I awoke this morning and found an ominous letter pinned to our cabin door asking me to contact reception. I was racking my brain trying to think what I’d done wrong. Maybe we were being summoned to the Captains Cabin for a 'lick of the cat' for yesterday’s incident. Surely it wasn’t the stealth photo Lyn took at dinner last night when ‘Wee Jimmy Krankie’ sat next to us (turns out it was a nice lady from Wales). I wandered down to reception but I wasn’t in trouble, quite the opposite. They gave us £100 because of the faults we’d reported on the first night and to be fair they’d fixed almost immediately. So winner winner stake house dinner and a Pandora charm on them.
We didn’t book a tour for today and it was definitely the right choice. The port is right in front of the town, and what a lovely town. It’s definitely what I’d call Italian as opposed to Venetian. I know they’re in the same country but they are definitely different.
We got off the ship and walked to the town gate (more places need a gate) and were instantly handed a tourist map. We were then approached by Andrea Patrizio (Andrew Patrick) who’s father was Scottish but I won’t hold that against him. He had a land train. I like trains. It was €10pp to take us on a 45 minute tour of the town and worth every cent.
He first took us to Cattedrale Di San Ciriaco which is right at the top of a hill and somewhere we wouldn’t have bothered to go. He stopped for 10 minutes to allow us to take pictures of the stunning views and have a look inside. We went in but there were people and a priest doing religious stuff. It seemed a bit a rude to be intruding so I only took a few pictures and a short video before exiting.
We then drove/trained, I’m not sure of the correct terminology, through the old part of the town. I have a theory that a countries architecture stops at it peek. For us in the UK it predominantly Georgian and Victorian. In Italy it’s most definitely the Renaissance underpinned by the Roman Empire. What makes Italy extra special as far as we are concerned is that during that time it wasn’t one country it’s was a patchwork of City States, Republics and Dukedom’s. They were all competing against each other and trying to be numero uno. Consequently you have relatively small towns a city’s with the most amazing buildings. Ancona is a perfect example of this.
Our little land train finally took us to a war memorial which we had no idea was there. It was built to commemorate the First World War and overlooks their lovely beach.
After being dropped off near the commercial centre of the town we headed for the Pandora shop to get Lyn her charm. She now has all the Italian ones and a few location specific ones like Florence so she got a little cruise ship for this trip. It was then time for a cappuccino and Italian pastry. I appreciate it should be an espresso but I really don’t see the point of those and they don’t seem to do a flat white or have any idea what one is. I like to know things at it seems the flat white was invented in New Zealand!
The last thing I wanted to see was L’Arco di Trajano or Trajans Arch. We initially walked the wrong way before giving up and using google maps. It was quite a walk but worth it. Those Romans knew how to build shit.
I’d been wearing my new sports sandals for this trip and they were starting to rub so we headed back to the ship for lunch. We did have every intention of heading back out afterwards but we’d had the best of the weather in the morning and my feet were hurting so we spent the afternoon in the bar while Lyn discovered all the photo editing tools on her phone. She’s now got quite into this after I pointed out to her the function of a little yellow dot which had been there all the time but she had studiously ignored. It basically helps her line up the camera for the ‘best shot’. She likes this because if the photo is rubbish it’s now the dots fault.
Tomorrow Split
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