01.09.14/XNUMX/XNUMX Civitavecchia / Italy
Rain follows sunshine, sunshine is followed by cold wind
Today is September 1st and suddenly it is autumn. Until now the sea was as smooth as a duck pond, but the wind comes up in the early morning hours and the ship even moves. When mooring in Civitavecchia, the sky is thickly cloudy and at breakfast it starts pouring rain. We already know that, 3 out of 4 visits to this point were associated with rain!
Fortunately, it's dry in the East restaurant and there is even salmon (I'm more pleased with the latter). Today we are not in a hurry, because in contrast to the last 3 times we don't want to go to Rome again this time, but have a nice day on the almost deserted ship. We had originally planned to take a trip to the beach, but a look outside confirms that it was right to save the money and not to rattle in the rain at home temperatures.
Today we take a look in the photo shop to see which pictures were taken of us on this trip. There are now machines in which only the boarding pass has to be inserted, you can optionally take a fresh picture and the device will find all of our photos using face recognition. The two photos that we can remember were also found correctly. But the photos that are still to be found, who we should still be - I am deeply offended ...
While the crew is doing a rescue exercise today, the sky continues to clear up and the temperature rises to 24 ° C at times. Yes, everything done right, the plan with rest, pool and cocktail could still work out afterwards ...
On the pool deck we find a corner that is protected from the sun, wind and rain. It doesn't rain anymore, but the constant alternation between deep black clouds and blue skies makes this precautionary measure necessary. When the sun is darkened by the clouds, the wind is pretty cool too. Nevertheless, we manage to at least plunge into one of the whirlpools. They are small and really bubbly. Small means: we as a family fit in well, but I often see more people sitting in it, but that would be a bit too cozy for me as a cool North German to sit in it with lots of strangers and sort through my legs. Bubbling means that the children keep pressing the buttons and the bubbles burst around our ears, which is less pleasant in the cold wind. But the hot tub itself is nice and warm. The only problem is: how to get out of this pool and expose yourself to the cold? Ultimately, we adjust a gap in the cloud and take advantage of the short warm sun. Only to freeze on the couch for a while afterwards.
At some point a nice hot glass of latte macchiato caramel will do you good! So we read and doze off until dinner. So far it has always been nice and quiet in the market restaurant at 18:00pm, but today it gets full when all the starving Rome visitors come back and rush into the restaurant with rucksacks in hand.
Usually the most coveted fruit on every trip is the pineapple. On this trip it shifts to passion fruit for me. On the one hand, they are extremely tasty (although not very productive), on the other hand, the quality of the pineapple has decreased significantly compared to the last trips: It's a matter of luck to get a ripe pineapple, unfortunately it is usually unripe white. Too bad.
After dinner we treat ourselves to another lecture by the lecturer Knut von Hofmann, this time about Tuscany, Pisa, Lucca, Florence and Corsica, we saw the first 3 things 10 days ago and we feel nicely remembered. He does it well and so after 1 hour we have a lot of background knowledge. Then we see the actors "Romeo & Juliet - The Reunion" to end with the ABBA show of the soloists. The latter is very good again as it hits the ABBA sound.
The next stage is 263 kilometers to Livorno.
Continue reading: 17th day of the ship - Livorno