One of the reasons for taking this cruise was to celebrate my birthday and last night in the dining room I was totally blown away by the thoughtfulness of Costa’s crew. Unbeknown to either of us they had organised a cake in the dining room but not just any cake, this one was vegan so that Nicole could enjoy it with me. Even to the extent of writing Happy Birthday on a piece of chocolate which came on its own plate. Wow, is all I can say. If anyone from Costa ever reads this then I would just like to say thank you so much, this one small gesture made my cruise.
So, to today and Civitavecchia, not wanting to make the trek into Rome, we decided to look for something local that just took up the morning and found some Roman ruins up in the hills just a few kilometres out of town. After finding a taxi, we negotiated a fee to drop us off and give us a couple of hours to explore, then pick us up later, in hindsight one hour would have been enough but it was nice to have a casual roam around.
The ruins are called Terme Taurine and are the remains of what was once a former Roman bathhouse complex. A fair bit of restoration has been done to preserve parts of the original remaining structure but it does look quite authentic while giving you an idea of what it looked like in its heyday. It took up most of the morning which meant that once done we could head back to the ship to enjoy the facilities. Back onboard by 12:15 so after lunch, we headed for the top deck for some quiet R&R with much of the ship seemly gone to Rome. Our daily routine pretty much followed the previous few days with drinks at a Della Moda then back to the cabin to shower and get ready for dinner. We have been told that with today’s fresh intake of passengers, the ship is sailing with just under three thousand but strangely enough, it doesn’t feel like it.
What a lovely gesture from Costa! It was interesting to see your photos of the ruins, I’ve previously looked at doing this in Civitavecchia but never got there last time.
I am still buzzing over the gesture, it was such an amazing thing to do.
Happy belated birthday! I’m following closely as we are taking this cruise on 27 August. The catacombs in Palermo sound fascinating – we might just do that. We haven’t got a drinks package on this cruise, but given your description of the Bar delta Moda, I might have to persuade hubby to get one!
I should mention, Lounge Della Moda is children free. 😉
Happy birthday Mike. Loving the cake and how thoughtful of the staff not only to think of giving you the birthday cake but to make it vegan so you could both enjoy your special cake.
Happy Birthday! Sounds like Costa did right by you. And you got through your visit to Civitavecchia without mentioning how hot it was (which I expect was HOT!) A half day was probably all you could take. We will be there in September and have decided that it will be a sea day for us. Our cruise has 21 days with NO sea days so we will need one by then. It will be nice to have the ship to ourselves. We have been to Rome a bunch and don’t feel the need to go in.