Italy, Rome

Arcadia left Egypt and for the last 36 hours have made our way across the Mediterranean Sea at a speed of 23 knots. Today is Thursday the 9th of April and at 08:15. the outside temp was 14 degrees, which is 20 degrees less than we are used to over the last two months. We are currently approaching the toe of Italy on route for Civitavecchia. This port will be our base for trips to Rome. We have always thought that this part of the journey was the one not to look forward to, both of us understood that the weather would be much colder in Europe. However, the real benefit of sailing back to the UK is no jet lag so we have to put up with the weather and the slow boat return. Luckily for us life on board is not dull, today some of the activities consist of a talk by the famous England footballer Jack Charlton and if you want you can go to dancing classes, bridge classes, computing courses, jewellery classes. In addition to this we have the cinema and deck games to keep us amused, tonight like every other evening we go to the theatre to watch the show which is always fantastic. Tonight we have an invitation to the Pursers cocktail party at 8pm and then dinner at 08:30. Dispite all this time on our hands we ended up running late for the party. Both of us were reading books and when we looked at our watch we had 20 minutes to get ready, where did the time go today? Friday, 10th April we arrived in Italy around 07:00 and boarded our coaches at 8am for a day in Rome. Right now I am writing this blog sitting in a traffic jam heading back to the ship after a fantastic day. When we arrived in Italy we had expected rain but hey ho it was sunshine all the way, even ended up in T-shirts again. This was our first visit to Rome and we were dropped off at a central location called the “Piazza Del Popolo” which means Peoples Square. We now had 6 hours to explore on our own so Carol and I walked to see the Trevi Fountain and then onto the Spanish Steps and Coliseum and tomb of the unknown soldier, or “wedding cake” as it is known. We were told that this is where Mussolini was hanged during the war , at least he had a a beautiful location for hanging around. The Architecture and atmosphere was unbelievable. We had a leisurely lunch washed down by a nice bottle of wine in the Piazza Novona, glad we have a driver to get us back to the ship. Unfortunately, Carol picked up a cold and our first place to visit on arrival this morning was a pharmacy. Now she cannot wait to lie down, tonight she has decided to skip dinner so hopefully she will be better for our return to Scotland in 5 days time. Tonight we sail for Lisbon .