That's Amore!

 

When my brother, Ken, returned from a Mediterranean cruise back in March, he immediately investigated going on another one. And when he discovered that Costa Cruises (the line he had chosen because it's the only one that allows smoking on private balconies) had an interesting looking itinerary planned for September, Ken asked if Dave and I would want to come along with him and Laura. Now, since Ken has terminal lung cancer, despite Dave having said that he'd rather never go on a cruise again, when I told him about Ken's idea, Dave answered, "Of course we'll go." So we booked the cruise, with fingers crossed that Ken would still be up for it when the time came around. And sidenote: when Ken and I were in Alberta in the summer, he was talking about the upcoming cruise with our aunt and uncle ("Of course you guys could come, too," Ken said) so they ended up booking it too. And when Kennedy turned thirty in August, Dave told her that if she could get the time off work, we'd pay for her to come too (and why not, with Mike and Carole now coming?) Kennedy didn't think it was likely, until suddenly she said that she and Zach could come along (well, he turned thirty this year, too), and now we were a real party.

Dave had never been to Italy before, so we decided to arrive a couple days early and spend some time in Rome. I found a Vrbo that is literally across a narrow street from the Pantheon, so despite the apartment itself being a bit small (especially the bathroom and handheld shower), it was in an enchantingly old building with massive marble statues on each stone landing, a huge, brass-studded medieval-looking door, and so ideally located for a walkabout (that top picture was taken at our first patio lunch just off the Pantheon's piazza). I also had booked a full day walking tour of Rome, and Dave's favourite sights were the Sistine Chapel (he had no idea that the ceiling was more than just the one painting of the Creation of Adam) and the Colosseum (he had no idea just how big it is and that you can see the underground rooms and tunnels that would have once been covered by a wooden floor). Of course we saw the Trevi Fountain as shown here, it was enchanting that it just started to gently rain through the opening in the dome when we went inside the Pantheon, and I loved bringing Dave to the Piazza Navona (where my friend  Kevin and I stayed when we were eighteen) and that we got to enjoy its carnivalesque nighttime atmosphere before experiencing it again the next day in sober sunlight. Meanwhile, Kennedy and Zach decided to spend the first few days of their trip in Venice (Kennedy's favourite city from when I took her to Italy as a graduation present) and we all met in Palermo for the cruise.

Sidenote: My uncle Mike was hospitalised in August and was unable to make the cruise, but Carole decided to come anyway (which made perfect sense after the scare she had just been through and before he would be released into her care; no one resented this decision) and she brought her friend, Lynn; both lovely people.

As for the cruiseship: The Fascinosa is a clean and lovely ship, with many bars, restaurants, decks, and pools. We had a balcony (booked next to Ken and Laura's; we often talked around the barrier) and the room itself was fine in every regard. However, as this is an Italian cruiseline, and the passengers were nearly all Italians, it took some time to get used to the pushing and elbowing at the bars and buffet lines; watching people smoke out on deck as they ate, even with small children at the table; it was crazy to me that everyone we saw at the elevators would push both the up and down buttons and get on whichever one came first (and as a result, the elevators always took forever and stopped at just about every floor, often with no one waiting there). On a positive note, the staff (mostly Phillipino) were very friendly and efficient, and it was funny to have more than one of them confide in our group that we would need to get more pushy ourselves if we wanted to compete with the Italians.

Our first port of call was Naples and we had all booked the excursion to Pompeii. That's me and Kennedy doing the obligatory book pose in front of Mount Vesuvius and I want to make a note on that: When Ken and I were in Alberta this summer, many different conversations went around about travel, and when Carole asked me if I had ever been to the Louvre, I snapped into showoff mode and pulled out the picture of me "reading" The Da Vinci Code in front of the Mona Lisa and then I turned to Mike and said, "You were talking about Jordan and Petra?" and I scrolled to the picture of me "reading" the novelisation of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in front of the stone-carved building that was used in the filming of that movie and then I turned to my aunt Dianne and said, "You asked if I had ever read Chariots of the Gods," and I showed her the picture of me "reading" that book at Machu Picchu. Mike chortled a bit, as he does, and said, "The big question is what book are you going to bring on the cruise?" And that's when I realised that I had set myself a trap - taking the thing I do for personal fun and making it a public thing. So I thought and thought and I Googled books about Pompeii but nothing seemed right. And it's when I wasn't thinking about it that the above book came to me (When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris, I book I already owned), and as I was amused by both the title and the skeleton on its cover as appropriate to Pompeii, I thought I had the project nailed. But Kennedy and Mal both said it would be funnier to hold the Magic Treehouse book about Pompeii, and that's when I realised I should never try to crowdsource this little bit of fun; this is about what amuses me. (I even resorted to AI, and it recommended the same titles that Google had come up with, and when I prompted it to come up with something more ironic, it sort of understood, but no recommendation was better to my own mind than the book that had arisen in my own mind, so I compromised and posed with Kennedy, each with our own best choice.) And after all that, honestly, no one but me cared about this picture in the least, lol.

Ken came along for this excursion, and he lasted for a while, but eventually left the tour group to go wait at the cafe by the entrance. The rest of us were amazed by just how many buildings had been excavated, and how well preserved they had been under the ash and centuries of dirt, it was awe-inspiring to learn just how enormous pre-eruption Vesuvius had been, and it was sobering to see the casts that had been made of the voids caused by people's bodies in the ash. Of course, the brothel (and its mosaic-tiled "menu" of services) was a popular attraction, and beyond the salaciousness, there was something kind of humanising about standing in the place where such needs were once met (but a little weird to have all the penises on road pavers and buildings pointed out as the road map to the whorehouse). Ken missed out on all the best parts, but he was glad to have a bigger group along this time so that Laura wouldn't miss out, too.

We stopped for real Neopolitan pizza when we got back to Naples (delicious!) and we all agreed that we could have spent more time in the city (but had no regrets experiencing Pompeii instead.) Back on the ship, the following day was a relaxing one at sea, and the only thing that was really notable was the fun we had that evening in a lounge, dancing to live music (especially nice to watch Ken and Laura dancing together as this cruise did take place over the week of their 30th wedding anniversary).

The following day, we woke up in Malta. Ken had been so wiped out by his time in Pompeii that he declined to join us on our private tour by VW microbus:

When I was arranging this tour with our guide Dan, I told him that we (I) were primarily interested in the temples, but that we would be open to seeing whatever he thought we should. First of all: it was pretty cool to drive around in the VW; literally (because it was nicely air conditioned) but also because everywhere we went, people were taking pictures of our sweet ride. Dan first brought us to the Blue Grotto, apologising that it was too rough on the water to rent a boat tour, but it was beautiful when the sun broke through.

We then drove to the Ħaġar Qim and Mnajdra Archeological Park and everything about this megalithic site was absolutely mind-blowing to me. Dating to 3600 BC (said to be older than the Egyptian pyramids and Stonehenge), this was thought to have been the oldest free-standing structure on earth until Göbekli Tepe was discovered in Turkey in 1994. It was a hot day and about a kilometer walk between the two clifftop temple sites - which was a tough go for some of our group - but I was absolutely mesmerised by the size of the stones, their precision placement, and the "oracle hole" that allows light to hit a niche on an inner wall on the summer solstice. Megaliths are my absolute favourite thing to experience, and it was amazingly good luck that the cruise Ken (more or less randomly) chose was so suited to what I love to see and touch and breathe in. We spent the majority of our time here, exploring the temples, the gift shop, and the interpretive centre.

 

Dan showed us an offshore island used as target practise by the RAF during WWII, the Chapel of St Mary Magdalene on the Dingli Cliffs (where a street vendor sold us deliciously refrigerated prickly pears), and dropped us off to explore the ancient fortified city of Mdina. The tour ended back at the capital city of Valletta, a beautiful and ancient walled city filled with interesting shops and restaurants, and despite the forecast threatening rain throughout the day, not a drop fell before everyone was safely back on board ship (and then it was torrential as we were preparing to leave port, which our group watched and delighted in from a covered portion of the deck; and as everyone else had fled at the first few drops, we actually had the nearby bar to ourselves; it was hard not to feel blessed). As a matter of fact: as we were sailing along on the final day, everyone was Googling other cruises (me fantasising once again about a round the world trip after Dave retires; it's all about the excursions as this trip proved), and Ken took that as a good sign that everyone had had fun on the trip he chose.

The final day at sea, and then back to Palermo. Kennedy and Zach immediately flew to Rome for a couple days there, and the rest of us stayed on Sicily for another day and a half; Dave and I staying in the Vrbo Ken had rented for the four of us. I had been Googling excursions from Palermo, but as the only thing I could find that interested me was a 12 hour day by bus to Mt Etna (hiking around the largest active volcano in Europe does sound fascinating, but it seems like way more sitting on a bus than exploring), in the end, we decided to spend our last full day on the hop-on hop-off bus. And while that was sort of interesting, Palermo just isn't big enough to spend a whole day seeing it by bus. At any rate, we were all nicely worn out and travel sated. One more excellent dinner that evening for the six that remained of our party, and everyone left for home the next day.

There were a couple of hiccups, but not worth writing about. From the beginning, this trip was about spending time with Ken, doing what he chose to do (even if he wasn't always feeling up to being with us in body), and I'm sure we all left feeling like we had had quality time with him. And that was the real point of it all. That's what families do. That's amore!