Today I boarded the ms Zuiderdam in Civitavecchia after a stay at the Fumencino airport hotels in Rome after transferring from the ms Rotterdam. I managed to clear away all my outstanding paperwork, work on the blog and squeezed in a visit to Rome as well. The Hilton has a free shuttle bus every day to the city Centre (or at least as far as they can go into it) and I would not be a Dutchman if I had not taken full advantage of it.
Maybe hard to see but nearly everybody in the photo was in the line which curved all the way around St.Peters square to enter via a far right entrance.
It being a weekend and nice weather meant that every tourist in the area was attracted to the St. Peter’s Cathedral as if it were a magnet. By 10 am. the lines for getting in curved all the way around the square into the far side of the Cathedral. I do not know if Bernini foresaw how handy his “curved arm” Colonnades around the main square would be in the 21st century but it was, as it formed a sort of natural guide and buffer for keeping this long line on track. By 10 am. there was already an average waiting time of approx. 2 hrs. I did not see the Pope but if I had so many people in my front garden, all trying to take selfies, I would hide as well.
The Trevi Fountain. It is under restauration, made possible by a gift from a Fashion house. The city of Rome does not have any money and thus it encourages sponsorship to save it’s historic treasures.
I had never explored Rome properly by foot but even now I did not get much of a chance as there were too many people everywhere and all the special tours were sold out. I wanted to see the catacombs at one particular church (ex Capuchin Monastery) but these tours are limited to 20 people due to climbing through the caves, dungeons and the catacombs itself. But I did manage to walk from East to West. From the Coliseum via the Forum, past the Trevi fountain and the Parthenon to St.Peters.
Most of the roads are a sort of cobbles or square stones and you need good foot wear. Although I saw several very fashionable Italian Ladies walking over them on high heels. But maybe not for a long distance.
The Panthenon. 2000 years old, built of concrete and still in perfect condition. You wonder why our concrete buildings do not last 2000 years.
After 3.5 hours on the trot it was time to sit for 2 hours on the Big Red Bus. Although I took the blue one (City Tour Rome) as it has more stops. A disappointing thing was that they only do the central area of Rome, nothing outside. In a lot of other ports they also cover some of the more residential areas and I always find it nice to see how the other half of the world lives.
The HAL class of October 2015. Happy officers from NewZealand, The Netherlands, England and Belgium.
The Rotterdam Nautical Excellence Class was completed after three weeks and now four of the eight new 3rd Officers have been assigned contracts and the other four will follow in due course. The next class will be held on the Westerdam on 21 November and thus I am doing a ship in between for my other part of the job; On board Team Support Officer.
The Zuiderdam cruise. partly Mediterrannean and partly Trans Atlantic
Between now and mid November I will sail with the Zuiderdam from the Mediterranean to Florida. From there she will start a Caribbean winter season.
As it is “support”; what I will do on board will greatly depend on what works best for the ship and that will be figured out during a meeting between the ships staff and myself.
The Master of the vessel is Capt. Chris Turner who came to us a long time ago from Windstar. He has been designated Master of the Zuiderdam since 2009.
I left the Rotterdam in Civittavecchia to stay in a Rome hotel and thus this morning I had to make the journey the other way again. With the bus driver showing up 45 minutes late it was not the best way to start the day at 06.30 in the morning. For me not so bad but those with long flights behind them could have used the extra hour better than hanging around in the hotel lobby. So I informed our travel department and hopefully they can ring the bell somewhere.
But here we are and work started straight away with nosing around during the Passenger Safety Briefing to see what standard the crew brought on display (= read asking nasty questions) and from there the trainnings and other activities will start from.
After the drill we left as the second of 4 cruise ships; the pecking order was this time: Rhapsody of the Seas, Zuiderdam, Empress and then the Seven Seas Mariner. The port sometimes has 8 cruise ships in at the same time, not counting 5 ferries, so today was a sort of quiet day.
Tomorrow we are in Livorno and it is supposed to be a windy arrival. But the wind is supposed to be from the North East and then we stand a better chance of getting in than the Rotterdam had a few days ago.
October 23, 2015 at 6:58 pm
Delightful picture, Captain! Always nice to see familiar faces of the HAL family. The group reminds me of the graduation picture of the class I was in ready to face the next phase of our lives.
We were three girls, though, surrounded by the same amount of boys in front of our school in beautiful downtown Arnhem.