Friday, April 19, 2013

An afternoon in Civitavecchia

We’ve done much of the planning for the major cities and ports we’ll be visiting, so it’s time to turn our attention to the days we’ll have a slower pace.  Because we will stop in some of the ports twice, we have interspersed our port-intense days with less-structured days to give us time to just take things as they come. But we don’t want to miss an opportunity to experience the places we’re in, so some pre-cruise research is in order.

 

Civitavecchia is known as the Port of Rome, and our first stop here will see us whisked away by Rome in Limo as we travel to the city to take in the sights. But our second visit will be the day after a busy visit to Florence, so we will be glad to have a low-key day.  DH and I have scheduled a shore excursion through the ship that will take us to Bracciano which is a lake area an hour or so away.  But we’ll be back to the ship by just-after-lunch, and the all aboard time is another six hours later, so we plan to spend some time in the port town itself.

 

A fellow Cruise Critic member suggested we try Chalet del Pincio for what she declared has the “best gelato I have ever had in my life.”  I think we may need to take her up on that suggestion.

 

A Google search reveals that Civitavecchia means Ancient Town and there are old town walls and medieval buildings that are available for sightseeing.  There is a 16th century fortification that still stands known as Forte Michelangelo because the middle tower was designed by Michelangelo whose famous work David we will have seen the day before in Florence. 

 

And just in case you have time in this port and having gelato and looking around an old fort isn’t enough to do, be sure to see what the Virtual Tourist has included on their list of Things to Do in Civitavecchia.

 

No comments:

Post a Comment