We woke to a good brekkies in the hotel - usual European breakfast fare: cold cuts, yogurt, cheese...and got to see a woman at a nearby table with horrible tattoos (and an enormous naked muffin top) making tiny sandwiches and wrapping them up in napkins to go. Why didn't we think of that? (Tiny sandwiches, not horrible tattoos and muffin tops.) Later on we were very glad that we had taken the nasty wrapped up chocolate croissants from our hotel breakfast in Venice, it was an emergency and they were just right.
[ no pictures of breakfast or tattoo muffin top? ]
Hit the streets to do the whole Ravenna tour. Started with the Theodoric and Dante's tomb, the Nuovo, then the Museo. Stopped in Kennedy Square for lunch: capelleti ragu and cold risotto salad with two mineral waters. Not horrible, but we could have done without the mayo on the cold risotto salad.
After lunch we walked over to the famed Galla Placida tomb with its beautiful tiny mosaics. The tomb is octagonal and quite small. The light that comes in comes through small rectangular windows cut from thin slices of onyx. It's stunning. Suzanne had read about a time when there was an attempted tomb robbery, and that there was still a visible hole in the tomb. She asked the cute young tomb guard sitting outside of the tomb about it, but he didn't know. A few minutes later he asked her to come into the tomb with him, and he pointed out where some of the mosaic tiles had fallen out.
We finished up our sight-seeing and went on an ice hunt. At the grocery store, there was no ice, but there were three kinds of wine on tap for € 1.05 - € 1.15 ($1.50 - $1-65) per liter. Ray would have laid down underneath one and turned on the spigot. We bought three kinds of cheeses, gave up on getting ice and started the drive to Ancona. At Ancona we were to board a car ferry for an overnight trip across the Adriatic to Split, Croatia.
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| Wine by the liter! |
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| Crikey!! At € 2.04 it is cheaper to drink wine. |
[pictures?]
The Italian drivers are horrible, and we wanted to tell them, "Put down your keys and pick up some cheese!"
We made a stop at Rimini on the coast and decided to take a look at the water. We parked and walked down to the Adriatic Sea. It was a beautiful clear green with tiny breakers. There was a long expanse of beach chairs with covers and many people in the water. We took off our shoes and waded. There were lots of jellyfish, but no one seemed bothered. On our way back to the car we stopped and chatted with a lifeguard, who said that the jellies were non-stinging. We also asked him how to say "bag of ice," and learned "sacco di ghiatzi" Drove to the grocery store. Suzanne went in and hardly got the words out when they said, "no ice." Suzanne asked if there was anywhere between Rimini and Ancona where we could get ice. "Italians don't use ice." They were not kidding.
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| Suzanne dips her toes in the Adriatic |
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| The scrummy who told us how to say sacco di ghiatzi |
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| And his girlfriend |
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| Foot washers! |
We proceeded down the coast to Ancona with just the ice we had left from the day before.
When we got to the ferry our paperwork was checked and then we drove right onto the ferry, the third car on! We unloaded our luggage and food and then one of the workers parked the car. We made our way to the reception desk where we turned in our passports and got our room key.
On the ferry you have two choices - you can sleep in a cabin, or you can sleep in a seat. The seats are in a huge room like a movie theater. They are called "air seats," but they did not look very comfortable, especially since you were sleeping in a room with what looked like hundreds of people. When Jane made our reservations, she had the option of upgrading to a "deluxe suite" for an additional € 20, which she did. She was warned by her coworkers that it was going to be a tiny room with a porthole. When we got to our "deluxe suite," we whooped with joy! It was a large room with a big bed, sofa, coffee table, bathroom with shower and a big porthole not too far above the water line! We dumped our stuff, made some drinks and headed to the top deck to await the cruise.
We stopped at a free internet lounge and sent some quick e-mails to friends and family, then climbed several flights up to the top of the ship. It was warm and breezy with a beautiful view of Ancona, the surrounding marinas and the Adriatic. We found a bench and enjoyed our drinks and watched the people. Over another bench was a sign touting the romance of Ljubljana, Slovenia. It said "Kissing Area." Sadly, there were 3 middle-aged not so great-looking men sitting on it. There was a man taking a picture of his wife, so Suzanne went over and asked if he would like her to take a picture of them both (this had already become a second career for Suzanne. We called it "Paying it Forward".) He did, and when she was done he asked if we would like our picture taken. We sat on the bench next to his wife, and Suzanne put her arm around his wife and included her in the picture. She was an Italian woman of indeterminate age, wearing a yellow dress, and she became instantly enamored of us, even though none of us could speak each other's language.
Eventually the ship began to move, and we watched the pilot boats guide it out of the harbor. It was just about sunset and the view was beautiful. Finally we made our way back down into the ship where we did a little exploring: looked into the room where the people would be sleeping in their seats, stopped at the duty-free, where Jane bought a bottle of vodka, stopped at the souvenir store, where we were kind of puzzled by the number of Virgin Mary souvenirs. What up wit' dat? We were to find out the following day. Looked into the smoky, noisy, casino, and decided it was time to head back to our Deluxe Suite for dinner. This time, our key didn't work and we had to go back to reception and get a new key. Passing through the internet lounge there were people already staking their claims to the couches, etc., instead of sleeping in the seats.
About this time we wrote a song which we used many times during the rest of the trip, changing the lyrics to fit the situation: "All you losers are sleepin' in your seats." It's very catchy. We do kind of a Chita Banana merengue to it.
We put on our jim-jams and laid a spread out on the coffee table - all of the usual suspects: cheese, bread, fruit. We tried to get a movie on the TV, but it was no-go. We also tried to get our DVD player hooked up to it, but that didn't work either. Finally watched some "Girl Who" until the DVD player battery died and went to sleep.
