Adventures in Tuscany, Florence and Pisa - Italy

            I got the call at about 7:59am when I rolled over in my bed and reached for the phone on my desk. Being pitch black in the room, I knocked an open can of ginger ale on the floor, which poured out onto the carpet. I ignored it and picked up the phone. It was Monty, our bandmaster. He said to me “How long are you going to be?”. I replied, “I’ll be ready in about ten more minutes”. He then asked, “how far is the car rental place from where we are docked?” I confidently told him “ it’s in the harbor so it shouldn’t be very far. I will bring a map of the harbor with the Avis car rental place highlighted. You better give me 15 minutes then” He then said “just knock on my cabin door when you’re ready” and he hung up the phone.

            I jumped out of bed and hopped into the shower. I took what had to be the quickest shower in human history as I cleaned the bare essentials and dried off immediately. I called Frank our drummer to check if he was up. The phone rang about a billion times with no response. I figured he’s either sleeping through the rings or he’s in the shower.

            I get all my things together and knock on Monty’s door. He answered and invited me in. He asks if I have heard from Frank this morning. I told him that I tried calling earlier but nobody answered. He said he did the same with no answer. I decided that I was going to knock on his door. Frank’s cabin was right next to Monty’s so as soon as I opened Monty’s door, Franks was right in front of me. I loudly knock three times on his cabin door. I waited. No response. I knocked again, this time even louder. I waited. Still no response. I then noticed that his door was open slightly. I decided I would just barge in. I open the door and in the dark room, I see him asleep in his top bunk. I say loudly “Frank, get up. We’re going to Tuscany bitch!” One of his eye’s open widely and he mumbled into his pillow “Ok, I’ll be there in a second”. I shut the door and go back to Monty’s room.

            I tell Monty that I woke him up and he’s getting ready. Monty seemed very peeved. A half an hour goes by and we still don’t hear from him. I go back across the hall and open the door. He’s back asleep in his bed. I shout “Frank! Get your ass up!” I then reach in my pocket and pull out a few Euro coins. I then proceed to throw them at his face. The first one over shot and hit the wall behind him. The second landed onto his chest and the third was under shot and hit the mattress in front of him. He then made a moaning noise and finally got out of bed. I then returned to Monty’s cabin and told him what happened. Monty once again got more annoyed.

            Finally another half hour later, Frank comes out of his cabin ready to go. I could tell instantly that Frank had pulled an all night-er and was still drunk. He put his hands in the air and yelled, “let’s go to Tuscany bitches!!!” I nervously laughed and looked back at Monty and he just shook his head.

We got off the gangway and looked around to get our bearings on where we were. I noticed that there was an information booth near us so I walked over there to ask for directions to the Avis building. The woman working the booth told us where it was and then asked if we wanted her call them and book the car for us. She said that they could even pick us up. We agreed and waited by the booth for them to pick us up. 20 minutes later the car arrived and an Italian man got out who spoke good English and asked us to get in.

He drove us to the Avis building and we filled out the proper paper work and we were ready to go. He gave us a GPS system and logged our destinations into it: Livorno to Florence, Florence to Pisa, Pisa back to Livorno. As we approached the car, the topic of whose going to drive finally came up. I reluctantly agreed to drive. The car was a manual transmission and it had to have been about 10 years since I’ve used a manual transmission car. I got into the Fiat and started it up. After everyone got situated, I pulled the car into first gear and off we went. At the first stop sign I applied the brakes and the car jolted forward. Everyone’s heads jerked forward and then looked at me with concern. I looked at them and said “well, looks like the brakes work pretty well… hehe” After a few minutes, I got use to the car’s handling and next thing we knew, we were on the freeway.

I soon realized that the speedometer was in kilometers and it might as well have read in Wingdings font because I had no idea what it meant. I just kept looking at the speed limit signs and made sure it was under that number. I also realized that people love to speed. I had several people along the way tailgating me. I would always pull to the right lane to let them pass but some just decided to pull into the right lane as well and tailgate me there too.

Once we reached the countryside, I got to see the real Tuscany. Rolling hills with Spanish villas and lots of vineyards and olive orchards. It’s exactly how I remembered all the photo’s and TV documentaries portraying it. It was unreal to see it in person. I really wanted to just pull off onto one of these roads and just get lost. Find some old country road and see how far off the beaten path it goes. As I imagined this, something familiar came to mind. I looked at the houses, I looked at the lay out of the land and something seemed very familiar to me. I then realized what it was. It reminded me of home. It reminded me of California! The vinyards, the hills, the Spanish style homes. It reminded me of different parts of California. Some of it looked like Napa, some looked like Palos Verdes and some reminded me of Santa Barbra. I was home! Just then, I large billboard came in front of us that read in Italian and then I realized I was no where near California and I came back to my senses.

After an hour drive through the beautiful Tuscany countryside, we reached Florence. After navigating through some narrow, cobblestone alleys, we found a small parking lot and the last vacant parking spot. I pulled in and we climbed out the windows into the streets.

We walked down the street and decided that we would like to sit down and have a drink. Next to us was a nice looking bar and restaurant so we went inside. Monty did his best to use what Italian he knew and ordered us a drink. We sat down and chatted, waiting for the drink to come. After a few minutes arrived with a bowl of peanuts and salsa verde tortilla chips. We sat, ate, drank and talked about a variety of subjects ranging from music to our childhood memories. I would look outside the window and watch people walking past, noticing the look of the Italians both naturally and fashionably. People watching I think is one of my favorite things to do. It doesn’t take any effort and it also lets your thoughts sort of wander into unknown territories. From one interesting looking person, you can deduce or even just make up and entire back-story for them. I then realized that I was starting to get kinda drunk.

I then looked over to Frank and Monty and saw that they were arguing about alleged mistakes that Frank had made in previous shows and I decided that maybe looking out the window some more was a better use of my attention. Monty then bought us one more round and after we finished, we decided to try to find the Statue of David.

We stumbled down the streets and tried to navigate or way to where we thought the museum was. We would ask people where it was and showed them a black and white map of Florence that Avis had given us. Each person we asked had their own idea on where they thought it was. It looked like we were left to our own devices for this.

We finally reached an amazing church. The sign in front of the massive doors read “Opera Di Santa Maria Del Fiore”. The large church was colored only by a bright white, green and an orange-ish color with several Byzantine patterns all around it. On the front towards the top was a large circular stained glass window, right above the churches doors. Towards the back of the church was a large, decorated dome. There were hundreds of tourists coming in and out of it and taking photos from the outside. We walked by and marveled at the density and detailed decorations on the outside.

We walked further down looking for the museum that housed the Statue of David. We walked through narrow streets that had small café’s where locals came and drank coffee and smoked cigarettes. Finally we approached a large square that had large museums on both sides. I entered one of them and asked someone where the museum that had the Statue of David and she told me it was in the building opposite of this one in the square. We walked around the square and found the entrance on the opposite side of the building.

The entrance was packed with people waiting in line to go in. It stretched outside and down the alley. We looked inside for a second to see how long the line was (and to see if we could sneak a peek of the statue from the lobby) but it was taking forever. We decided that maybe we should get back in the car and get to Pisa. It was already 1pm and we needed to be back by 5pm to have a rehearsal.

We got back into the car and this time Monty drove. We got out the GPS and set it to lead us to Pisa. As we tried to navigate our way out of town, the GPS basically got lost. It would tell us to go down streets that either didn’t exist or go down streets that were one-way in the wrong direction. We finally decided to ditch it and use our memory to get out of town. Luckily there were a few signs in the city that showed us the way to Pisa so we followed them and next thing we knew, we were back in the countryside.

Not driving this time, I had the opportunity to admire the Tuscan countryside in greater detail. Driving past more small towns, I was able to see the smaller details that separated the California landscape from Tuscany’s.

Once we got into Pisa, there was heavy traffic. We would look frequently down at our watches and noticing that we were running out of time. We were afraid that we might not make it back to the ship in time. However we were so far into town already, we figured we might as well just see the leaning tower and split. We were able to see the tower from a distance and we followed it to the base.

After looking for parking (which was no easy task), we walked to the tower. The large white cylinder from certain angles didn’t look like it was leaning, but as you walk around it, you can see the exaggerated lean. Around the tower, you can see almost every cheesy photo pose in existence displayed from tourists from all walks of life. Some are trying to push the tower up, some are trying to pull it back, others putting the tip of their index finger on the top of it. I figured I’d come up with my own and do as the tourists do.

The picture was crooked so I straightened it out with iPhoto.

Seeing that we were out of time, we walked quickly back to the car and with Frank driving this time, we tried to make our way back to the port. We tried to navigate our way back out of the city but we failed miserably. We kept hitting dead ends and there were no streets signs to help us. At one point we ended up in a courtyard and we couldn’t figure out how to get out of it. It was the blind leading the blind in that car and at every wrong turn we made, we would look down at our watches and see the time slipping away from us. Finally we followed an ambulance and he lead us out of the town and onto a major street.

We finally found signs for the freeway and as we were following them, we encountered several very beautiful Tuscan prostitutes who lined the roads getting onto the freeway. Usually prostitutes are very dirty looking, however these Tuscan prostitutes looked clean and almost like super models. One of them lifted up her skirt and turned around and showed us her posterior wearing a black g-string.

Finally on the freeway, we sped our way into Livorno. At the last minute we realized we needed to leave the car with gas in it. We pulled into the nearest gas station and put what ever we thought would be enough money into the tank. Since the gas was sold in liters and sold in Euros, we really had to guess. Eventually we put enough in and pulled away.

We had maybe 5 minutes to spare as we pulled up along the ship. We left the car by the ship where the Avis guy had told us and ran back on the ship where we barely made the rehearsal. Overall, the Tuscany region was full of surprises and I really enjoyed just observing the similarities and contrasts to my home in California. For anyone who wants to seek adventure and see old cities and sip great wine, I recommend these amazing Italian cities.           -DB

When In Rome.

            Showered, shaved and changed, Frank (the show band drummer) and I were ready to head for the gangway to explore the eternal city of Rome. We head down the stairs and nearly get onto the gangway when Franks stops. He tells me that he has rented a bike and he wanted to take it with him. I was feeling a bit uneasy about the decision because that would leave me with out a bike and he would surly leave me in the dust. He looks on the bike rack, which was just off to the side of the gangway and looks for an unlocked bike. He manages to find one. We take it off the rack and consider just running off with it. The crew office was closed today so we would be unable to properly rent the bike out. However, the lady who runs the crew office was standing near by so we figured we might as well take a shot in the dark and ask if we could take the bike off the books. Frank politely asks and she looked at him and laughed and simply stated “I don’t really care”. Before she changed her mind we booked it down the gangway with the bikes and rode off.

            The ship was docked in Civitaveccia, which was an hour train ride from the city of Rome. After a few wrong turns, we made it to the train station. The small room at the station was packed with people. We shoved our way through with our bikes and made it to a ticket kiosk. We booked or departure and return tickets which ran us roughly 20 Euros. The tickets said that the train leaving for Rome was on Track 1 so we wheeled our bikes out of the building and onto Track 1 which was right outside the building. The train was already in the station so we got into a compartment with our bikes.

            The compartments were small and there were no hooks to hang our bikes on so we figured we may have to just stand by the doorway and hold them for the entire trip. The train filled with people and as we were waiting for the train to leave, I saw a familiar face sitting in the seats in front of us. It was our friend Sara who was working on the ship and was going home today after a 7 month contract. She came and stood with us and chatted. The bus finally got going after a few minutes the next thing I knew, we were in the countryside.

            I came in and out of Sara and Frank’s conversation as I looked out the train window at the green hills and farms outside. It reminded me very much of places like Napa and Santa Barbra in California. We were passing several wine and olive orchards and I would watch the farmers working the land as we whipped by in the bullet train.

            The train made a stop and a few people got off but a lot of people got on. I had stepped off the train with my bike to let people on and off and when the train started to fill up, Frank warned me to get back on or I was going to lose my space on the train. I quickly got back on and barely fit into the now overly crowded compartment for the door to close.

            The train powered forward and after a few minutes it stopped again. This time a lot of people got off. I stepped of the train with my bike to let people off and I watched a father take his toddler off of the train and set him onto the platform. The dad untied his pants and opened up his diaper where about 5 gallons of urine splashed onto the platform. The dad simply put the diaper and pants back on his son and put him back onto the train. I got back onto the train and wondered if the dad was going to leave the mess there. Sure enough, he did. As the train got moving, I look onto the floor and saw that his feet tracked urine into the train floor right next to we were standing. Luckily, it didn’t create an odor.

            After chatting with Frank and Sara, we made it into Rome. We said our final good-byes to Sara and we stepped off the train. When the train shot off again, we could see the dome to the Vatican from the platform.

            We jumped onto our bikes and rode towards the dome. After navigating through some narrow, cobblestone streets, we made it to the front of the Vatican. Today being Saturday, there were thousands of people in front of it. We had to eventually get off our bikes and walk them because there were so many people. The line to get into the building was a half-mile long and my thoughts about trying to get inside soon disintegrated. The building was massive with several white marble statues of men in togas and robes lining the decorated roof. The building faced a large open area that had a few small fountains and statues. Surrounding the large open courtyard was large roman pillars that surrounded it in a semi-circle. On top of the pillars were more marble statues of Saints and religious figures.

            The place was busy and had tours, religious groups of all sorts and locals coming and going in all different directions which made it dizzying. Realizing that there was no way we were going to be able to wait in this line to get into the Vatican, we decided to bike further down to the Coliseum.

            Once again, we took a few wrong turns and after asking a police officer that luckily spoke English, we headed in the right direction. We had to pass under a tunnel and over a bridge that took us over the Tiber River. We cycled through the city that had many older building and still retained its ancient Roman architecture. I kept one eye on the road and another looking up at the buildings and also watching the people on the sidewalks. After biking for at least 20min, and starting to get a little exhausted, we came to an impressive monument.

            We came onto the Vittorio Emanuele monument. An impressive building made from white marble with large roman pillars. In the front, stood a forty-foot high bronze statue of a man on a horse and next to it, on both sides, flew the Italian flag. To the left of it, was an archeological site that was digging up old roman artifacts and buildings. Looking at all the old roman pillars and part of building, I look past them and realize that I can see the coliseum in the background.

            As Frank and I bike closer and closer to the coliseum, I can hear someone playing a tango on the accordion and also there are street performers on either side of the street. We pedal a little bit further and finally make it to the coliseum.

            The coliseum is massive. I mean REALLY massive. The arches and pillars are mostly intact and it stands there over looking the city like a great grandfather looking after his family. The stone from which it is made from is colored from grey to black in some areas with even bits of red from it’s old age. Once again, there were several hundred people standing around, waiting to get into the building. I took a few photos and looked down at my watch. I saw that we didn’t have 2 hours to wait in line to get in so Frank and I decided that maybe getting some lunch and heading back to the ship would be the best use of time.

            We biked a block away from the coliseum and found a nice little stretch of street that had three café’s back to back to back. We locked up out bikes and look in the first one. There we no customers so we figured that it was probably no good. We moved to the second one where two Italian girls who were waitresses asked us politely to sit down and have lunch. We saw that there were only a few customers there. We looked at the third one and saw that there were a lot of customers so we figured that that was probably the better café.

We sat down and ordered a pizza, a salad and drinks and waited patiently at our table that was outside facing the coliseum. The café had free wifi so we both took advantage of it and browsed on our respective Apple products. The food finally came and it was pretty tasty. We ordered a pizza with hot salami. The crust was very thin and crispy, as they had made it in a brick oven. The salad was OK but nothing extraordinary. When we finished we got the bill and were blown away how expensive it was. We ordered 2 pizzas, a salad, a bottle of water, 2 Cokes and beer and it came out to 78 Euros which came out to $100 US dollars. I nearly emptied my wallet on the table. We looked at the time and realized that we were running behind to catch out train. We paid our bill, unlocked the bikes and hit the road.

            We raced down the streets and tried our best to remember where we came from. Cars were zooming past us and some of them honking their horns at us as we made last minute turns and swerving on the busy road. We made it back to the Vatican and we gave those bikes everything we had as we had to pedal up hill to the train station. We get inside and there seem to be no signs in the station, or on our ticket, on which platform we should be. After flagging down a conductor, we find out we need to go downstairs and out the other side to get to platform 5 to catch the train back to Civitavecchia. We pick up our bikes and run down the stairs and make it to platform 5 with minutes to spare. The train pulled up and we got into the train. As the doors were about to close, a conductor comes onto the train and approaches us.

He points to our bikes and starts speaking something in Italian. Frank and I look at each other and shrug our shoulders. He say’s something again and the last word of the sentence sounded like the work ticket. Frank gets out his ticket and shows it to him. He says no and points to the bikes and says ticket. Finally someone on the train says to us that he wants to see our bike tickets. We told him that we had no idea that we needed tickets for the bikes. The conductor reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a pad of paper. I started to worry that he was going to write us a ticket for not having one.  He tells us (at least what we figured he was telling us) that it’s going to cost 18 Euro for both of the bikes. I reach into my wallet and hand Frank the last bill from my wallet. He writes us a receipt and takes the money.

We felt bad for not knowing but as everything in the station was in Italian, we realized we had nothing to feel bad about. We drove on and ended up meeting some American passengers that were also traveling to the cruise port to join a Royal Caribbean ship. They were from Kansas City and they were very excited to be going on the cruise. It was a father and son and another person who was carrying a black F.B.I. duffel bag. We chatted and when we finally got back to Civitavecchia, we said good-bye and biked back to the ship just in time for all aboard.  

As amazing as Rome is, I feel like you need 3 full days minimum to see it properly. Unlike some of the ports I’ve visited, this is one that cannot me fully explored in one day. I hope to return one day to get a second shot of exploring the great eternal city of Rome.               -DB

A European Dream: Valetta, Malta

            Sitting at a small café in Valetta, looking at the old St. John’s cathedral and having lunch with friends from the ship, I’m starting understand this whole European lifestyle thing people keep talking about. The ability to take a moment and enjoy it for all it’s worth is a common language I’m seeing as I’m making my way from port to port in Europe. The capability to enjoy the culture, the history, the religion and the food and still live a productive life.

            From our outdoor table at the café, I people-watch and take note of all the different people, speaking different languages. I’m trying my best to guess their nationality as the pass by the language or just their overall look. The bells at the church ring at the top of the hour and I decide may it would be worth it to go inside the church and peek around. St. Johns is an old church and could be cool. I walk out of the café and maze my way past the busy people and find the front entrance. I pay the 6-euro to get my ticket and enter the church.

            Immediately you are overwhelmed with the decorations. The ceilings are very high and are covered in religious fresco’s that are incredibly detailed as every foot or so has its own unique scene. The front of the church it decorated in gold colored architecture and glows from the light entering from the stained glass windows.

            Looking down, I saw large stone rectangles that each had its own décor and writing. It turns out that all of the rectangles are graves from different knights. I thought it was sort of a strange to have you step on dead people as you walk through the church. From the few times I’ve been to a cemetery, I was always told that you weren’t suppose step on graves. I guess if the bodies are still in the church, that’s ok? (No idea)

            On each side of the hall, there were rooms that seemed to pay tribute to different things. I wish I had spoke Maltese so I would have been able to explain what it was. Whether I could speak the language or not, I was still able to appreciate all the elaborate artwork that detailed the church.

            It took me about 20 minutes to see the entire church and I decided to leave and just walk around the city. The city had a classic old European look that I could only relate to a few shopping centers in Orange County, California that obviously tried to rip the style off. It was exciting to see the real thing however. The buildings were very old looking and each one had their own charm. Even the McDonalds building looked like it had been there for 300 years! In the streets there were lots of café’s where people were sipping cappuccinos and reading the paper or chatting with friends. I walked past a guy singing Italian opera in the streets for tips. The street life was very exciting to walk through and it seemed like every few minutes I would bump into somebody because I’d be looking around and not paying attention to where I was going.

            As I walked back to the ship, I came across a great view of the ocean and of the rest of Malta. The density of old buildings yielded a stop for me to take some pictures. Making my way down the hill to the ship, I passed several olive trees and date palms. The whole city was like some European dream. It was kind of surreal that there was actually a place like this. You see places like this on TV or in a documentary but nothing will substitute the human experience of traveling. I don’t think that airline or cruise ship industry could ever go out of business because of that fact alone. No matter how many hours you spend on Youtube or Google Images, nothing can replace the sight, smells sounds and feel of a city.                     -DB