We are doing our normal thing, sleeping as late as possible (at least this time the first walk off announcement isn’t until 7am!) then hitting the gym for as long as possible so we can delay going to the madness that is breakfast in the Garden Café on turnover day.  We manage to find a semi-sweet spot – right at the end of service – and sit watching all the people who are obviously disembarking totally ignore the last call for people to leave announcements.  This is the craziest disembarking we’ve seen! 

Around 9:30 or so we head downstairs for our new keycards, and there is a HUGE line!  What?  They are stilling calling for people to come down to settle their accounts, and people are paying and milling around.  Jeez. Finally through the line, we get ourselves ready to go outside.  We’re just hanging around Civitavecchia today, something we’ve not ever done. But we really didn’t want to have to rush around to get Rome and then back, so we figured we’d just walk around a bit and explore.

As we are walking down the stairs to leave, we see one of the security guards who asks what our cabin number is.  They’re still looking for people who aren’t back-to-back!  It’s almost 10am for heavens sake! 

We get the shuttle bus right away, although there are also 2 pay shuttle buses that will take you to the train station.  That’s new.  Plus of course, we could always walk, but we figure we’ll take the free shuttle to the main stop, then walk through town to the Archeology Museum we’ve scoped out.  All goes according to plan, stopping along the way for a mediocre cappuccino (sadly, even though this is where cappuccino comes from, this little bar was not the most proficient sad to say), then making our way to the Archeology Museum.

It’s a small little affair with only 2 floors, but it is jam packed with all sorts of Etruscan and local relics, like this urn from Tarquinia (just up the road, where we’ve been before and enjoyed the ruins) dating back to 10^th-9^th C BC!  There are ceramic busts and statues with such lifelike details, it is all really amazing that this stuff is so old! There is a statue of Athena as well as a whole history lesson (only in Italian unfortunately) about the port of Civitavecchia – it’s beginnings, how it was fortified and remained the major port of Rome from the beginning of time.  Quite a nice little diversion.

From there, we wandered the city streets, exploring areas we’d not been on previous visits (when we either booked a car and drove out into other areas or took the train to Rome), ending up at a cute little park in the middle of town. 

Circling back to the waterfront, we wandered along the promenade perusing all the restaurants.  The first one we come to, La Lisca, has a 20% discount on food, and is the only one where someone has come out to talk to us. After walking a bit further along, we decide to go back for the 20% – everyone basically has the same menu, so why not?

Even though I sorely wanted Porchetta (we’re at least sort of close to Umbria, the heart of Porchetta country) since we are on the seafront, we both went for the seafood – of course!  Ed had some sort of octopus dish, braised in a wonderfully rich red sauce and I had tuna tartare.  No surprise there – I could eat my weight in tuna tartare!  A lovely way to spend our short day in Civitavecchia.   The only disappointment is the wine!  In Italy!  The weakest pour I’ve had in a long time, and super expensive at 7 euros.  That’s double what it was in St. Tropez!!!!  Oh well – what to do?

We walked back along the seafront promenade, against the gusty cool winds, hit the grocery store looking for Orvieto Classico without success, then decided to just walk back to the ship.  It’s a decent day, not too hot with the cool wind, so why not?  Back onboard we hang out in our balcony watching the parade of new passengers come aboard.  The tale of 3 cruises!  This one is more “heavy” as our GR friend Daryl would say, more people and lots of kids and plenty of people watching opportunities.  Ah well, we’ve got all our restaurant reservations, we know how to get around and where to sit in the theater, so, we’ll see how this last leg progresses!

Afternoon people watching, gym, the crazy busy packed pool bar for our buddy bartenders (watching all the craziness and dancing and people with matching It’s 5 o’clock Somewhere shirts), then a lovely quiet dinner in Moderno.  Took in the show from our corner seats, good singer, then back to the cabin.  First day done.  Looking forward to our sea day tomorrow.