First, thank you to all who post on these boards. I have been lurking here for years, reading for information and entertainment, and I have appreciated the comments of all. Hopefully, someone will get something out of my experience as I have from all of yours.
I usually do all of the trip planning, with my husband happy to go along with whatever I choose rather than participate in what he views as a chore. This is the first time in 23 years we have traveled without kids (now adults) except for business travel. Hubby's input this time was "no more than 2 weeks away from home and include a Mediterranean cruise." (We're retired, what's his deal? Oh well. I take what I can get.) I wanted to go to Italy, and Rome appealed to me more than any other place. So all criteria (pretty much) met.
We chose a 7-day round trip cruise out of Genoa on MSC Meriviglia. There was only one at-sea day and we liked that we had not been to any of the ports. I was most excited about visiting Barcelona. We flew Alitalia DFW-JFK-FCO-Genoa on the way out and Delta FCO-JFK-DFW on the way home.
Our first impression of Italy was FCO...it looked like a high end shopping mall and smelled like perfume. When we went to board our flight to Genoa, we walked down the jetway and ended up at a bus parked on the curb. Everyone crowded aboard the bus. Pretty soon the bus took off and drove around in and among the airplanes, ending up next to a smaller jet with 2 sets of steps wheeled up to the doors. People piled off the bus and crowded around the bottom of each set of steps. Everyone went up, went in, stowed their stuff, and sat down. 5 minutes max. No messing around finding seats or getting up and down to mess with the stuff in the overhead bins. A flight attendant boarded and said something like "we're boarded" and they closed the doors and took off. We had heard Italians don't queue. We feared the worst, and were prepared to mix it up with people if necessary, but there was no shoving. Just a different sort of order than we're used to. And I liked it.
Our hotel advised us to take the Volabus from the airport. 6 euro each vs. taxi which should cost upwards of 20 euro. It worked great. We bought tickets from the driver and he told us where we should get off. We did have a little trouble finding the hotel from the bus stop and stopped to ask for directions a couple of times. We asked in a newsstand and a lady on the street overheard, piled onto the conversation, and ended up walking us part of the way there. No English spoken by them or Italian by us, but we found it very easy to communicate anyway and everyone we met was friendly and helpful.
Our hotel in Genoa for 1 night: NH Genova Central. Very nice, modern, a bit elegant, and squeaky clean. If I recall, the window could be opened. Bed was comfortable. We had heard that it is best to stay away from the port area, so the location was our main reason for choosing this hotel. I believe this is a business chain hotel, but we found it very good and very reasonably priced. It deserves a look if you find yourself in Genoa.
Impressions of Genoa: huge buildings with a well-worn patina of elegance. We saw mostly the city center, which sloped up from the port to a piazza, then streets radiated upward from that to another piazza, and so on uphill. The slope was so steep that between some buildings, there were steps up instead of an alleyway. The piazzas had statues or little parks with flowers. Traffic was crazy and you had to be careful. Very little English spoken. This is a great place to visit if you want a back door experience.
Sciuscia e Sciorbi: pizzeria near Piazza di Ferrari. Very good pizza. Thin, crispy and topped with amazing sausage. Many varieties were offered. The waiter spoke near perfect English. We struck up a conversation and he said he was saving up to come to the US. When we got the bill, I didn't see the charge for servizo that I expected. (see next for continuation)
Posted by
OP
Dallas, Texas, USA
26 posts
Part 2: She didn't understand so she got the waiter. When I explained that I wanted to leave a little extra for a tip, and did not see the charge for servizo, he said, no bother, not necessary, but seemed to appreciate the gesture. Food was great and reasonably priced. We loved Genoa even though we didn't visit a single attraction or highly rated restaurant.
Barcelona: this was the port city I most wanted to visit, and the only one where I did any advance planning other than reading up on what might be available. We took the city's cruise/port bus for 4 euro per person round trip. That dropped us off near the Christopher Columbus Monument and a metro stop. This is also the end of La Ramblas, in case you might want to walk up it into the city. We were trying to buy a 10 ride metro ticket from the machine at the station and gave it up and walked away a couple of times because of very aggressive people trying to "help". They surrounded us and had their hands all over us, our stuff and the money we were trying to put in the machine. We finally got the ticket and got out of there. I think they were trying to get us to either buy them a ticket or pay them for their "service" but I yelled "I don't understand" and barged away from them. Wear your money belts and have only the money you need to use in the machine in your hand. They didn't get anything from us, but they were very, very aggressive. Just don't be intimidated and keep your hands on your stuff. Once we had the ticket we took the metro to Sagrada Familia, where I had repurchased tickets for noon entry. We had arrived early, so had time for a pastry and hot chocolate and a stroll around the outside. What an amazing place! It was just as beautiful inside as it looked from all the YouTube videos I had watched. It is filled with light and color from the stained glass windows. When we had seen all the exhibits, we got back on the metro and went to the "Block of Discord" where we admired the architecture from the outside and had a sandwich and another hot chocolate in the cafe inside the Casa Amatller. We walked down La Ramblas back to the pickup point for the cruise/port bus. We really enjoyed Barcelona. It is a beautiful city and we would like to return there at some point.
Valletta, Malta: I had read up on this city and found myself interested in the WWII museums. We visited the Lascaris War Rooms. We probably should have also taken the ferry over to the Malta at War Museum, but oh well, a reason to return! We also saw the interior of a beautiful church (not sure if it was the one founded by Knights) and the Malta Stock Exchange. We took the lift up to the Upper Barrakka Gardens where we had a beautiful view over the harbor area. We got a sandwich, more of a hand pie really, in the cafe there. The crust was yellow and it was very good. Not sure what the spice was, but it was tasty. Valletta was also my first visit to a pharmacy as I was nursing what would become a nasty sinus infection, and voted Valletta "best cold medicine ever". It contained codeine. It's not like "hey I scored some codeine without a prescription". You tell the pharmacist about your symptoms and they sell you a small quantity of what they believe will help, so there's still some control over it. Loved Valletta and would like to return there too.
Other ports Civitavecchia (not much to do there and we elected not to go into Rome for the day), Palermo (we walked around and visited the cathedral, a beautiful park, and the outside of the royal palace before it started to pour on us). It was enjoyable, but the city really didn't speak to me, and Marseille, France (we had a chocolate crepe, walked to the small boat harbor and looked around fish and flower markets-a pleasant place, but really not too interesting). All in all, we had a good time on the cruise, met some really nice people, and got a taste of a few cities along the Mediterranean coast. (See next for Rome!)
Posted by
OP
Dallas, Texas, USA
26 posts
Part 3: cruise over, now heading to Rome. I bought train tickets from Genoa to Rome ahead of time online. When we got to the train station, we didn't see our train number anywhere on the departures board. I spoke to a ticket agent who wrote another train number and departure time on a piece of paper and told me to just take that train. We were somewhat nervous about it, so I showed my original printout to a lady on the platform. She didn't speak English but showed me her printout (that had the same original train number as mine) and indicated that we were in the same car as her so should follow her. We got on the train together and we took the seats indicated on our original ticket. The lady and her party sat across the aisle from us. A conductor came around, glanced at our printout and went on down the aisle. So far so good. Another couple of stops and a guy got on and sat by my husband. He had the same train number as our original ticket on his printout. He didn't speak English, but we exchanged pleasantries mainly by gestures and a couple of badly pronounced Italian words. So far so good. Another couple of stops and some people got on, with printouts indicating the correct train number and our seat numbers. They brought the conductor over and the guy sitting by my husband told the conductor "no Italiano" indicating us, and proceeded to explain the situation with much gusto and enthusiasm. The lady across the aisle joined in and it was a rather spirited discussion. The conductor smiled and told us "ok" and took the people off to find other seats. The guy crossed his arms, nodded and sat back down. Using gestures, back slapping, etc. we all celebrated the small victory over keeping our seats. By now I am really loving the Italians. We passed the Carrera stop and saw some large chunks of beautiful marble and the Monterroso stop, where we could see the beautiful Mediterranean. Upon reaching Rome, our new train friends all joined in spirited "no get off here" as we passed the Ostiense and Trastevere stations. We got off at Termini and took a 5 euro taxi ride to our hotel.
Rome hotel for 6 nights: BW Plus Spring House. This hotel was near the Vatican. If you went out the door, around the corner and up some steps, it put you literally across the street from the entrance to the Vatican Museums. Since we had 2 early morning events planned at the Vatican we decided to give this hotel a try. It is a chain that seemed to have family & business travel clientele and we loved it. Our room was large, the shower was great, and it included a breakfast buffet with everything from juice to salad, eggs, pastries, cold sliced meats, cheese, etc. the same stuff every day, but enough choices that you could switch it up. I was impressed that they had real maple syrup from Canada. I am a connoisseur. The bed was comfortable, the towels big and fluffy, and there were robes and slippers provided. My repeated requests for more TP and Kleenex were immediately & cheerfully restocked. The room was large enough to lounge around in and the window opened. We heard some people coming and going, but it was very quiet other than that. It was a nice, modern hotel but not without character. It had a bidet for those who like those. The Cipro metro stop was just down the street and we made use of 7 day metro, bus & tram passes that we got from a tabacci for 24 euro per person. We requested a receipt when we bought the tickets, validated them by using on the metro for the first time, then just used bus and metro whenever we wanted without worrying about having to get or validate tickets. We also bought a laminated bus, metro & tram map at a newsstand in Termini station, which helped with using the buses.
Vatican Scavi tour: absolutely a must-do if you can get tickets. Our guide was an archeologist and she explained a lot about Roman burial culture, how they identified the tomb and remains of the Apostle Peter, etc. (more in the next)
Posted by
OP
Dallas, Texas, USA
26 posts
Part 4: Vatican Scavi tour continued. I wrote for tickets only a few weeks before we traveled and was able to get them. It probably helped that it was off-season, but do give it a try.
Pristine Sistine early morning skip the line see the Sistine Chapel before it's open to the general public by Walk of Italy: I am going to rave about this tour. When we went through the Museums into the Sistine Chapel, there were quite a few people in there, but there was room to walk around, sit here and there and contemplate in silence from various angles. Our tour guide, Maria Teresa Franco, answered all my questions not just about the artwork, but also how this room is used when a Pope is elected. Where the cardinals enter from, what door is locked, and where the smoke from burning the ballots goes out through the smokestack. I really connected with this guide over the course of the tour. There were 8 of us and I noticed that she really made an effort to connect with all so that each of us had the experience in the museum and the Chapel that we wanted to have. She explained the artwork and the cultures that produced it. I came away having learned a lot that I could not have on my own and with a real understanding of how Rome and its culture affected the architecture and beliefs of what has evolved into modern Catholicism. This was one of my wow moments. We saw a lot in the time of the tour and we had adequate breaks for a quick sit, restroom and drink. Maria Teresa's English was very good and she was understanding, enthusiastic, and personable. This tour was worth every cent in my opinion.
Colosseum/Forum/Palatine Hill tour with Dark Rome/City Wonders: I got a pop up window advertising a January sale on this tour. What with skip the line access, it seemed like an excellent value so I reserved it. Cristina also was an excellent guide. She was entertaining and really knew her stuff. She told us she is an archeologist. We got lots of good info, heard entertaining anecdotes, and she inspired me to google Julius Caesar's assassination to learn more, then to seek out Largo di Argentina to find the place where he was assassinated. Turns out we had passed the Largo di Argentina site while riding around on bus 492. So we went back for a good look. We don't usually take tours, but did these 3 on this trip and really got a lot out of them.
Pantheon: we went on a rainy day and it was busy, but we walked right in. Very impressive when you consider how old it is, and the engineering feat building it must have been. It was wet in the middle under the oculus, but sloped away toward the walls so water did not accumulate on the floor.
San Clemente Church: this is the one where you can go down into the excavations under the church and see a few layers of history. Wish we would have taken a tour of this. I don't know if one is available. Amazing and well worth the 10 euro per person entry. Very few people there.
Piazza Navona: I just wasn't feeling this. What with people trying to entice you into expensive eateries (charging more for hot chocolate than you'd pay for an entire meal elsewhere), people hawking selfie sticks every 3 feet, crowds of people following tour guide umbrellas...seemed very tourist trappy to me. I much preferred walking around the neighborhood of our hotel, popping into the Todis store for a pack of cookies and bottle of water, waving to Giulia, who recognized us when we passed by from the first time we ate in her cafe, trying a new hole in the wall mom & pop pizzeria we discovered.
Surprises: nothing could prepare us for the sheer size of St. Peter's Basilica, the Pantheon, Vittorio Emanuel Monument, etc.
Lessons learned: bought train tickets Rome-Naples ahead of time intending to hit Pompeii and the Archeological Museum as a day trip. It was raining that day and I had a bad cold so we ate about $75 in tickets we didn't use. Instead we wandered around, going into random churches and stores until we were tired of it, and napped.
Posted by
L'Occitanie, France
10621 posts
Thank you Margaret. I love your report! What a train ride! Very interesting information and details. I look forward to reading the rest.
I want to comment a little on your experience in Palermo and Marseille because there is much more to see. The inside of the palace in Palermo is the jewel, while the cathedral is ho-hum. There are also churches with stunning mosaic work and baroque chapels. Marseille has not only the well-known Notre Dame de la Garde but the lesser visited St. Victor, remains of a Greek temple, and so on. So I do hope you will give these places a second shot.
However, we just did the same on a cruise to the Caribbean last month.
I know what happened with us. I didn't want the intensity of a 6-8 hour tour every day in a row as our ship had six ports in six days before a sea day, so I thought we could just wander a couple of days. However, with such a short time in a city, we miss the highlights if we wander and are unimpressed. What do you think?
Posted by
OP
Dallas, Texas, USA
26 posts
I just have one more story...there was one restaurant surprise. We saw this place on a side street about a block from Termini station. It's called King Food Termini. It had a huge poster outside listing all their dishes in English. There was an Indian guy outside greeting people and trying to get them to give the place a try. There was one rather large group of Indians inside gathered around several tables grouped together. The tourist trap alarms were going off in my head, except that something smelled amazing. The prices were reasonable so we figured, well, let's give this a try. When ordering I quizzed the waiter, who turned out to be pretty good, whether the food was frozen and if there were any extra charges besides the food that we ordered. Still a bit skeptical, I ordered spaghetti bolognese and my husband got spaghetti carbonara. Both were hot, fresh, and very good. The lemon gelato was really good too. When we got home I checked tripadvisor because I was curious. They had only a few reviews, mostly bad. But we had good food there and even went back once. Huh.
For bags, we each took an ebags Weekender Motherlode Convertible backpack. I got mine down to 22 lbs. I brought 3 pair of jeans, 2 blue and one black. I only wear the very lightweight stretchy denim, so they weigh about the same as dockers. I also brought a zip front hoodie. I used everything I brought except the pack of Imodium. Thank God. But those will be in my bag every time. This time I brought one plastic hanger with skirt clips, which was great for drip drying items in the shower. I found it more useful than my travel clothesline, which stayed at home this time. I also used the heated towel rack to help socks and undies dry faster. I agonized over this, but brought only one pair of shoes. Nikes. I wore them everywhere, including the cruise ship, and I was glad that I did. There were lots of uneven surfaces, steps, slick spots, standing around, etc. I had zero foot problems. The one time I got them wet, I was able to dry them quickly using the hotel hair dryer.
For our trip to the airport to go home, our Rome hotel requested a car service for us. It cost 50 euro cash. The receipt ripped, so I don't have the name of the company. It was great. We got a fast ride in a new Mercedes. The driver pointed out the Mussolini Building and a large dome he called St. Paul's on the way.
The flight home was uneventful, except that we had to wait to be de-iced at JFK, so that added about an hour. Those long flights to and from Europe are tough on me, but it's worth it. Now that we are home we are going to study up on some things we learned about the ancient Romans, and will watch Angels & Demons again...now that we have seen the Vatican. Grazie et arrivaderci!
Bets, I agree. We were afraid we were going to get churched out on this trip and made a conscious decision to just check out a couple of the places by wandering to see what we could see. Plus, my head was spinning...I think it is easier to plan a more in depth stay in one place than to see what one can get into 6 hours in each of several places.
Posted by
Southeast US
4045 posts
Margaret, thanks for the trip report! I enjoyed reading it! I was in Rome a couple of years ago; your report brought back many good memories. I look forward to reading about your future travels!
Posted by
franktown, colorado
2252 posts
Margaret,this is an excellent trip report. It sounds like your pre trip research paid off and you were able to accomplish all you wanted to do. You have included lots of good information here and I thank you for posting all your fun experiences. I, too, thought the Scavi tour quite amazing
Posted by
Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, USA
14730 posts
What a terrific trip ~and~ Trip Report! I particularly loved the helpful Italians - the lady in Genoa and the group on the train! What wonderful interactions. Poo on the Barcelona experience...
Thank you so much for spending time writing this up. I love detail and you hit it out of the park for me. Off and on I've thought about Malta and now I'm really going to look in to going there.
I also was interested in your and Bets' observations about cruise port sights/excursions. I don't see myself taking a cruise but you never know!
Posted by
Orange Park, Fl
985 posts
Margaret - what a fun time this sounds! I've not been on a cruise but it sounds like you handled yours the right way - doing your own research and planning ahead. So glad to read you had helpful people on your train into Rome. I was reading about Genoa just the other day and am glad it is part of your report. That might be a place to visit when we plan our Italy trip. Your cruise sounds interesting and I might opt for something like that too. Like you (and many others here) we have come to value visiting some places in cities (or cities themselves) where not many tourists are present. We've found the people to be more genuinely friendly in those circumstances. I was interested in what you had to say about your Vatican Tours as this is so unlike the awful crush we experienced on our tour. Like Versailles, I had decided I had not interest in revisiting but maybe one of these tours might convince me. Thanks for a great trip report!
Posted by
OP
Dallas, Texas, USA
26 posts
Thanks to all for your comments. We really enjoyed this trip. I just wanted to comment further on a couple of things. First, the cruise. This particular itinerary was great because we got to sail into a few really beautiful cities and see them first from the harbor. Genoa and Valletta were especially gorgeous views from the water. Normally, I like to go somewhere and stay there for a few days, but I did get a taste of a few places that would have been far down my list of priorities, so that was good. Splitting the cost with several thousand of my closest friends lets me afford to go boating in style on a billion(or multi-billion...I have no idea how much a ship costs) dollar yacht. LOL. The cruise also presented a packing issue as we didn't want to bring dress clothes. I brought a pair of black jeans and a couple long sleeve t-shirts that were a little fancier and got by with those. We avoided the formal nights also.
Genoa was very nice and would make a good city break if you wanted to walk or ride around, look at the city, maybe see the aquarium. Food we had was good, the hotel was nice, and it wasn't overly expensive. Not one single person with a selfie stick! I thought it was a good place to walk off the jet lag for a day or so.
I think I loved Rome so much because it was February and it 1. was less crowded than high season, and 2. less hot than high season. You still have to try to avoid crowds by reserving ahead and going early to places, though. I would never attempt Rome in summer. Also the tours we took really added to our experience. We will go back because we didn't follow through with plans to see Pompeii or Naples, and there are a lot more things to see. Again, thank you all for all the information that I have been getting from reading everyone's posts on this forum. We're trying to figure out where to go next!
Posted by
Last Frontier aka Alaska 🏔️
3561 posts
Thank you so much for this trip report. I loved reading it! I am glad you enjoyed your MSC cruise. I sometimes watch a silly little show called Dream Cruises and it is kinda like an infomercial for MSC, as that is usually the cruise line they profile.
What did you find the demographics of the cruise to be? Europeans? Families, younger or older?
Posted by
OP
Dallas, Texas, USA
26 posts
Demographics of the cruise...seemed like there were very few English speakers. Lots of Europeans and Asians. We heard Italian, French and Spanish spoken. Several times we were approached by people who spoke German to us. (This also happened to us a couple of times in Rome.) Announcements were given in several languages. During the muster drill, the announcements were made in at least 6-7 languages. I am assuming they know what languages they have to use for safety-oriented communications based on their passenger list. Crew spoke English to us. We were a little concerned that we wouldn't be able to understand instructions if an emergency should arise, but found communication with crew to be very easy so no reason to worry about that.
We purposely tried MSC because it is not as oriented toward Americans as, say, Carnival or Princess might be. We were looking for a different experience.
We were seated in the dining room with an older couple from Ireland and an older gentleman from Ft. Lauderdale, FL. I think they try to group people by language for dining.
There weren't very many kids, probably because they were in school when we went. Adults were all ages. Seemed like most were older. Maybe the "newly wed and nearly dead" that you usually hear about cruises. LOL. Guess which I am. This is similar to other cruises we have been on.
I think there was a good mix of couples and groups. There were some kids and teens. Mostly adults, though.
If you go on the MSC Meriviglia, consider a balcony stateroom. This ship doesn't seem to have a lot of deck space where you can hang out to watch as you come into/out of ports. If you have a balcony, you have a space where you can do this. Also we had a good sized room with a sofa. Nicer to have a little room to stretch out. I really enjoyed watching the little boat come out to the ship to deliver or pick up the pilot. Not a job I'd dare try to do. This ship is really nice-about a year old, I think. But the itinerary is what sold us on that particular cruise.