Civitavecchia: The Port for Rome, but We Chose Tuscany

Civitavecchia:  The Port for Rome, but We Chose Tuscany

Today the Emerald Princess docked in Civitavecchia about 6am.  This is the cruise terminal for Rome, Italy.  There is nothing around the port nor in the town itself so it does not lend itself to being a tourist destination. Ninety percent of the tours today were to Rome and the Vatican.  Mary Alice and I had already done both and we were not interested in cramming a day tour of Rome with a 2-hour each way bus ride! So, we chose a tour of the Tuscan countryside and a stop at Lake Bracciano and a local winery for lunch. I don't normally like bus tours but it was one way of getting off the ship for the day.

Umbrella Pine

The Emerald Princess passenger services arranged for us to get off early with Mary Alice's wheel chair.  So at about 9:00 am we made our way to Deck #4 and we got off the ship.  We found our tour bus and our guide, John and our bus drive Giuseppe.  John spoke very good English and we quickly made friends of both. The remaining passengers arrived at 9:30 and we all boarded the bus and we were on our way.

Anguillarla

The tour took us toward Roma, that's the Italian way of pronouncing Rome.  The route took us east and north to Lake Bracciano, a large beautiful lake.  We passed by a medieval castle and stopped at the lakeside village of Anguillarla for a rest stop and coffee.

The Tuscan countryside is beautiful this time of year.  There are wildflowers all along the highway.  The most unusual tree but common tree is the "umbrella pine."  All the tree branches are trimmed except the top portion and the effect causes the tree to look like an upside down umbrella.

Our final stop was at a winery where we had lunch with delicious Italian bread, ham and olive oil.  We arrived back at the ship at 2:30.  It was a good tour.