Mediterranean cruise

We flew to Rome on October 16th so we could be there on the 17th to be assured we would not be late for our cruise that departed on the 18th.  The cruise port is actually in a town on the coast of Italy call Civitavecchia (pronounced ci-VEE-tah-VECK-e-ah), about 40 miles from the Rome airport. Here are some pics from that town.

On the way from Civitiveccia to our next port of call of Dubrovnik, Croatia, we passed through the Strait of Messina which is located at the tip of the toe of the boot in Italy between the mainland and the island of Sicily.

Dubrovnik is a delightful medieval walled city where we could walk on the wall the whole way around the city. Croatia is one of the countries that was once part of Yugoslavia.

Our next stop was at the city of Kotor in the country of Montenegro, another one that was originally part of Yugoslavia.  This delightful place also had a walled city where we walked up 1,300+ steps to get to the top.

The next port of call was Korcula, Croatia.  A lovely seaside city that also had a wall and was quite quaint.

Speaking English worked everywhere for us and it was fun to see the locals engaged in humor as shown in this next picture.

Our next two ports of call were Split, Croatia and Koper, Slovenia.  Both were very industrial and uninteresting, especially to me since I was sick, but Bonnie confirmed the industrial ports.  

After that, we had a day at sea before going to Corfu, Greece.  This was a beautiful place and we hired a taxi driver to take us around and show us the area including a castle.

The next port of call was the city of Catania on the island of Sicily.  It was a rather gritty town with graffiti and litter abound.  The bell tower of the church that gave visitors a view of the plaza was a treat.

One of my favorite places was the country of Malta in general and the city of Mdina in particular.  This small island country was very clean and we used a Hop-On Hop-Off bus to get from one side of the island to the other.

After leaving Malta we stopped in Naples, Italy, which is claimed to be the birthplace of pizza.  Naples was dirty, cluttered with litter, and the way the locals drive is quite interesting. It appears that stop signs are simply a suggestion and if your lane of traffic is congested, you simply drive down the lane of the on coming traffic.  Or, you just pull out or switch lanes and expect people to stop for you.

We then returned to Civitavecchia to disembark.