Venice 19-23 November 2007

If you're thinking that we went to Venice on the yacht, take a look at a map! It is a 700 mile thrash around the toe and heel of Italy, and all the way to the top of the Adriatic – about 6 days non-stop at the speed we normally travel. We took the train, which takes around 12 hours!
It was my 40th birthday treat, and an excuse to get away from our small home and stay in a real bed for the first time in 18 months. We'd sat out some uncomfortable storms in Vibo Marina and so we were pleased to be on our way to a hotel where you don't get seasick in bed, and your beer doesn't fall off the table.

We got lucky with our choice of hotel, small but cheap by Venice standards and very close to the railway station. (We stayed in Hotel Florida €75 per night per room B&B)
Weatherwise its was like entering another country – only a few degrees above zero most of the time, and of course very damp. Very much like an English winter.  We spent four days in Venice wandering up and down the canals with a 3 day waterbus or vaporetti pass (for which 2 tickets costs the same as 50 minutes in a gondola), and visiting the outer island of Murano,  with its streets of shops displaying tacky glass ornaments, sorry,  I mean beautifully hand-crafted works of art.

Our trip co-incided with the last 2 days of the Art Biennale, a six month long contemporary art festival that takes place every 2 years here. We avoided the large exhibitions of Tracey Emin and the likes as it's not really our bag, but scattered throughout the city were small shows, which were free to enter and gave access to pavilions not normally open to the public. Our favourite was the Mexican exhibit. Rafael Lozano-Hemmer seemed to be one of the few whose exhibits reflected the theme – Think with the senses- feel with the mind. One large room was devoted to a mexican wave of chairs. As you walked around them, a computer sensed your movements and the chairs would go up and down in a rhythmical wave corresponding to your speed and direction.

In another room, large white and empty, your silhouette on the wall tunes a worldwide radio receiver, the larger your shadow the higher the volume – very cleverly done, although a bit screechy if you stood in the wrong place.

In another room you activated a projection onto the floor of film of someone sleeping. As you stood above them, they'd wake up and appear to interact with you, and if you didn't move they would go back to sleep. Sounds naff, but it was cleverly executed. Stu though that one of the girls wanted to sleep with him, it was so realistic!

Invisible sheep – yeah right

On the other hand, in a beautiful pavilion on the Grand canal was the Icelandic exhibition. It was  just naff  - featuring invisible sheep obtained by the elf people – pllleeeease spare me!!

The Ukrainian exhibition was in an absoulutely beautiful pavilion. There were some fascinating movies of a scene where nothing moves for several minutes, although a cigarette clearly burns away and drops ash on the floor in the middle of a crowded pub. Another fascinating time lapse of a dying swan draped over a naked girl. Not sure how they combined the pictures, but the swan slowly decayed, a process that must have taken several days, while the girl was motionless. 
It went downhill fast upstairs in the pavilion, where the display consisted of holiday photos and sad Ukrainian prostitutes in various states of dress on nylon bedspreads in cheesy hotel rooms.
Not sure what the message of that exhibit was, but the view of the canal from the window was very good!

From the sublime to the ridiculous:

Our trip also co-incided with the festival of Santa Maria della Salute. This fine church on the opposite bank of the Grand canal to St Marks, was  built in gratitude for the end of an outbreak of plague that devastated the population of Venice in 1630-31. Every year a pontoon bridge is built across the canal from St Marks to the church just for a couple of days. On 21 November thousands of people parade across the bridge to the church to give thanks for their good health, pray for sick family or friends, and then gorge themselves candy floss and toffee apples behind the church afterwards.

Venice sports a new pontoon bridge for the day, and Santa Maria della Salute has  a facelift for her birthday.

A regular occurrence in Venice in the winter months is Acqua Alta, or high water. It depends on many factors, spring tides, rainfall, atmosperic pressure, tidal flow and winds in the Adriatic. A 1.10m predicted tide covers St Marks Square in about 60cm of water at it's worst, and many of the lower lying canalside streets are submerged. The problem is gradually getting worse as parts of Venice are built on soft sand that is slowly sinking, and the water levels are gradually rising. Duck boards are put up to keep tourist pedestrian traffic moving throughout the floods, and it is a strange sight to see tourists shuffling along the boards in single file. We were forewarned of the predicted high water, so we took our sailing boots along with us so that we could slosh through the streets like the locals.
The shops have boards to keep the worst of the water out, you just step over them to get in the shop, and under the floor they often have a bilge pump to expel the excess water back out into the street.  We felt quite at home in this watery predicament and we were fascinated to see this working city attempting to go about its normal business. Considering that England can't function for wet leaves or a centimetre of snow, you have to hand it to the Venetians.

Unfortunately our trip had to end, as there is no way we could afford to spend too long in Venice.
Even the churches charge an entrance fee. Some are free, and others are accessible with a Chorus card - €8 covers the admission fee to 16 admission-charging churches. Poking our heads into these churches we couldn't really see much difference between these and the free ones.

The cost of living here is extremely high, although with care you can find the cafes and restaurants frequented by the locals, that still charge fair prices. There is no sense to this though – they are scattered throughout the city between the tourist traps, and usually don't display a menu. It seems that it is a legal requirement in Italy to display the prices of drinks somewhere in the establishment, so if you head on inside and search you will probably find out. However we found cheaper lunch venues had no menu at all. You just have to bustle in amongst the locals, ask what they have,and hope it doesn't cost too much.  By comparison, the tourist venues are offering 'tourist menu €15 ' on a chalkboard outside. It is usually crap. Anything published in the Rough Guide is usually closed – they've probably made their money and ran – with very few exceptions, as we found throughout Spain and Italy.
If you are out and about in Venice, the Fondamenta della Misericordia in Cannaregio, had several good value restaurants, particularly one that appeared to be only a wine bar, with no sign of serving food. We discovered that it had a great value menu in the last few hours that we were in Venice, despite having walked past it several times day and evening.

It is a fabulous city. After four days it is strange to see a car again. All transport in Venice is by water. Goods are delivered by cart through the narrow streets. Its hard to imagine life like this. And after dark the city assumes a damp, mysterious air with a sea mist arising from the canals, that allows you to imagine just how it was several hundred years ago.

It is possible to visit Venice in our own boat, although to do a  'James Bond' you would have to take the mast down to get under the first bridge! There are places to anchor for free, and it would be really cool to spend some more time there, but it is a very long way to go to the top of the Adriatic. After questioning many people about their trip through Croatia, we have decided to give it a miss for the time being. Although it is a beautiful country, and we were happy to pay the €200 cruising permit, we were told of exceptionally rude and aggressive demands for payment in most anchorages. They welcome charter crews to their towns, to spend money in their restaurants, but are positively rude to those on a budget who choose to anchor out. Normally we don't listen to the negative comments of other cruisers, and say that we are happy to go and find out for ourselves. However there is so much to see in the Mediterranean that we really don't need to suffer treatment like that, so unless we are overwhelmed with news of recent positive experiences, we will head on past the Adriatic in spring and get to Greece and Turkey as soon as the weather allows.

Naples and Southern Italy, October 2007

Rome to Naples and beyond

We'd been informed by a local that autumn is the time of northerly winds in the Tyrrhenian sea, so we should have some lovely downwind sailing. Hmm.
After a boring and very hot motorsail down the coast we spent a peaceful night anchored off Anzio, we were lucky to have very settled weather so we didn't have to go and negotiate a berth in the marina which apeared full anyway.
Gaeta  - 3rd October 2007
Next day we motored on to Gaeta, and into the friendly marina for €33 per night. We tried to ask about winter berths, but they thought they were full and the chap who looks after berthing was on holiday for 2 weeks. The pilot book says that Gaeta is a popular winter liveaboard place, but there was only 1 English couple (Sandra and Dennis) wintering there and they were off to the Uk soon.  Seems that the marinas are filling up with local boats and so there is less space for a community to develop in winter.  We spent a few days here, as we found a bar with Sky Sports to watch the next round of world cup rugby. It is a very Italian town, little evidence of tourism, and has market stalls and small shops selling all manner of local foods, including fresh buffulo mozzarella – a real local mouthwatering speciality-a treat with fresh tomatoes to make a Caprese salad. There are some very cheap local restaurants and pizzerias, and no-one tried to rip us off. What a refreshing change from Rome and less than 100 miles south. It would have been an interesting place to winter, but it was not to be. We watched Australia and New Zealand lose their quarter finals, and Stuart cried in his beer. First the America's cup then the Rugby world cup – his country had failed him!!
There is a large American naval base in Gaeta and there is a bit of a beer and chips culture at that end of the town. Can't imagine what the town must be like when one of the large ships is in port, and hundreds of servicemen hit the bars for R&R. Not pretty.
The pilot book told us that you cannot anchor here, which is why we went straight into a marina. Sandra and Dennis say that in summer the anchorages are full of boats and it is only when the wind finds its way from the southeast that there is any problem - and that comes from the weather not the authorities.

We had planned to visit Ponza, a beautiful island normally full of tourists in summer. It is such a small harbour that you are not allowed to anchor within it as the ferry cannot turn. There are many pontoons all privately operated by different firms. A few phone calls and we established that they are not just closed, but at the end of September they take away the whole pontoons.  We'd heard a couple of horror stories about the weather turning and blowing straight into the bay with huge seas, and no protection, so all in all we decided to give it a miss and head for Ventotene, a smaller Island a few miles South East instead.
Sandra and Dennis from Gaeta, had cruised this coast several times and they armed us with information about free – yes free! - harbour walls where you can stay for a night or two.  On no account should we give money to anyone for staying on these walls. We liked the sound of that.

Venotene  - 8th October 2007
Ventotene is a tiny island, but has 2 harbour bays. We took the north bay with the free harbour wall. There is also a marina there, which had one boat in it. As we arrived on the harbour wall an old  man took our lines (even though we didn't need any help) and also helped the English boat arriving just behind us -'Island bear' with Alison and Ross on board. We were in a dilemma now. The old man clearly expected payment, but there are no facilities, and the power and water supplies on the harbour wall were securely taped up. We waited and the old man still hung around. He told us eventually to pay him €10 per boat. He explained it is an informal arrangement out of season – just for a small 'present'. He is clearly not an official – just the first self styled harbour master, on the scene to 'help' tie up. In theory we should have told him to push off, but there didn't appear to be many work opportunities on the island, and the population has declined to only 500. He continued to drink 'Island Bear's wine and when he finished his glass of red wine, and saw Alisons white wine, he said 'I'll have a white wine now please!' How could they possibly refuse? He continued uninvited to tell me in Italian all about the island, fishing, the fascists (of which I could understand about 5%). The others don't understand Italian so I was his sole audience. He went on to tell me how much he likes the ladies, and he has to go to the mainland to find love as there are no ladies left on the island.  He occasionally brings one back to his Island and takes them for a tour in his boat then takes them dancing?  At nights he plays cards in the only bar open in the port, by day he fishes in his little boat. When he offered to take me on a tour of the island (it was dark by now) I made my excuses and he went off to fish for squid at the end of the pontoon.  What a character!
Ventotene was one of the places where ancient Roman politicians exiled girlfriends or inconvenient opposition. It has a Roman port carved out of native tufa rock, a reminder of Roman engineering feats. Porto Veccio, the roman port, has a very small rocky entrance, but was the overnight stop for a fleet of charter boats. Ventotene acquired it's current name in the middle ages, from the winds that sweep across it from the north. We discovered why in the middle of the night. The wind and swell came straight into the harbour entrance and we all felt as if we'd spent a night in a twin-tub. We had a quick look around the small town in the morning and saw the charter boats rocking and rolling too, even though the Porto Veccio entrance faces east. They left one by one, making the scarily tight turn between the rocks and heading north into a pitching sea.

Porto Vecchio, a roman port carved out of tufa rock, complete with contemporary Italian external wiring system!

 We were not far behind the charter boats, but headed south. Within an hour the wind had headed us again, and the engine was back on to keep us on course to the island of Ischia. Alison and Ross were just behind us.

Ischia 10th October 2007
Isola d'Ischia is at the north end of the Bay of Naples. It is the start of volcanic Italy, a collection of craters and ancient lava flows, with numerous hot water springs. We headed round to a bay on the south of the island, with a harbour wall with plenty of space. As we were tying up (with no help offered) the ormeggiatoro appeared. He asked if we wanted to stay the night, and I asked how much it was. He had to say it 3 times before I understood – an unbelievable €80 a night! We politely declined and anchored outside the harbour for free. It was flat calm as the sun set. After dark a slight swell started and we rolled from side to side.  Stuart deployed the flopper-stopper which had some effect. This is a triangle of perspex hung from the end of the spinnaker pole. It is weighted at one corner, so that it dips into the water as the boat rolls towards it. It then flattens out and slows down the boats return roll, so resisting the  pendulum motion that is frequently encountered with a side-on swell (is there ever anything other than a side on swell?) It works to a certain extent, and we plan to add some more layers of perspex and to put one out the opposite side to increase the resistance for next season. Island Bear had anchored near us and suffered the same lack of sleep that night.
In the morning the wind changed and there was thunder and lightning all around. Both boats moved to the other side of the headland to protected flat water. We headed ashore for late afternoon discount entry the the hot springs up the hill. It was pure bliss, and we didn't mention too loudly that none of us had had a bath for well over a year!! The hot salty thermal water is stated as containing naturally healthy radioactivity – as a radiographer I find that statement a little disturbing, but it didn't spoil the effect.  We were the last to leave the baths, feeling really clean for the first time in ages!

Nice hat Stu!

That night the swell started up again. The third sleepless night on the trot now! It is hard to sleep when you are hanging onto your mattress with clenched fists and toes. We eventually abandoned the bed and set up the sea-berths in the saloon with the lee-cloths rigged. We managed to get some sleep like this but it still felt like we'd spent the night at sea!

Naples 11th October 2007
Everything that I had ever read about Naples had convinced me that I didn't want to go there. We'd met an American who had hired a car to drive the Amalfi coast, and he could not get insurance to park the car in Naples. Some friends who had been on a cruise ship had had their video camera stolen as soon as they stepped off the boat, only to be offered a video camera for sale just down the road! It has a reputation of bag-snatching from mopeds, and warnings not to be out after dark in the old town if you have any sense at all. However it was proving hard to find a marina to leave the boat to visit Pompei, and Marlin had found a nice spot in Sonnazzurro marina in the Mergellina area of Naples and had negotiated a place for us too, so in we went, followed by Island Bear.  It was €50 per night (cash of course), which although sounds pricey for this time of year, especially with no facilities at all, but it was a bargain in this area.
For the first time we locked every exterior locker on the boat when we went out. We hid spare credit cards and put our cash in zipped pockets and ventured out into the city convinced that we would be mugged at knifepoint before the evening was out.
But Naples was a huge surprise. The people are so friendly it is untrue. Despite seeing it's fair share of tourists, we clearly stood out as 'foreign', and so people would ask us if we needed help on the bus, and would go out of their way to make sure we found our way to the right stop, and wait with us to make sure we got on the right bus, going the right way. We wandered the streets of the old town in the early evening and didn't feel at all threatened. The city looks seedy and filthy, the rubbish lies around uncollected overflowing into the roads, and it's as if they think Vesuvius might finish them all off in the night, and then it would have been a waste of time clearing up! Everyone has heard about the driving in Rome, but it is nothing to Naples. Here the cars whizz around the double laned streets with no regard for red lights, pedestrian crossings, scooters or oncoming veichles. Every car has bumps and scrapes, but there are few bad accidents and the mopeds zip in and out of the cars wherever they see a gap. There are no road markings,give-way or stop signs. If they observed normal rules of the road the city would never function, and it would be a massive grid-lock. At least this way every survivor gets where they want to go as quickly as possible- but you need eyes in the back and sides of your head to cross the streets! If there was a road code book it would have to be called “Racing with Anarchy”, unfortunately no one would bother to read it.

All 6 of us from the 3 boats set off to visit the National Archeological Museum, which houses the mosaics and artefacts removed from the Pompei and Herculaneum sites. We got lost on the way there, but the back streets of Naples were a sight in themselves – we were agog as we quickly tried to get back on the main streets and out of what we imagined would be prime mugging territory. We arrived at the museum unscathed and booked a time to go into the 'secret room' (adults only) which contains all the items of an erotic nature that those naughty Romans liked to collect, including the marble sculpture of pan 'seducing' a goat, and all kinds of phallic shaped objects. After sniggering our way round that, we saw numerous mosaics, paintings and sculptures, and a huge collection of Egyptian items collected by the wealthy inhabitants of Pompei.
Linda sat at the window looking over the city and just watched the traffic - better than television.
A huge room sized cork model of Pompei whetted our appetite for our visit there the next day.

The trip to Pompei by train on the aptly named circumvesuviana was very easy and we emerged from the train to find tourists from all parts of the world. It is a huge site, covering many miles. All the guides for the site are confusingly numbered differently so it is easiest to wander at will and see what you stumble across. It is so different from Ostia Antica, with more of the building intact to a higher level, but with the mosaics removed, and the number of tourists it was somehow less personal. We're glad that we got to visit both.

Vesuvius in the background waits for its next opportunity

Pompei millstones

The 'tourists' observe the deep ruts made by chariots in the city streets, and the slabs put in place for pedestrains to cross the mucky wet roads, so thoughtful in those days.

Lunchtime in ancient Pompei, ' what will it be guv?'

My old guide book doesn't mention the brothel by name, and the entry just states that the contents of the building are of a licentious nature. A voice behind us said loudly in English 'ooo these pictures are a bit suggestive'  She was looking at the 'menu' painted on the wall above the bedrooms! After 2,000 years it seems that mankind hasn't learned many new tricks.
Stuart in a loud voice said, 'See Steph, I told you it was normal!'

One of the highlights was a black and white mosaic at the entrance to a villa. This picture doesn't do it justice, but in the light you can easily see the words 'Cave Canem' – beware of the dog!

The horror of the eruption is seen in the plaster casts made from the shapes of the bodies left in the volcanic ash. You can't help looking up at Vesuvius and wondering when its going to happen next. As the sun set we made our way back to the city.

We relaxed the following day, and bought a one day travel pass for €2.50 and spent the day taking buses and funiculars to just absorb the sights and sounds of the city. The view from the top of the immense Castel Sant'Elmo is stunning on all four sides.  It was the best spent €1 entry fee of the entire trip.  Among the tightly packed streets of the old Naples you can clearly see the old main Roman road. From above it looks like the city had cracked in two.

It is an immense sprawl for many miles around, extending right up the base of Vesuvius, demonstrating the full effect that Vesuvius will have if and when it goes pop again.


Back at the marina, we'd negotiated with a local restaurant to show the Rugby for the international yacht crews instead of their ubiquitous soccer. We enjoyed a delicious meal of buffalo mozzarella overload, caprese salad followed by buffulo mozzarella pizza. The stuff in the plastic packets will never be good enough once the real thing has been sampled. Chatting to one of the yacht crews, we discovered that he earns €2000 per month with no qualifications and he is paid offshore so saves on tax. Makes you think ! He was not the first we have met earning a very acceptable wage traveling the world. No food or accomodation costs and no tax to pay.

Next day was time to leave our eye-wateringly expensive berth. It was a bit windy so we asked for some help to extract ourselves backwards from our space between 2 super-poweryachts. The helpers were so useless that we were worse off with them around and we scraped our way out, our first cock-up since we put Matador on her side in 2004. Fortunately for us our only casualty was the danbouy , now a bit crushed. We were not about to squeeze back in and look for any scratches on the super-boats and the marina staff of whom there were plenty to do nothing, seemed totally un-interested so off we went.
We should have known better than to leave with any wind blowing- its always a bad sign in the Med. The force 4 rapidly became force 7 and our intended anchorage on the south eastern tip of the Bay of Naples (Punta Campanella) turned out to be too deep to anchor in, and the promised mooring buoys were not laid.   We headed for the island of Capri, having already had a quote for the marina of €175 per night (!!), we went straight for the anchorage on the south coast.

Capri – we were here, but only for 5 minutes.

Unfortunately the swell and wind were starting to come round and blowing in the bay and the few anchored boats were rolling like crazy. With limited choices we decided to head on south overnight, sadly we were not to see the Amalfi coast in daylight. It was very rough with winds up and down from 40-50 knots by 11pm. Waves crashed into the cockpit. It was exciting and scary at the same time, but as it was dark it didn't seem so bad as we coundn't see the sea state! Anyway we came through unscathed. Marlin had sailed with us, and they suffered a bent bimini frame and their dodgers were ripped from the their attachments, when a rogue wave washed across the cockpit. All good fun. We found the boat sailed smoothest with a small amount of jib un-furled and 2 reefs in the main. In the dark with the sea state as it was we felt it not worth the risk of bending on the storm jib.
As we passed Capo Polinuro, or cape of good sleep, and turned into the Gulf of Policastro the winds came round to head us as usual but we perservered and entered the tiny harbour of Marina di Scario at 9am in bright sunshine. It was a glorious morning, and the wind had stopped blowing about 500 yards from the entrance.

Marina di Scario - 15th October 2007
The Golf of Policastro is rarely visited by cruising boats, as many rush on past towards the Straits of Messina. It is a shame, but at least it means that these little harbours remain untouched by the ravages of tourism.  Scario is the sleepiest place imaginable. Even the dogs are too sleepy to bark. The church bells of the charming little church next to the port chime every 15 minutes day and night to stop everyone falling into a coma.

We idled away a couple of days here, eating a fantastic lunch on the waterfront for very little money. It was really hard to stay awake  though, as the town inspired pleasant little naps throughout the day. After 2 days we really couldn't blame it on our loss of a nights sleep for the last passage anymore, and forced ourselves to extract the foldup bikes from the forecabin, and go out and get our blood pumping again.  We had a short ride around the bay and tried to get up into the hills, but only finding a steep no-through housing development at the top for our trouble.
After 3 nights, no-one had approached us for money for tying to the harbour wall. There was no pressure for space anyway - we were the only visitors. But a couple of digger trucks had moved in to do some work to the end of the breakwater, and it was interfering in our afternoon naps so we untied and motored across the bay to Maratea, enjoying the beautiful rocky coastline views on the way.
(6 weeks later we went through this area on the train. I had been looking out of the window, expectant to get a glance of this stunningly beautiful coast from a different aspect. I woke up 10 minutes after we passed it. There is definitely something soperific about this place and its proximity to Capo Polinuro, or Cape of Good Sleep. According to legend Palinuro was Aeneas's helmsman, founder of Rome - who was escaping after the siege of Troy. Palinuro was lulled to sleep by the sirens and fell into the sea during a violent storm. For three nights and days Palinuro survived by holding onto the ship's helm (it's not quite clear if he pulled the helm off with himself as he fell into the sea ... however...) and when he did finally manage to reach the shore he was killed by the local inhabitants. What woke them up I ask myself?)

Maratea - 18th Octbober 2007
For miles out to sea, the imposing statue of Christ with outstrecthed arms perched high on a peak of rock  assists navigation into the tiny harbour of Maratea. Once inside the harbour the 'Redentore' , or Risen Christ, dominates the skyline. It is particularly imposing when back-lit by lightning most of the night. The harbour wall was crowded with fishing boats, but room was found for us, Marlin and later Island Bear. No charge is made for the wall, but it is made clear that it is for one night only. As all the weather forecasts were harbingers of doom, the harbour master told us that we could stay until the weather improved.

We explored the neighbouring villages of Maratea Paese high up in the hills, and Fiumicello with its one bar, supermarket and butchers. Everywhere we went we asked if there was somewhere to watch the Rubgy world cup final. With England unexpectedly to play South Africa we were desperate. It seemed there was only one bar in the vicinity with SkySport, but he would be showing soccer to the locals. Eventually we found a helpful and English speaking lady in the tourist office, some miles from the marina. She understoord our plight, and phoned every bar, hotel and restaurant in the area, but with no success. If they had Skysport, they would be showing the Inter- Roma game.  Despondent, we begged the nearest bar ( a 2 mile walk) to let us watch the last 15 minutes of the rugby, after the soccer game had finished. There were 6 of us and 6 locals, but they still held out and watched the soccer game but the bar owner flicked over at each break and immediately at the end of the soccer game so we saw as much as could be hoped for. We lost anyway, so it was all a bit of a damp teatowel in the end.
Maratea is the only town on the west coast of the region of Basilicata, which boasts a beautiful unspoilt national park, rocky peaks, and lots of walking opportunities. Unfortunately, it is difficult to take advantage of most of the area without a car. It is certainly an area that we would like to return to later in the winter when we have access to a hire car. The east coast around Matera, with its sassi or caves, looks particularly interesting, and is a Unesco world heritage site.
At the suggestion of the tourist office lady we booked a taxi for the 6 crew to go to the top of the hill to visit the Redentore. After rattling along the 1965 road built on stilts, which looks like a childs meccano attempt at a flyover, we arrived at the cold and windy peak. The 22m statue was positioned in 1965 and faces inland, back to the sea. The mind boggles as to how they got the statue up there, and what sort of a party must have gone on when it was raised into position, changing the focus of the landscape for many miles.

How did they get him here? The mind boggles- you should see the road we came up!

A stairway to heaven?

The view from the top.

The bad weather or 'tempo bruttisimo' as we now know to call it – literally really ugly weather, had the marineros tying all the local boats together and tying lines across the port to stop them swinging around in the violent gusts that scream down from the mountains. We watched with nervous anticipation of what that might mean for us rafted alongside the harbour wall.
After the first night of tempo brutto, with forked lightning illuminating 'Il Christo', we awoke to see the peaks of the mountains and hills covered in snow. In October!!! This is not what we have come to expect – is it some kind of divine retribution for having too much of a good time?

Maratea

Cetraro - 23rd October 2007
As the weather calmed down, it was time to move on south again. Our little flotilla left one by one,  leaving early to make the most of the short daylight hours. We motorsailed to Cetraro (pronouned Chitraro) and moored bows to in a huge space in the port. An old chap came along to ask if we wanted any help with our lines, or finding places ashore, he didn't ask for money, he just wanted to advertise his restaurant opposite the marina. We would be his only customers  in the 3 nights we were there. Shortly after he wandered off, another Italian came along to ask if the previous chap had demanded money from us. He was incensed as he assured us that he was the marinero and that his port was free. We assured him that we had not been asked for or parted with any money and he calmed down slightly. He insisted that he even owned the patched and chafed lines we tied to although he offered no assistance to untangle them from under the boat, clearly they had snapped numerous times and the occupiers at the time had managed to cross and tangle the lazy lines and then retie them with the mess still in place. It took an hour to sort it out and we rested on our tenuous rotten lines praying for not too much wind tonight.
This place had to be the low point of year for me so far. We walked to the hill top village several miles away. It poured with rain on the way and we arrived a 1.01 pm just as everything closed for lunch for 3 ½ hours. We dried out in a bar (with no seats) for about an hour, then went in search of lunch. There was not a single restaurant. No town gives its best on a rainy day, but this place seemed dead, depressed, without hope and desperately dreary. We managed to grab a slice of pizza in another bar, where the local hoods smoked dope outside, or fed the fruit machines inside. What else is there to do? And how on earth do they afford to put €20 per hour into a fruit machine? The most exciting thing that was happening in the village was lots of people assembling at the main church. It turned out to be a funeral – which sort of says it all for Cetraro really. The flowers did fill a 4x4 pick-up truck though and it appeared to be the funeral of a local respected law-enforcer.  To cheer ourselves up, the crew of 6 went for a meal at the restaurant that our first visitor had been so keen to promote. It was without doubt the most disappointing meal we have experienced in our entire trip. Most of the menu was not available and we had a job to insist on our selection over the propieters expensive choice for our meal. One of the options was green, tomato or mixed salad. We chose the mixed salad, it sounded more interesting. The green salad consisted of lettuce, one type only. The tomato salad consisted of, guess what, some chopped tomatoes. Obviously the mixed variety would normaly represent a challenge to any chef to do something, anything, but not this one. Half the lettuce and half the tomatoes were served slopped unceremoniously onto a plate.  The evening was finished off by the dribbling water supply failing completely, so not even the toilets worked.
Beam me up scotty!





Vibo Valentia 25th October 2007
It was time to move on again, and we planned a short hop down the coast to Vibo Valentia, in our flotilla formation of 3 boats again. The wind increased more and more, but fortunately stayed offshore from this inhospitable coast. There are no ports to run for between Cetraro and Vibo, so we were at least thankful for a beam reach along the coast, although not so pleased to be on the receiving end of 45 knots again.  Here we go again we thought. Fortunately Stella del Sud in Vibo Valentia marina could accommodate all three boats and so we gratefully tied up and washed the salt crystals from the boats once more. More bad weather was forecast so it was time to review our options for getting to Malta for the winter.
Many of our friends had already arrived in Malta and had struggled to find a berth there. Like so many marinas near here, it is full to capacity. The only option is to sail there, join the queue and hope that they can eventually squeeze just one more boat in for the winter. We heard of one yacht that had prebooked and paid in advance, only to be told when he arrived that there was no space for him.  With more bad weather forecast to be on its way, we decided to book into Vibo Valentia for a cheap monthly rate and have a look at the surroundings while we sussed out whether the late October-early November weather might settle down again or if the year's cruising had fizzled to a damp and uncomfortable end.

Rome, October 07

 

Rome (Fiumicino and Ostia Lido) 20th September -  3rd October 2007
There are two seaward entrances to Rome on the west coast of Italy. The northern waterway is the Fiumicino canal and the southern one the Fiamara Grande river. The latter appeared the more appealing of the two at 8am when we arrived after an initially boisterous overnight trip. We slowly meandered upriver waiting for the offices to open so that we could contact the many marinas/yards regarding overnight stays. There are many different businesses lining both sides of river. We found that the VHF rarely illicited a response, so we started phoning. Each time we got the office secretary who could only say no.  As we subsequently discovered the power to find that extra little space for a few nights lays with the head honcho, not with the office secretary. The secret is to go alongside a raft of boats, climb ashore, and then go and find the man with the power. Our first experience of this at ‘Delta’ just before the bridge earned us a free nights stay for one night. He said this is the worst time of year to arrive, as the boats are not going out, and all the winter boats are arriving, or waiting to be hauled out. Next day we walked to the Fuimincino canal (about 5 miles!!) to have a look. The marina there was dirty, smelly, badly looked after and a swell was already working its way in. We eventually found a bus back and experienced our first traffic jam in 14 months.  Also within 30 minutes of arriving we saw a 3 car shunt complete with shouting and arm-waving as only Italians can do – fantastic!!
After our free night we drifted back down the river looking for likely spots. We saw a space alongside a wall in a small club, tied up and attempted to get ashore along the crumbling wall. We found the head honcho who shook his head gravely when he heard where we had tied up, and how we had got ashore. ‘Didn’t you see the signs ?’ he said. ‘Oh you mean the small sign only in Italian hidden behind the other boat tied to the same wall ?’ we didn’t reply. After he got over his disgust he introduced us to Jo and Alan, an English couple who had job swapped to Rome, and kept their catamaran in the yacht club. They were off to Corsica that night, so we could use their berth for up to 2 weeks. This was fantastic news. We asked the ‘boss’ what the price was , and we both heard – ‘tonight you are guest, then €50  3 nights.’ Excellent value we thought. Alan and Jo gave us a lift to the supermarket , we cooked them some supper, and helped them untie their lines when they left at 1am. We happily occupied their berth alongside the wall that wasn’t falling down but had listened with interest to their comments of what the lower reaches of the river are like in a blow.
The local town south of the river where the marina touristico is based is called Ostia Lido. It is a residential/seaside suburb servicing Rome by frequent trains. It also has substantial social housing which makes life on public transport full of colourful characters. The next day we finally found the train station in Ostia after another long walk. We subsequently found  that it is dead easy to get a bus to the train station on the same 75 minute train ticket. This ticket costs €1 and covers all transport in and around Rome- what a bargain! Thirty minutes on the train and a direct change to the underground all on the same ticket we were in the heart of Rome, our first view the Circo Massimo – the ancient city’s main chariot racing venue, which had a capacity for 400,000 spectators in it’s glory days.

What a city !! We wandered the ancient city centre remains for free in complete awe, visiting the colisseum, circling the ruins of the Aventine and Palatine hills, the Roman forum – heart of the senate, Imperial Forum – surprisingly intact remains of ancient Rome's shopping centre. With a little imagination you could still see Julius Caesar, Tiberius, Claudius, Nero making their way from their luxury real estate on the hill to the centre of power of most of Western Europe.

The roman forum excavations, in the heart of the city, free to enter.

 

 

After a cheap and cheerful tourist menu for €15 each, we headed back to the train, and back to the boat at our little private yacht club, for a peaceful night tied up! What bliss!

The colisseum – showing the underfloor changing rooms of the gladiators. The wooden floor had trap doors with lifting platforms to raise the animals taking part in the games.

www.enjoyrome.co.uk has a useful tourist guide, particularly highlighting what can be visited for free.  We spent several days going in and out of Rome on the bus-train-underground trip seeing most of our list of sights. You really could spend 6 months here just exploring. Every corner of Rome has something interesting to see. For us the favourites were the Pantheon – the most complete ancient Rome structure in the city – with a 9m hole in the perfect domed roof and holes in the marble floor to drain away the rain, and the Roman forum where you can just take along a picnic lunch and a book and sit on some old pillars lying in the ruins watching the world go by.

Inside the Pantheon, the oldest surviving Roman structure.

The hole in the roof. Rain comes in and drains through holes in the floor.

We also visited the catacombs out on the Appia antica (old roman road leaving the city gates), the extensive burial chambers of the first christians in Rome.  We visited one of the six sites, it is thought that there are 50 others as yet un-excavated. The one we visited alone had 7 miles of tunnels and had been the resting place of 100 000 bodies, including the apostles Peter and Paul at some time, before their remains were moved elsewhere when they became saints.
On another occasion we left the final resting place of St Peter at the Vatican, the famous landmark square, the Pope was out, and walked along the Janiculum hill with superb views out over the city, to Trastavere, a laid back neighbourhood with many good value trattorias. We ate a feast for €10 including wine! If you are sensible, Rome will not cost a fortune to eat out but beware of buying property. As there is a ruin around every corner there is also one under every building, or possibly concealed in the walls of the existing one. One wealthy land owner who bought property in central Rome to build a hotel in the 1930s,  upon digging the first hole found a temple. 'No problem', he thought, 'it will look great beside my new but slightly smaller hotel'. Unfortunately there was another one under the next plot and more under the rest of the land. In the end he gave up and donated the entire site back to Rome.

A bummer of a real estate deal

We were by now getting quite cocky about knowing our way around, and we returned to Ostia station at 10pm one night getting on the no 62 bus. All the bus routes do a figure of 8 route passing via the train station on each loop, so when we realised the bus was going the wrong way we thought we'd just sit tight and go back to the station. When the driver noticed that he only had a couple of Inglesi left on board he asked us where we wanted to go. He then gave us the unwelcome news that this was the last bus and it did not return to the station. By this time we were out in an enormous park miles from anywhere, truly in the middle of nowhere. The driver showed us where to wait for a bus that would take us back to the station, but he didn't know how long we might have to wait. So we stood on the side of a dual carriageway running through the middle of this park/ forrest, in the pitch black, not really knowing where we were, without the number for a taxi, with not a soul in sight, trying not the think about Ostia's violent past and reputation as the place where a blind eye was turned to mafia-style shootings!
When the bus finally came we had to jump into the middle of the road in front of it shining a torch on ourselves for the driver to see that someone was waiting at the stop – his face was a picture, he really wasn't expecting to pick up any passengers in this neck of the woods!! Back at the station we sought out a taxi to take us safely back, and had to knock up the night-watchman to let us into the marina. You'd think that we had learnt our lesson, but the next night we got on a bus going the wrong way again!!! This time we realised after 2 stops and walked back to the station to wait for one going the right way.  Once your ticket is validated, for a period of 75 minutes, on train, tube or bus you don't show your ticket to the driver so there is no natural opportunity to check that it is the right bus!!! After that excitement we never had a problem again.

Back at the marina we thought we'd check with the boss man about our continued stay. He said he told us that the cost is '2 nights you are guest then €50 per night'. Not quite what we heard last time. The unspoken rule is that this is cash in hand and goes in the yard staff pocket, not via the taxman! We were quickly learning that in Rome nothing is as it first seems!! We'd heard that there was some bad weather coming from the west and looking at the river entrance, and hearing the comments of various people it was becoming clear to us that in a westerly a huge swell works it's way into the river creating standing waves. As we were moored alongside a bank in the main river, we predicted that this was not going to be a comfortable place for Matador to remain, so we were making plans to move to the Porto Turistico just south of the river entrance, with a reputation for rip-off prices.  We offered to pay the boss then and there so we could move off in the next day or so, but he just said 'later'. That was the last we saw of him, as the next day was his day off, then he was somewhere else ! When we gave up waiting and tried to pay the girl in the office, the price was €75 per night, no free nights!!!!! We firmly told her what we had agreed with the bossman, left what we owed and left.  Who knows if it found it's way to the right person or not!
On entering Porto Turistico you have to speak to the control tower by VHF radio. They do not speak any English. They told us to wait. We waited and waited, circling in the entrance. Finally someone came along in a boat and asked what we were doing. 'You have to call the tower for a berth' he said in Italian. 'We did' we said. 'Ah ' he said, and after a short discussion in rapid Italian with the tower,  led us to a vacant berth. Once safely tied up he told us to go to the office 1km away along the prom. It is a huge marina. The office was closed early for lunch for 3 hours. So we went to Rome instead, intending to return at 6pm before the office closed at the stated closing time of 6.30pm. When we returned at 5.50pm the office was closed already!
The next morning we walked to the office again. The girls in the office were very friendly, spoke English and the price was only €44 per night, dropping to €22 after 1st October - so not so much of a rip off really, considering that there is little swell in this marina and all facilities are available. But we could only stay in this berth for 1 night, so then we had to return to the boat and move it to a new place, where we could still only stay for a few nights, and would have to move again.  No problem.
We took the opportunity to visit more of Rome's sights, and to go to the excavations of Ostia Antica. This is outside the city, to the north of Ostia Lido. At the time of ancient Rome it marked the coastline, and was the vital port of the ancient city of Rome, with a population of 100,000. After the decline of Rome’s power it gradually silted up and was stripped of most of it’s marble and left to be covered by alluvium deposited by the Tiber as the river changed its course though the years. It was re-discovered in 1909, and is now an extensive site of warehouses, meeting places, baths, dwellings, cafés, temples and theatres. It takes at least half a day to cover the site, and is pleasantly tourist-free. It is possible to take a picnic lunch and sit in the courtyard of the remains of one of the merchants houses.  As it is more low-key than Pompei the mosaics have mostly been left in situ,  leaving you with the feeling that the Romans have only just left. It's another place not to be missed!!

Ostia Antica -the port of Rome
 

We won’t fill the entire website with descriptions of all the sites of Rome, and we could. Open any guide book and be astounded, not as astounded as you will be when you see it for yourself. Suffice to say that Rome could keep you entertained for months, would we have stayed longer? Yes.

The column of Trajan, from 112AD with a detailed story of what happened during the campaign in what is now modern Romania.

The drinking water flows freely all around Rome, just bring a bottle

The Trevi fountain-toss a coin over your shoulder into the fountain to ensure you will return to Rome

St Peters square – waiting for an audience with the Pope

We tried to negotiate a berth for the winter, to return in November after further cruising, as it was still too early for us to consider starting our winter lay up. This proved to be further opportunity for modern Romans to practice their favourite art of rip-off.  After declining an offer to pay the list price in cash up front for 6 months to secure a berth with no paperwork we decided to leave. But first the office had to deal one more blow to our faith in fair dealings. To be fair, rip off is a bit harsh, we have discovered it to be an Italian, predominantly Roman sport to eek just a bit more out of you than you expected. It’s not the quantity that counts, it’s how cleverly you can obscure or withhold the whole story.  The published price list states that there is a weekly rate which amounts to the 7th night for free and following that a monthly rate with further discount. Having been there for 10 days we  calculated 10 days at the weekly rate, however the office informed us that we didn’t qualify for this discounted rate as although we had been in the marina for 10 days, we had at their request, moved to a different berth mid-way through our 10-day stay, thus not completing a 7 day period on either berth, and as the berths are rented from different berth holders the published rates did not apply! This news given with a smile and a shrug! By now we had given up arguing against logic like this. We paid up and waved goodbye to rip-off Rome. We were not disappointed or dis-heartened, we were just astounded by how many opportunities the modern-day Romans take to extract a little bit more money off you than you thought you'd agreed. Hardly worth the bother, it really is a game for them, a source of irritation to us in an otherwise fabulous city. But rest assured, they don't just do it to foreigners - anyone is fair game. As an example we were in an Indian restaurant in central Rome. There is always a cover charge per person, we were used to that, and by law the menu has to state how much it is, usually €1.50 or €2 each.  This restaurant it was €4 per table, fair enough we thought. When the neighbouring table of 4 Italians got their bill, they queried the cover charge of €8. The waiter smiled, shrugged, and lifted up the tablecloth – 'it's two tables together' he said!!!!  You just have to admire the nerve!
For information, the price in the marina drops by 50% to €22 per night from 1 October, making Porto Turistico a bargain at this time of year, sorry nearly got you, there is a 2% additional charge for water. It is still a good deal being so close to Rome, but it may still be potluck as to whether you can find a berth. Our friends on Marlin had trouble getting in a few days after us. The control tower would not admit them, and we had to go and negotiate on their behalf with a private contractor who operates some other berths in the marina to find a short stay for them while they circled outside the marina.  All this the day after the office had told us that there was plenty of room for our friends to come.  Eventually we were successful, more euros changing hands, but if we had not already been 'inside' Marlin would have had to go up the river and take their chances there. It sounds as if it is easier to get a place in high season as the locals are out using their boats and anchoring around the islands, but then you have to suffer the city heat of Rome, and high season prices.
To explain what we have found in numerous marinas in Italy: the berths are all sold to private individuals and they in turn allow third party “ommagiotori” to let them out to visitors when not in use. This is why often there is more than one supplier of visitor berths in the same marina and why you should not accept the first price or rejection on the radio, but they hotly guard their charges, and will rarely offer  information regarding other competitor Ommagiatori, unless you ask,  seems that we got a lucky break.