Civitavecchia

We pulled back the curtains this morning and we'd arrived in Civitavecchia – the port closest to Rome. We also saw a fair few other cruise ships were in port so it was going to be busy. We could see four other cruise ships from our cabin: Thomson Destiny, Ruby Princess (again!), MSC Lirica and the Costa Deliziosa was reversing into its berth in between the last two.

When we went up for breakfast and ate outside again, we could also see that Royal Caribbean's Voyager of the Sea's had followed us from Naples and were also joined by NCL's Norwegian Jade. That was not the last as we were heading towards the port gates, Iberco's Grand Holiday was also in port!

We were giving Rome a miss (hopefully we can make it out there for a long weekend sometime soon). At least the sun was shining unlike last year when it teamed down all day. We caught the shuttle bus to the port gate and had a stroll around the port town. The place was immaculate – total contrast to Naples.  We found the local market to see the wide array of fruit and veg they were selling, along with the fish and meat.

We headed down to the promenade area and the town is investing a huge amount of money in revamping the port area. It was all cordoned off but once it's complete will make a fantastic area for cruise ship visitors to the town. Callum had his ice cream and we made our way back to the ship for lunch.

As we were eating on Pennant Grill tonight, we got changed quite early so we could be up on deck to watch our sail out along with all the other cruise ships. We were a little later in leaving than expected as on of the coaches didn't make it back until 7.15! Aurora would be following Voyager of the Seas and Thomson Destiny out of the port ... Costa Deliziosa was hot on our tail followed by the others in turn. From our table on Pennants, we could watch the ships follow our course for a while before veering off to the left and right depending on whether they were heading west to Barcelona or north to Livorno.

The meal was lovely. A smoked salmon starter which was not what we expected followed by Fillet Steak. We opted for a flourless chocolate cake for pudding thinking it would be light, but instead it was rather heavy going, but very delicious!

After dinner we kept up with the usual routine of heading off to the Syndicate Quiz in Vanderbilts. As we'd won the night before, we were starting off on -1 ... and as an additional handicap, we were drinking the plonk we'd won the night before! We did OK once more and found ourselves in the play-off for first place with three other teams. "In what year was Roger Bannister born?". We guessed 1929, another team guessed 1934 and the other two both guessed 1935. We were all shocked when we were told that ours was the winning answer! Well done Doug! Another bottle of wine and we would be starting the following nights Quiz of -2!!