Day -3 & -2 Home to Civitavecchia

I love it when a plan comes together! We have been planning this trip for a couple of years after sailing the last voyage of the old Statendam cruise ship as part of a cheap round the world trip that we did in 2015. A few years later Holland America or HAL (our preferred cruise line) announced that the second ship in the Pinnacle class would be named the Nieuw Statendam. So we thought it would be a good bookend to sail on the first voyage of the new ship after sailing on the last voyage of the old ship. In between in 2016, we also sailed on the Christening Cruise of the first Pinnacle class ship, the Koningsdam, and really enjoyed the festivities associated with sailing on a new ship.  

We quickly booked an inside cabin in the Spa area (#10008) and began the planning and anticipation. Since this cruise starts in a port we've been to several times and only stops 3 times in Spain and Portugal at ports we've visited previously, we didn't need to focus on planning shore excursions, but I enjoyed engaging online with passengers on Cruise Critic. And since we've been to Rome a few times, we decided to come directly to the port city of Civitavecchia and see a bit of it as our prior trips have found us simply passing through this busy cruise ship port. I wonder what we might find?

A few weeks before the cruise I used www.booking.com and found an inexpensive bed and breakfast called Residence Stendhal. It is located in the heart of Civitavecchia and near to both the train station and the pickup location for the cruise terminal shuttle. The next item was how do we get to Civitavecchia? We fly standby, so we never know what flight we might be on. But we have nerves of steel, are flexible travelers, and pack relatively light (a backpack and a roll on suitcase is all we typically travel with). I explored options and the best option was to fly Lufthansa from Seattle to Frankfurt, layover for 3 hours, fly to Rome on Alitalia, take the Leonardo Express train from the Fuminocino Airport to Termini train station in Rome (14€ per person), transfer to another local train to Civitavecchia (4.60€ per person), and walk 1/2 mile to the B&B. The backup plan was to fly to London Heathrow, take a connecting flight to Rome and repeat the last two steps of the previous option. However, the connections at Heathrow weren't that good.

We were able to fly on the overnight Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt. We departed a little after 2pm on Sunday, December 2, 2018 on an A330 and arrived just after 9am on Monday, December 3. I watched a couple of movies and for the first time purchased 4 hours of internet access time on Flynet which I used to book standby tickets on the 11:45am Alitalia flight as we now knew we would be passing through Frankfurt. We also found that we didn't sleep much on this flight as 9am Frankfurt time was only midnight Seattle time. Would that come back to bite us or me?

In Frankfurt, we quickly cleared immigration (no forms to fill out, a short line, and no questions by the border control officer). This was in sharp contrast to our earlier trip in May through Frankfurt on our way to Lithuania by motorcycle. That trip is chronicled at www.timmer2018europe.blogpot.com. We collected our luggage, and learned to our delight that Alitalia runs its Frankfurt operations out of terminal 1 (the same terminal we arrived in). So we checked in and got assigned seats, dropped off our checked luggage, went back through security (much more intense than USA's TSA!). My backpack got pulled again for a secondary inspection (it has lots of wires, batteries, and electronics). We arrived at our departure gate with 45 minutes until boarding was to start. While at the gate, I received an email from the proprietor at the B&B inquiring about the timing of our arrival in Civitavecchia, and I estimated it would be 4:30pm. Would I be accurate?

The Frankfurt airport is a major European hub and is quite large. While they do have a lot of jetways to board passengers, there are also a number of flights where passengers are bussed from the terminal to their plane parked some distance away on the tarmac. Such was the case with our Alitalia flight. We were bussed out to the airplane (a small A319 which is like a Boeing 737) where we then waited on board while cargo was being loaded. We departed about 20 minutes late at 12:05pm.

There was quite a cloud cover on the flight to Rome, but we did get a good view of the Alps through breaks in the clouds. At the Fiumicino airport, we purchased our Leonardo Express train tickets using an automated machine next to the baggage carousel. I would note it only accepted credit cards and you have to know the PIN number for your credit card in order to use it. I didn't remember my main credit card PIN number, so I used a debit card that we use for overseas travel.

With train tickets and our collected luggage, we made our way to the train platform. It's reasonably well signed, but is is a fair distance (1/2 mile at least) to the train platform from baggage using corridors, moving walkways, escalators, and elevators. Fortunately we've done it before and like to walk, so it's no big deal for us. We both commented how familiar it looked although we've not been here for 2 years.

All the seats on the Leonardo Express are First Class seats and there are ample luggage storage options either above the seats or in racks at the entry doors. I should note that it's important to imprint one's ticket with the ticket machine on the platform. The nonstop 45 minute ride to the central Rome train station named Termini was pleasant and enhanced by conversation with a traveler from Denver who had just flown in on an overnight flight with a connecting flight to Rome. At Termini, we purchased tickets to Civitavecchia (4.60€ per person) from an automated machine that accepted Euros. We then made our way to track 28 and missed the 3:12pm train by 2 minutes. Fortunately the next train was scheduled for 1/2 hour later at 3:42pm. It arrived around 20 minutes before departure, so we easily secured seats in the upper level, but this train didn't really have enough luggage storage space, so we used the facing seats for luggage storage. This train was really full but many passengers departed at some of the early stops and by the time we reached Civitavecchia (the last stop) at just after 5, there might have been 50 people onboard. Near the end of our trip the conductor checked the validation on our tickets.

Our half mile walk to the B&B was easy following the main road into the heart of the city. Our host greeted us at the door and assisted us with our luggage up the flight of stairs, checked us in, showed us the room, explained how everything operates and gave us general information about the area. We headed back out and found a grocery store for some sodas and distilled water. We also were in search of real food as we didn't find the airplane food that appetizing. We passed on going to McDonald's as that just wouldn't be right for our first Italian meal but we did find a nice local pizzeria and despite a lack of knowledge of Italian, we successfully ordered a simple cheese, meat, and mushroom pizza and a couple Coke Zeros. Our round pizza was cut into squares which was weird, but that didn't affect the taste which was so yummy!

On our way back to the B&B, we did purchase some water with gas, Coke Zero, and some distilled water. It was cheap: 0.30€, 1.19€, and 1.00€ respectively! For the cruise I'll buy some more of the distilled water as it's $10 per gallon on the ship! I need it for my CPAP machine. At the B&B, I showered and went to bed as I was exhausted. Angela, however, went back out exploring the neighborhood for an hour.  

And so ended our first two days. Tomorrow we'll explore Civitavecchia in more detail using a port guide I downloaded. But did I sleep the night? Stay tuned!