Artfully Ann's Adventures

Travel - May 18 – Saturday – Livorno, Italy,  and   May 19 – Civitavecchia (Rome)

 

Livorno, our first stop in Italy; Gelato, the world’s best espresso.  YES!  For cruise purposes, the port of Livorno serves to get people off the ship and onto buses for visits to Florence, Pisa and the rest of Tuscany.  We had previously seen this part of Italy so we enjoyed leisure on our own time close to the port and the old part of this city of 160,000.  Very interesting streets, some attractive architecture and open air markets were a few of the things we enjoyed.

Livorno Harbor

 However, Livorno is just a port city and is fairly shabby with little to offer the normal tourists.  We are not, however, normal tourists and enjoy the little nooks where no one else looks.  Our real find was an Indian owned shop of metal decorations for making jewelry.  We spent a few hours there re-supplying my bench stock for making jewelry items.  What a toy store!  A wall or two of beautiful stones and silver pieces to choose from; I was in heaven!

 

Livorno (Italian: [liˈvorno], English traditionally Leghorn (/lɛɡˈhɔrn/, /ˈlɛɡ.hɔrn/,/ˈlɛɡɔrn/), is a port city on the Tyrrhenian Sea on the western coast of Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of approximately 161,000 residents in 2011.
 Livorno was designed as an "ideal town" during the Italian Renaissance, when it was ruled by the Grand Duke of the Medici family.  Major additions were designed by the architect Bernardo Buontalenti at the end of the 16th century. The Medici port was overlooked and defended by towers and fortresses leading to the town center.  

Civitavecchia Harbor

On Sunday, May 19^th , we arrived in Civitavecchia, which is ninety minutes from Rome, yet advertised as Rome’s port.  Not exactly!

 

Civitavecchia [tʃivitaˈvɛkkja] is a town and comune of the province of Rome in the central Italian region of Lazio. A sea port on the Tyrrhenian Sea, it is located 80 kilometres west-north-west of Rome, across the Mignone river. The harbor is formed by two piers and a breakwater, on which is a lighthouse. The name Civitavecchia means "ancient town".  This is about all we can say about Civitavecchia as this is about all we saw of it. 

Anyway, we joined a scrum of about 1,000 other people who boarded about twenty or more buses for the trip into Rome at 7:30 AM.  The driver let us off along the northeast wall of the Vatican around 9 AM.  Trying to get into St. Peter’s Square was almost too tough to handle, and crowds were extra-large in the continuing celebration of Pope Francis.  We are not trained to estimate crowds, but our guess would be that about 150,000 people were present.  We decided to wander outside the Vatican and let the crowd disperse following the Pope’s public remarks at noon.

 

Vatican

Rome is one of those should-see places and the contrasts and variations in texture are profound: imperial but crumbling, polished but squalid, refined but shabby, and wealthy but destitute.

 

Rome (/ˈroʊm/; Italian: Roma pronounced [ˈroːma] ; Latin: Rōma) is a city and special commune ("Roma Capital") in Italy. Rome is the capital of Italy and also of Lazio (Latin: Latium). With 2.8 million residents in 1,285.3 km²(496.3 sq mi), it is also the country's largest and most populated commune and fifth-most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. Between 3.2 and 3.8 million people live in the Rome urban and metropolitan area. The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber within the Lazio region of Italy. Rome is referred to as "The Eternal City", a notion expressed by ancient Roman poets and writers. 

Rome's history spans more than two and a half thousand years, since its founding in 753 BC. It is one of the oldest cities in Europe. In the ancient world it was successively the capital city of the Roman Kingdom, the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, and is regarded as one of the birthplaces of western civilization. Since the 1st century AD, Rome has been considered the seat of the Papacy and in the 8th century it became the capital of the Papal States, which lasted until 1870. In 1871 Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, and in 1946 that of the Italian Republic.

 

After the Middle Ages, Rome was ruled by popes such as Alexander VI and Leo X, who transformed the city into one of the major centers of the Italian Renaissance, along with Florence. The current version of St Peter's Basilica was built and the Sistine Chapel was painted by Michelangelo. Famous artists and architects, such as Bramante, Bernini and Raphael resided for some time in Rome, contributing to its Renaissance and Baroque architecture.  The Sistine Chapel was closed for renovation and we were unable to visit this beautiful building.  It is a good thing we had seen it before. 

Monuments and museums such as the Vatican Museums and the Coliseum are among the world's most visited tourist destinations with both locations receiving millions of tourists a year.  It seemed to us as though there were that many tourists there.  Boy, was it crowded.
 

John and I walked around Rome most of the day.  We had lunch at a pretty little restaurant on the Piazza Navona, where many artists display their art for sale. 

Piazza Navona

Then we walked over to the Campo de Fiori where the flowers and vegetables are sold. 

Campo de Fiori

Of course we had our share of gelato, café and pizza.  When in Rome…and we did.  It was my third time back and I still have not seen everything.  The sad thing is that every time I come back it looks a little more run down and sootier. The marble is so hard to keep white.  The slow economy is evident in Italy.  There are many shops closed and people unemployed.  Let’s all hope for better times to come. 

Tomorrow is Naples, Italy….come join us and share in our adventure!  See you next time!