Italy - Salerno, Citivichia and Livorno

Our first close up of Italy was through the Straights of Messina the very narrow strip of sea between Italy’s toe and Sicily. They have been threatening a bridge between the two much to the chagrin of the ferry operators. Mind you the power cables have all been moved subsea but improving the landscape was clearly not a driver as the old 1954 cable towers are now heritage listed. (Isn’t engineering beautiful?)

I know many of you will be wanting to know where our cabin is. It is on the starboard side (right for you landlubbers) on the foremost kink on the 8^th level which is the same as the bridge. The kink gives us a bigger balcony (plenty of cocktail room for five) as well as a larger state room (no cabins here).

Italy is proud of its higher risk nautical profile with the pilot happily jumping off ship at 12+ knots rather than the usual 6 knots used in other countries. (It helps to explain Concordia and why we like the Queens!)

What was interesting was the old fashion manoeuvring of tugs when you have a ship steered only by rudder and no bow thrusters. These tugs worked very hard to moor this tanker around QV and then reversing into her berth.

Salerno was a working port with rolls of steel and aluminium ingots occupying much of our berth. In town however there were some wonderful old churches. This is St Benedict.

Pigeons as with many countries are a nuisance and despite the numerous spikes still managed a foothold on these arcade lights. It’s almost a two finger act.

The Church of the Annunciation had a wonderful tiled roof which looked good against the backdrop of the Etrusco Sammitica Acropoli.

As we left Salerno with a jug of Pimms on the rear deck a storm brewed with much lightening striking the nearby hills. One strike started a fire.

However, to the South the smoke from this “hill’ was not from a fire but the menace of a potential eruption of the Vesuvius volcano. 

It was all a bit distracting as the captain was trying to reverse, turn 180 degrees so we faced the right way and then travel through two more 90 degree turns to get out of the harbour.

Our second port was Citivichia (sometimes called the port of Rome albeit the latter is 50 miles away). It was a lovely Italian seaport. The treatment of heritage buildings in this part of the world has some pluses and minuses. Here one of the historic gates is hard against a recent block of flats.

While this gate tower has been extended to include flats with the usual drying facilities.

The market was very colourful set up amongst trees with shade cloth added for extra shade. There were some characters here which reminded me of the mafia whose foothold in Melbourne is at the fruit markets.

Not that they were all members…

The port is huge with a large seaward wall accommodating several cruise ships.

The following day saw us in Livorno which has a famous statue of four Moors. It reflects the port and also the Duke of Tuscany’s success over the pirates that used to roam over the Mediterranean. The Moors are significantly larger than life and were quite a challenge of Bronze casting given its 1638 construction.

Livorno also has a Venetian quarter with many canals designed by Venetian engineers.

At the centre of the canals is the Fortezza Nouva (completed in 1605)

The  main square is unusually large and would have been able to hold huge crowds and events in its past however, it looked almost abandoned when we visited. There is a tunnel under the square that forms part of the canal system.

Meantime access to the fort was also via a quite large tunnel and was a considerably warmer atmosphere with its subdued lighting than would have been the case originally.

Livorno was the last of our three Italian ports. Now its off to France and Spain.