Ciao!

At Sea, just south of the Strait of Messina between Sicily and the toe of the boot of Italy.

We almost bit off more than we could chew. The flight to Toronto was uneventful. The passage between T1 and T3 in Toronto was a lot of walking and a short train ride--fortunately we had been able to check our luggage through to Rome, so we didn't have to deal with that too. The flight to London was good, but Laurel and I weren't together and were both in middle seats, so it wasn't great. We arrived in London at 0630 their time--about midnight body time, without useful sleep. A good English Breakfast and strong coffee perked us up a bit. The flight from London to Rome was good, except for the last half hour. The pilot said they had a "stiff breeze"--English understatement for a strong gale, torrential rain and an extremely rough trip down. Laurel was ill--motion sickness--from the ups, downs and sideways. We found the train tracks and bought the necessary tickets to get to Civitaveccia. The first train was OK--they had a scrolling sign saying which station was next, so we knew when to get off. We waited in the station--an outside covered affair with about 8 tracks open to the rain and covers over the platforms--built in the 1920s or so--beautiful iron works. As the train was pulling into the station, they changed platforms on us. Some people ran across the tracks and the train honked at them. With luggage, we had to go down stairs, through the tunnel, up stairs and onto the train. A wild rush; too much excitement!!! But we made it. A group of Nuns on the train said we had gotten on to the correct train. (I should point out that there were no railway workers to be seen anywhere along the trip--nobody checked tickets, not even the seller--and nobody to ask. All of Italy gets free train rides on Sunday???) Anyway, through the rain, wind and darkness, we went to Civitaveccia. A few hundred meters of dragging suitcases along wet cobblestones and our hotel beaconed at us. We were VERY glad to get there! 12 hours of sleep followed.

The hotel was great. Nice big rooms, marble everywhere. Typical European breakfast of breads and muffins, cheeses and meat, yogourt and coffee. The very first people we said hi to in the small breakfast room were from Winnipeg!!!! There were also Americans from California and Germany--they were working there in Germany... All nice folks.

We are booked into the same hotel for our intercruise night. Wonderful little town--we wandered and shopped for the morning--and stocked up on wine! It was windy, but no rain, and about 19C. We walked our suitcases down to the port and got on the ship. A couple of snoozes later, we watched the sailaway from our balcony. Very nice!!!. We had supper with the Americans from Germany--good conversation--and then to bed.

This morning was rainy again, but the sun came out as we went through the Straits of Messina, and its quite nice. We had the Cruise Critic get together and met the folks that we will be touring Egypt with. All in all, we're recovering from the travel and doing great!