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VICTOR GARBER AND ADMIRER
American movie star is famous in Italy also.On a world cruise we always end up in Europe in springtime. This is a great time of year to be bopping around the Continent. After spending weeks in the sandy brown hue of the Middle East, Italy looks like an Impressionist's painting. The vibrant colors of the Mediterranean are at their best in Sicily. We anchored in the shadow of Mt Etna and made our way up to Taormina, a small village clinging to the cliffside. If someone wanted to design a quaint Italian beauty, this could be the prototype. Our first stop was the post office. I had to mail a birthday present to my sister Judy. Apparently, Italy does not have large denomination stamps so the postmaster gave me 20 stamps each with a picture of the new Pope. Francis was just elected and there are already stamps with his likeness. Maybe it was the divine intervention of the Holy See that got the package to my sister in time for her birthday.
Mt Etna was quite active during our visit and it showered our ship with fine ash. There was dust everywhere. We couldn't see the top of the volcano due to clouds and smoke.
In Naxos, we had our first wood fired pizza of this trip and Mama Mia was it good! Then we got on the tender to go back to the ship and we waited and waited and waited. Finally one of the officers came on the tender and said that the Captain had ordered the tender operations to stop due to rough seas. As it turned out 250 passengers and 60 crew members were still on shore. So Regent did some fast shuffling and decided that the ship would proceed to Messina and all of us on shore would be taken by bus to meet up with the ship hours later. It turned out to be a nice bonus for us. Since the bus is faster than the ship, we had several hours to explore Messina. Like they say in Italy: when you get lemons, make limoncello.
Victor Garber was a guest speaker on our ship. He is a movie and TV actor whose most recent role was in "Argo." We were walking with him around Messina and we stopped to ask a local Italian man for directions. Midway through his answer, he suddenly recognized Victor. The Italian's mouth literally
dropped open and he was speechless. Talk about star struck. Once he got over the shock he whipped out his smart phone so he could get a picture of himself and Victor. He was one happy Paisano. It wasn't long before we saw the Voyager steaming into port to pick us up and there were 310 of us on the pier cheering her arrival.
Sorrento was our next port of call. This is another beautiful cliff dwelling town which is the gateway to the fabled Amalfi Coast and Capri. There were several downpours but most everyone enjoyed their day there. And the rain helped to clean off all the volcano ash from Mt Etna.
Our final stop of this segment was Civitavecchia, the port for Rome. There happened to be seven ships in port with us, so the small town of Civitavecchia was packed. We went to the local market and took a walk along the shore before going back to the ship where 600 new passengers were boarding for the final leg of our globe spanning journey.
Shortly after leaving port we passed the island of Giglio. This is where the Costa Concordia hit a rock
and sunk last year on its fateful journey. Since it was dark we could only see the lights surrounding the ship. There are plans to refloat the Concordia this summer but it is a pretty dicey operation and the chances of success are questionable. The ship has been declared a total loss by the insurance company but it is threatening the local ecosystem, so it is important to remove it from its present resting place. Because of this accident, many procedures on our ship have changed. Now there are lifeboat drills for passengers every 14 days. Captain McNeill holds emergency drills for the staff and crew every few days. The Voyager has carried us safely around the world nine times. Cruising is a wonderful way to travel.
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Jean Peterson
non-member comment
Bella Italia!