Saturday 20th April – Civitavecchia

I was in absolutely no hurry to do anything, as I have visited Civitavecchia on three occasions, generally because a cruise has ended here and I have needed to get to Rome (for a holiday) or to the airport. Having seen Rome, I did not want to get up early and spend a day travelling there to see the sights. My goal was to catch up on internet access and post my blog.

Of course, first I had to brave the laundrette again, as the washing I had done the night before (just before the laundrette closed) had not dried overnight and needed to go in the dryer. Wars have been started in the laundrette on cruise ships! I was lucky to find an almost-deserted room on both my washing and drying trip there. I have heard of long queues to use the washing machine, and the woman who was almost lynched when she wanted to separate her meagre pile of washing into coloureds and whites and use two machines!

A shuttle bus took us to the entrance to the port, and I found a coffee shop with free wifi (having been told by McDonalds that their internet was broken). It took over two hours to catch up with everything, and I felt rather tired from the concentration involved. I returned to the ship to ditch my computer and to eat lunch. As I sat eating, I could see waves actually breaking over the sea wall. Perhaps we had had a rough night, and I had slept through it?

 I went back to the town and took a few photos close to the port, but realised I was more exhausted than I had thought, so returned to the ship. I'm not sure how it is that I can be too tired to wander around a new town, and yet make it along to the dancing every night!

I arrived at dinner at my usual late time of around 6:15 (I just cannot get organised to arrive by 6pm - often because I'm writing up my blog), and again only about 5 out of our 10 people were there. Frank joined us again to watch the early part of the dancing, which confused Rock at first as he did not realise it was me but only saw Frank and assumed I was with him. (There are two dancing sessions each night: 7:45 to 8:30 and 9:15 to midnight.)