Oy Vey, Italia

Cruise day 4 – Tarquinia, Marta, Tuscania

We got to bed late last night – a combination of catching up on email, etc, and the Haunting of the Hallway. Though Andy says he heard the weird whistling sound on previous nights, I had no recollection at all. It almost sounds like a child playing a penny whistle – it comes and goes so quickly, that Andy can’t locate the source when he dashes out into the hall. At first we thought it might be the door that leads to the outside of the deck that’s right outside our door, but it’s solidly closed. It’s annoying loud, enough to keep us from falling asleep till way after midnight. And loud enough to wake us up just before Andy’s watch alarm goes off at 6:00 a.m.

So we started off the day tired.

Today the boat was actually docked in port, so all we had to do was walk off the boat out onto the pier to meet our tour guide, Enza, on bus #5. Though her English was better than yesterday’s tour guide, it was still pretty thick, with lots of “ah”s at the end of random words.

Our bus heads off towards Tarquinia, to see the Necropolis (literally “city of the dead”). Enza’s voice was rather droning and monotonous, and I fell asleep somewhere in there. Unfortunately, it’s not a truly deep, restful sleep, due to the jerking motion of the bus. It’s amazing I don’t have whiplash.

Enza’s explanation was a bit confusing, but as best as I can figure about 1860 or so an ancient tomb was discovered in this field – whether the field had been a farm or not, or how somebody came to dig a whole deep enough to find the tomb was not explained. It was the tomb of a person who lived about 2500 years ago – from before the Romans and before the Etruscans (who came before the Romans). There were paintings on the walls of the tomb, illustrating whatever beliefs in the afterlife were common at that time.

Apparently there are more than 6,000 of these tombs in this field, all discovered between 1860ish and 1960ish. The most recently discovered tombs were found by modern technology detecting underground anomalies. It sounded like the age of the tombs ranged from about 500 BCE to 300 BCE. Enza’s explanations really left a lot to be desired.

Each tomb now has a house-like structure covering it to protect it from the elements, with a flight of stairs to go down and take a look. I did that only once – saw no need to upset the knee unless I had to.

After the first tomb, Enza said, “Ok meet you back here at 10:00”, and then she disappeared. Ok, then.

We started to wander from tomb to tomb, reading the signs posted at each one. Andy saw one that had some interesting pornographic images painted on the walls. These dead people really know how to party!

We saw the tour group from the other bus – still following their tour guide, who was still talking about the tombs. Imagine that. So we latched ourselves onto them for a bit, and listened to Bus #4’s guide (Miki) talk. Huge difference – his accent was better, his explanations clear, and above all – he was interesting! We started wondering if we could just sneak onto his bus – he wouldn’t really notice a couple of extra people, now would he?

Suddenly, Enza reappeared with some of our group behind her – and she was now explaining more of the tombs! And it was 9:45. Weren’t we supposed to meet back at the entrance at 10? And now she’s walking around doing actual tour guide stuff?

Totally perplexed, we fell in behind her and listened to her give basically the same info we had just heard from Miki. Not the same affect.

Ok, so back on the bus, and now we’re off to the actual town of Tarquinia and to a museum. Huge building, no air conditioning, barely any electrical anything – the floor to ceiling windows let in all the natural light needed; there were few if any electric lights. We saw the sarcophagi of various rich people from about 2000 years ago – all of them depicting people (mostly men) lying on their left sides. This is the position that the wealthy would use to eat, to help digestion. This reminded me of the Passover seder, where we deliberately lean to the left to eat and drink as a symbol of our new freedom as a Jewish people – only the free (and wealthy) could lean when they ate.

Otherwise, lots and lots of pottery. There was a sculpture of two winged horses that had been pieced together after being recovered from the site where they were found. I liked that piece.

Did I mention the lack of anything electric in this building? Including elevators – we got to climb up 3 flights of stairs. And then walk back down. I’m sure glad I didn’t go down the stairs to visit every tomb!

Enza then vanished again, after giving vague instructions about either meeting her in front of the museum at 11:50, or at the bus at noon. We wandered around Tarquinia for a bit, hoping to see some shops, but it seems to be a rather boring little town, uninterested in tourists’ money. Which is kinda odd, since a couple of bus loads of tourists must show up at least once a week all summer long

Anyway, eventually we gave up and wandered back to the spot where the bus would pick us up.

Apparently the bus drove through Tuscania on the way to lunch in Marta, but I wouldn’t know, because I slept the whole way. The bus was a little warm, and the scenery was not interesting either – mile after mile of rolling brown hills, with random olive trees flung in

When we arrived in Marta, we were shuffled into a restaurant for lunch. We sat down at a table with two women from the other bus – Sharon and Diane from Jacksonville, FL. They proceeded to rave about their tour guide, Miki, who apparently explained that this town was picked was because there is no hotel there, no tourists, and little exposure to foreigners, and therefore “authentic”.

In Marta is a huge volcanic lake, Lake Bolsena, which has a few islands in it. We saw no boats on this lake, which we thought was odd.

Lunch started off with tasteless bread – and I mean really tasteless. The salad was pretty good – all fresh local ingredients. The main course was lasagna that barely had any meat in it at all (we did check to make sure the meat would be beef instead of pork). Tasteless lasagna – not an easy thing to do. There was also red and white wine available.

The best part of the meal was chatting with Sharon and Diane, who’ve gone on lots of cruises. They continued to rave about Miki – about how he made everything sooooo interesting! We were becoming more jealous by the minute.

After lunch, we were lead through a park in Marta along the lake’s edge. There was some kind of market (looked like a flea market), with household goods available for sale at not very good prices. Andy and I decided to sit on a bench and then just turn back to meet the group at the bus, when someone from our group said that Enza told them that the bus was going to meet us at the other end of the park. Really? Wouldn’t have than been something Enza should have told the whole group?

So off we went through the park. Thank goodness at the end of the park was a public bathroom, and all the women lined up. It turned out the stalls had run out of toilet paper, so everybody shared whatever tissues they had. Quite a bonding experience.

While we were waiting our turn, we chatted about how the day was going so far, when suddenly one woman from my group blurted out “I’m just waiting for something to happen already!” and all of us from my group started laughing. It was good to know I wasn’t the only one wondering when it was going to get interesting.

We got back on the bus and continued on to Tuscania, which is a walled town. The view from to top of the hill was very nice, the best thing we’d seen all day. We went visited Tuscania’s church – possibly the ugliest church we’ve ever seen on the outside, but amazingly beautiful on the inside.

Once again we received ambiguous instructions as to when to meet up, and then Enza disappeared. We wandered around Tuscania for 45 minutes, but all the shops all over Italy close between 1:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. (similar to the siesta concept in Spain). Since it was 3:30 ish, all the shops were closed. This was a shame, because Tuscania is supposed to be an artists’ town, and we could see some studios and galleries – but they were all closed. We couldn’t figure out why the tour would be organized to bring us to a shopping area when the shops are all closed.

Eventually we gave up wandering the deserted streets and headed back down the hill to wait for the bus. We chatted with people from our group, and it was obvious that the consensus was that except for what little we saw in Tuscania, the day was a bust. At 4:00, we waited to see if the shop we could see from the parking lot would open. Five minutes pass, then 10 minutes. At 4:15, just as we’re about to board the bus, the shopkeeper finally opens his doors.

The best part of the day? It was over cast, so the temperature stayed about 10 degrees cooler than it was supposed to be. Couldn’t complain about that.

Andy and I basically slept all the way back on the bus. Fortunately, this was a pier day and not a tender boat day, so all we had to do was shuffle back onto the gangplank.

Besides having a bad tour guide, we could not fathom why the tour was organized to be in the shopping area when the shops are closed. The whole day could have easily have been reversed – started the day in Tuscania, when the shops were open, had lunch in Marta, then come back through Tarquinia for the museum and the necropolis, both of which would have been open from 1 to 4 and it would have made no difference if everything else in Tarquinia was closed. In 20-20 hindsight, we realized it would have been better if we had just taken the train into Rome and wandered around by ourselves for the day.

At dinner, we met Carol and Bill (PA) and Roland and Pat (UK), and had a delightful conversation. Their days had gone way better than ours, by far. Hindsight is always 20-20 - we should have just taken the train into Rome and wandered about on our own for the day.

The show of the evening was “Simply Broadway”. This year’s song-and-dance cast is way better than last year’s.

Today’s towel animal – peacock.

Tomorrow – Sicily!