local time is one hour behind ship time. (It must be a daylight savings time difference because Italy and Tunisia are in the same time zone.) Also, the winds had shifted. Instead of the mistral, the sirocco, a hot wind from North Africa was blowing across the Mediterranean.

The main attraction for the morning was a visit to the Bardo Museum, famous for its collection of Roman mosaics. When we arrived our local guide told us the following. The building in front of us was built as a palace for the King of Turkey. The building behind us was built for Turkish troops. The building in front of us is now part Parliment and part Bardo Museum. The building behind us is used by the Tunisian military. "Photographs are not permitted. If you want a picture, go to Google Earth."


The mosaics are made from small cubes of marble; the smaller the pieces the more valuable the mosaic. The mosaics were typically floor decoration. Since the pieces of marble were the same color throughout they could stand up to foot traffic. The central theme of this large mosaic (and formerly known as the Greek god Poseidon) is the Roman god of the sea Neptune. More about him below.


On our way to our next stop, Old Medina, we passed the minaret at the top of this blog entry. Old Medina is a shopping area; small stall next to small stall; lots of alleys with twists and turns. Everything was "Special for you; 50% off." The only shop where the group spent much time was one that sold knotted sheep wool, camel wool, and silk Berber carpets. Someone on the tour used Nina's camera and took a photo of our two tour managers, Inger (left) and Nina.


We walked to lunch at the Dar Harmmouda Pacha restaurant; originally built as an Ottoman nobleman's house. Here is a tour manager's picture. The meal started with assorted salads. The main course was lamb with vegetables on a bed of couscous. The meat was thoroughly cooked and at my table there was some discussion about whether it was lamb or beef. Dessert was date ice cream. There was a large skylight over the former patio, now main dining room. It appeared that Berber rugs were being used to control the amount of sunlight coming in through the skylight.

After lunch we went to the Phoenician city of Carthage. It was founded in the 9th century BC. The thing is, the Romans really hated the Phoenicians and after conquering Carthage the Romans destroyed everything they could. They even put salt in the fields so that they couldn't be used for crops.


We visited the Roman Antonine Baths. In this picture you can see some of the lower structure where the waters were heated. Men and women were in separate sections and bathed naked. Baths were called the people's palace. Romans went to the baths to exercise, to bathe, but also to socialize, to meet, and to see and be seen.


We did see these rare surviving Phoenician ruins. A nearby Phoenician temple and the top of Byrsa Hill on which it stood were destroyed by the Romans. Some of the rubble was dumped onto the remains of these Phoenician homes.


We visited these Roman Cisterns. Very interesting. Water came in on the aqueduct at the left. It went into the closest cistern. When that one filled water flowed out the holes at the top and flowed into the next cistern, and so on, and so on.

We returned to the ship and were on our way. Cecil Wooten gave a lecture on Roman Sculpture. The sirocco had really picked up and we were now in open water. We had a 30 to 35 knot wind. We were in 4 to 5 meter (13 to 16 foot) seas. Not good. Neptune was really, really upset about something! I ate a very light dinner with the hope that I would not get seasick. It didn't work. My cabin was in the bow and the ship was moving up and down so much that I went to sleep on the floor. I figured I couldn't roll off the floor. As I went to sleep I realized that I might be too sick for Trapani, Sicily the next day and I might just stay aboard the ship.

Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy

Saturday, June 20, next stop, Cagliari. I can't believe we've passed the halfway point in our cruise. The mistral made the day particularly pleasant. The mistral is a strong cool wind blowing from the northwest from France onto the Mediterranean Sea.

From where our ship was docked we could see this interesting ship. It looks like a dry bulk freighter and it appears that the deck folds up out of the way (the green things) so that cargo can easily be loaded and unloaded by crane. We set off for a one hour bus ride along the coast toward what was originally the Phoenician seaport of Nora.

A few years ago some pink flamingos were blown off course in a storm. They ended up in the area. They are thriving. We passed several coves filled with pink flamingos. They've become a tourist attraction.

You may recall that the African tectonic plate is moving toward and under the Eurasia plate. This collision and upward thrust has produced the Alps. The region is geologically active with earthquakes and volcanoes. The southern part of Sardinia is sinking into the Mediterranean Sea and so some of the original Nora is now under water.

Nora was two harbors, separated by a peninsula. One harbor or the other was preferred based on the direction of the wind. Nora is the site of ruins of a Roman amphitheater, Roman baths, and other Roman structures. The stone posts in the front of this amphitheater originally supported a wood platform. For many events the main action took place on the platform. There could be a chorus in the semi-circular area.

A nearby area contained ruins of other structures. Here is a section of road made of pieces of lava. (Sid Horenstein asked "Do you know what the volcano said to the lava?"
Answer: Lava come back to me.) There is a sewer underneath the center of the road. You can see the rectangular covers over openings to the sewer. The rectangular covers don't look original. It is my guess that in Roman times there were some kind of wood covers.


Lunch was local cuisine at a restaurant and vineyard, La Laconda di Bacalamanza. The grape vines were covered with a white plastic material 'so that the grapes would ripen faster'. Here's a tour manager's picture of that.

There were two choices for the afternoon activities. One was to visit an archeological site including a tower built out of large stones by Nuraghi people during the Bronze Age.

My choice was to return to Cagliari for a walking tour of the city. We visited the Castello (a medieval fortified area), the Cagliari Archaeological Museum (interesting because the island has a Nuraghic, Carthaginian, Roman, Byzantine, Pisan, and Spanish history), and a Cathedral. Inside the Cathedral was an elaborate pulpit designed by the same architect who designed the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Interestingly, the pulpit was out toward the middle of the pews. Before electronic amplification, this was necessary so that the entire congregation could hear. Also, inside the Cathedral the guide pointed out a reused block, a large stone that had been part of a sarcophagus and was now used as a lintel. Back on the bus, we passed the Palazzo Boyl, used as an opera house, that had three different size cannon balls embedded in an outside wall from three different assaults on the city.

The evening's lecture was Roman Architecture by Cecil Wooten.



Among the passengers there were seventeen people of three generations of one family. This evening they put on laurel wreaths and made togas out of their bedsheets and arrived for dinner in costume. They got a nice round of applause. Here is a tour manager's photo.

Speaking of dinner. Dinner was always spectacular. First, there were two or three choices each for salad, soup, and appetizer. There was always a choice between bottled clear water or sparkling water. There was always a white wine and a red wine to choose from. For the main course there was always a choice of a meat, a fish, or a vegetarian dish. Plus, there were about five standard main course dishes that were always available. And of course there were several desserts to choose from. We all ate very well on this cruise. I worked at eating a fairly healthy diet, typically choosing the fish main course and limiting my total consumption. The maître d' made it a point to seat you with different people each evening.

Next stop, Tunis.

Bonifacio, Corsica, France

Friday, June 19 we reached Bonifacio. The island of Corsica has a long history of being controlled by Romans, Germans, French, the Papacy, Spanish, Italians, and now it is part of France.


From where the Corinthian II docked we could see a ferry. On this trip we saw lots of large ferries. You cannot tell from my photograph, but the bow of the ship in front of the whale's head opens upward to let the vehicles drive off.

The area is very scenic. One of our tour managers told us that sometimes celebrities or wealthy people build vacation homes in the area. The homes blow up. (I guess the locals don't like having too many foreigners around.)

We rode Le Petit Train (no tracks, just an engine pulling cars, that looks like a train) to the top of the limestone cliffs with its citadel founded in the year 828. We had a guided walking tour through the narrow, hilly, cobblestone streets. We saw the location of the underground grain storage silos. We saw the troughs that carried rooftop collected rainwater to cisterns under the front of a church. The hilltop fortress was the scene of a very early instance of biological warfare. One time when the citadel was under siege, the attackers threw clothing from people who had died of the Black Death over the fortified wall. About 5000 of the 5700 residents died.


We had some free time. I bought some postcards and walked to the citadel's drawbridge. The drawbridge went over an open area next to a fortress wall. From the inside I tried to figure out how the drawbridge could be raised. I cannot really tell. But it does appear that as part of the raising process small stone wheels rode down grooves on either side. There wasn't much light and my picture is underexposed and I've improved it slightly using iPhoto.



We had lunch aboard our ship.



In the afternoon we had a boat cruise of the harbor. Here is a picture of the side of the harbor opposite the citadel. You can see that the sea is slowly eroding the 200 foot high limestone cliffs.





Here is a tour manager's picture of a sea carved grotto that the boat entered. Inside there is an opening to the sky.









Every time we left our ship we took a small yellow landing card. There was a crew member present who made sure we did. When we returned to the ship we returned the card to its location (organized by cabin number) on this rack. This way the crew could tell when everyone was on board. One person nearly missed the boat in Nice. It was our scheduled departure time. The gangplank was partially disassembled. I could hear a family member on the ship talking to her by cell phone. "Where are you?" "She's on such and such street, running." She made it carrying something in a plastic bag. Shopping?


After we left Bonifacio and were on our way to Cagliari I went to the ship's bridge. We were passing between the islands of Corsica and Sardinia. It is a little dangerous and there is local concern about tankers passing through. The radar is not your grandfather's radar. Yes, the ship's position is in the center. Local terrain is shown. But, also the planned course is displayed as a straight line. Planned course changes are displayed as additional straight lines. Also, quite a lot of navigation data are displayed on the screen. I asked if they had GPS. The crewman said: Yes, we have it for backup. He then pointed to a slightly smaller nearby screen.

Sid Horenstein of the American Museum of Natural History gave a lecture with the title From Stones to Rocks. He talked about the 450 million year old granite (igneous rock from magma that was part of the Earth's crust that has been subducted, heated by friction, and slowly cooled) and the 40 million year old limestone (sedimentary rock from shallow warm water deposits) that make up the island of Corsica. Sid told us there are different sizes of rocks: pebbles, cobbles, and boulders. Sid told us that rocks are found in nature, stones are used. So, you might be walking in the woods and pick up a rock to throw to frighten a snake. When it lands it is a stone. Of course, the next person to see it might not know if it is a rock or a stone.

Then dinner and we were on our way to Cagliari.

Nice and Saint Paul de Vence, France

Thursday, June 18 we arrived in Nice. On the agenda for the morning was a bus trip to Saint Paul de Vence for a visit to both the picturesque hilltop town and the nearby Maeght Foundation and Museum.


The story of Saint Paul de Vence is that it was originally a medieval fortified town. It has narrow stone streets with shops and homes. This photo from the trip brochure captures it well. More recently several artists were attracted to the area because, since there were no job opportunities people left and the rents were cheap, and the artists liked the light. Sometimes they met at a local restaurant, Cafe de la Place. It's still there. Sometimes they were a little short of cash, and the owner accepted paintings as payment. At one point, she had accumulated quite a few paintings. She wondered if they were worth anything. So she invited some art critics to look at the paintings. They informed her that, yes the paintings by Miro, Chagall, Picasso, and others were indeed valuable.


At one stop our guide gave us a puzzle. This is a bougainvillea plant. What color are the flowers? (This is just the sort of thing that I appreciate.) ... White. This plant has very tiny white flowers. (Click to expand.) It also has green leaves and magenta colored leaves. We stopped in the town's cemetery, a Catholic cemetery. Marc Chagall is buried there. He was not Catholic, but lived in the community for 20 years, was very active in local affairs, was an honorary citizen of Saint Paul de Vence, and so was permitted to be buried there.

It was just a short bus trip to the Maeght Foundation and Museum, a modern art museum. Some of the artwork is inside a building. Most of it is in outdoor gardens. Our tour director took care of our tickets and we had a reserved time to enter. Then something new (to me) happened. The tour director asked
how many people wanted to take photographs. There was an additional fee (2 euros) for each person who was going to take pictures. This same thing happened at some of the other sites we visited. Artists represented included Calder, Chagall, Matisse, Miro, and Braque. One piece that grabbed my attention was this dog. The story is that one day artist Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) was walking in the rain on the streets of Paris. When he got home he made this 'self portrait'. As we were leaving the Corinthian II for the last time, five days after our visit here, our passports were returned to us and we were handed a memory stick with photographs the tour directors had taken. For this picture, I've taken one of the tour director's photographs and used a graphics editor to remove the background.

On this day we returned to the ship for lunch. For the afternoon there were three choices: visit the Matisse Museum, tour the Chateau de Ballet followed by a wine tasting, or free time in Nice. For me it was back to Nice for a visit to the Matisse Museum. One curious thing. On the way I noticed that some of the posts with traffic lights had a small traffic light about half way up the post. I had to ask. What is going on here‽ (Notice the interrobang.) These small traffic lights were on the right side of the road and they were right turn on red signals.


The Matisse Museum is in a 17th century villa. The front of the building has real windows and shutters and elaborate tromp l'oeil stone moldings surrounding the windows. Here is a picture one of our tour directors took. Just like several of our visits, photographs were not permitted inside. At one point our guide said to us: "We are now going to walk down the stairs. If anyone wants to take the elevator, press the button for floor minus one."


Look. Here is a photo that the Cruise Director took just after we left the harbor. The pilot is climbing down a rope ladder preparing to jump to the pilot boat.

In the evening we had a Roman Town Planning lecture by Cecil Wooten, chair of the Classics Department at University of North Carolina. He stated that we should not be asking the question, Why did the Roman Empire collapse? But, Why did it last almost 500 years? Later we went to the bow on the top deck for our first stargazing. It turned out that we were too close to the summer solstice, when days are at their longest. It didn't get dark till the end of the lecture, mostly about the visible constellations. We were on our way to the island of Corsica.

Florence, Italy

Without a doubt, the highlight of the entire tour for me was Florence.

On Wednesday, June 17 we arrived in the port of Livorno around 7:00 am. We were met by a curious craft. It seemed to be a tugboat, a fire boat, and transport for the pilot. The ship's captain is always in charge. But at each port a local pilot, who is familiar with the currents and obstacles, is at the controls when the ship is entering or leaving the harbor. It is a tradition that the pilot jumps to or from the larger ship. (The small boat doesn't tie up to the large ship; it just pulls alongside.) Breakfast could be eaten in the Dining Room or on an aft deck (always my choice).

There were two options for the day. Visit the scenic and historic towns of Lucca and Villa Torrigiani or spend the day on a walking tour in Florence. It was an 80 minute bus ride to Florence. At each destination we had a tour director from the ship and a local guide. We also were given a device called a Personal PA. The local guide wore a microphone and a small transmitter. Our receiver and earpiece picked up what he or she said. It was excellent. The guide didn't have to shout; we didn't have to stay next to the guide; and we could hear clearly even in areas with other tour groups.

Florence may be best known for its art and architecture and for the Medici family during the Renaissance. Our first stop was the Accademia di Belle Arti (Academy of Fine Arts). Here the most interesting things for me were four unfinished Michelangelo statues. Pope Julius II had requested 40 marble statues for his tomb. Then the Pope changed his mind. Michelangelo had already picked out the marble and begun work. It was very interesting. You could already see the torso, the tops of the legs, portions of the arms, part of the head, the face, and yet large portions of the block of marble remained. On one, you could see an upper arm and a forearm. Where the elbow would be there was still a lot of stone. But I could 'see' the elbow in there; just obscured by unremoved stone. Quite remarkable! Then we saw Michelangelo's famous sculpture David.


The next stop was three structures right next to each other. Here's a picture from Wikipedia that is in the public domain. You can see the white top (just barely) of the octagonal Bapistry, Giotto's Bell Tower, and the Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral (known as the Duomo, meaning cathedral, not dome).



Inside the Duomo is this very unusual, very old working clock. Of interest, the clock has one hand, uses Roman numerals, IIII for four, has hours one through 24, and starts at one at sundown (which means that the clock has to be adjusted every few days). (Click to enlarge it.)


But the really spectacular story concerns the dome. The church was built but construction of the dome had not been well thought out. The dome was to cover an almost 140 foot wide space. There was not enough wood near Florence to build a scaffolding to support such a structure. Filippo Brunelleschi designed and built an octagonal brick dome with an inner structural and an outer layer. He also had to invent a hoist to raise bricks from the ground to the dome and to provide lunch to the workers so that they didn't have to climb down. Work on the dome took from 1420 to 1436. Here is my picture of the inside the dome. Three people left our group to climb the stairway between the two layers and then to the cupola on top of the dome.


We went to the Piazza della Signoria, a central open area. Next to it is the Palazzo Vecchio (Old Palace), a city hall with several statues outside. One is a copy of Michelangelo's David. The famous Uffizi Gallery is right next door.

Then we had some free time. I bought some postcards in the Piazza della Signoria. I walked to the nearby Ponte Vecchio. A bridge over the Fiume Arno (Arno River). There are shops, many with gold jewelry, along both sides of the bridge. It was the only bridge over the Arno not destroyed by the Germans during World War II. They thoroughly bombed the area on one side so the bridge would not be usable.

The group met and we walked to Restaurant Paoli for lunch. The meal was typically Italian. It began with a plate full of two types of pasta, bow tie with pesto and penne with tomato sauce. The next course was a salad with assorted greens. The next course was veal scaloppine. (It was kind of a small portion by American standards. Presumably we should have filled up on the less expensive pasta.) Finally assorted fruit things for desert. I chose strawberries.


Next stop, the Basilica di Santa Croce (Basilica of the Holy Cross). The largest Franciscan church. Inside are the tombs of Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, Rossini, Marconi, and other notables. The original church had a somewhat plain front. A decision was made add a new marble facade. The architect, who was Jewish, wanted to include a Star of David. He pointed out that Jesus was Jewish. I couldn't get a picture from directly in front of the church because of one of the Italian religions, soccer. Regional soccer finals were being held and temporary soccer stands filled the plaza in front of the church.


Here are pictures of the tombs of Michelangelo (1475-1564) (with the muses of painting, sculpture, and architecture) and of Galileo (1564-1642) in the public domain from Wikipedia. They are better than my pictures. For a period of time the Franciscan friars supported themselves by doing leather work. Connected to the church are shops where leather work is taught and can be purchased. Adjacent is a museum of artifacts the church possesses and also a statue of Florence Nightingale who was born in Florence. Here our guide Riccardo took us to a gift shop. He stated that there are many guide books about the city of Florence. But, if we wanted to buy the one he had written we could buy it there. At which point the salesperson called out and told him they were out of the English language version.

Then it was back to the bus for the return trip to the ship. One thing I noticed, all the cars were small. They were mostly Fiats. But there were plenty of cars made by other European and Japanese manufacturers. I did see one small Ford, but no GM cars. And another thing; the Italian drivers! In the morning I saw a woman exiting a parking area through an entrance, and forcing our bus almost to a stop. There may have been a reason for it. But a policeman yelled at her and made a hand gesture. She stopped. Later a woman rode a scooter across the Piazza di Santa Croce, a pedestrian area. A policeman yelled to her. She didn't stop, but he got her license plate number. There were a lot of scooters. On the highways they seemed to take their place in the traffic lanes. In the cities, anywhere they fit seemed to be okay.

We had one final photo opportunity where I took the picture at the top of this blog entry. You can see some of the highlights. From left to right: the Palazzo Vecchio (Old Palace), the Santa Maria del Fiore with its Brunelleschi dome, and the Franciscan Basilica di Santa Croce.

Going

Monday, June 15 my expedition began at 10:40 am when I called a taxi to take me to the Princeton Junction train station. In family tradition I sat down and counted to ten before leaving. I caught a New Jersey Transit train to the Newark Liberty International Airport Station and rode the AirTrain Monorail to the airport.

While taxiing we passed several Boeing 737 aircraft. Interestingly they all had winglets. Winglets are the wing extensions that point upward and outward at the ends of the wings. They cut down on turbulence and increase fuel efficiency. So either all the planes were the latest model or, more likely, had been retrofit.

The flight was Continental Airlines flight 0040 direct to Rome on a Boeing 767-400ER aircraft. The airplane seats 235 passengers; 35 business class and 200 economy. The plane was completely full. The plane's displays above the aisles cycled through several screens of interesting information. Some showed the plane's flight path, completed (solid) and planned (dashed) and I could see that we passed by Gander, Newfoundland, across the Atlantic, south of Scotland, and over France. There were maps that showed the entire route and several that zoomed in on our current position. There were other screens, some in Italian, some in English, with flight data: velocita al suolo 970 km/hr, altitudine 10363 m, temperatura esterna -53 C, and vento a favore 46 km/hr, ground speed 624 mph, altitude 34000 ft, outside temperature -63 F, and tailwind 73 mph. On Tuesday, June 16 after an 8 hour and 25 minute flight we landed at Rome's Fiumicino Airport.


At the baggage claim area there was a woman holding a sign that said Corinthian II. I identified myself. We collected my baggage and she led me through the maze of the terminal. My passport was stamped. Then she led me outside to a bus that took me to a Hilton at the airport. There I waited for several hours as more of the ship's passengers arrived. Finally a bus brought us to the port of Civitavecchia. Here we saw many ancient fortifications. Just of a hint of what was to come.


Then we could see the Corinthian II, our home for the next week. She can carry 114 passengers, though there were only 85 due to the state of the economy. The literature states that she has a crew of 75. Since on this voyage she didn't have a full compliment of passengers, she probably had a smaller crew. Her crew seemed to be made up of people from all around the world. Her statistics: length 297 feet, beam 50 feet, draft 12 feet, and registered in Malta. The agenda for the first day included a safety drill. Seven short and one long sounding of the ship's whistle ( * * * * * * * ******* ) meant take your life vest and go to your muster station. From there we went to the location where we would board our life boat (if it had been an actual emergency). Then cocktail hour, we set sail for Livorno, and dinner.

Postcards

In a futile attempt to send postcards that arrive before I get back, I bought postcards in the Piazza Signoria (a plaza and central meeting area outside the town hall and other historic buildings) in Florence (Firenze in Italian) on Wednesday, June 17. That evening I wrote notes on the postcards and left them at Reception on the ship. The hope was that they would be mailed the next day in Nice. It looks like the cards were mailed three days later in Cagliari on Saturday, June 20 and postmarked Monday, June 22. As a check I sent myself one. It arrived on Friday, June 26, three days after I returned home.

Notice that the date is of the form dd.mm.yy. Pretty much everywhere we went the dates were of that form or dd.mm.yyyy. Interestingly, my date of birth and the date of issue on my passport were printed dd.mmm.yyyy. A U. S. Customs form required for reentry used the date in the form dd.mm.yy. All different from the U. S. usual bizarre mm/dd/yy. (Of course, this is not news. But it lets me practice scanning a document and placing the results in the blog.)