Friday 8 – Rome to Ancona to Split

A bit of a surprise this morning. We had ourselves all organised to get to the Museo Borghese, the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain and St Peter’s. However a quick look at the date on my watch, and then Karen’s, and finally the laptop convinced us that it was already the day we were leaving for Ancona and Croatia. Oops! Thankfully we had an hour and a half before our Ancona train left, so a quick repack, a bit of a squabble over one night’s refund, and we were off to the Termini Station. We’re not quite sure where we went wrong. We’d intended to have two full days in Rome, not one, but we were a bit restricted by ferry dates so presumably we had to book the ferry for Friday not Saturday. Anyway, no harm done, but a pity as we were so enjoying Rome. Another time maybe?

So away to Termini, onto our train and off across Italy and up the coast a bit. We were in the middle of carriage 8 (of 9) where the forward facing seats met the backwards facing seats with a little table between. Opposite us was an Italian girl student, soon joined by her boyfriend and a male mate who sat across the aisle from them. They started talking, and talking, and talking and talking. Unbelievable. The whole 3 ½ trip they stopped for maybe 5 minutes total. And not just one of them but often all three were yabbering away. We had to bung our MP3s on to block them out as it got way too much.

The scenery was interesting. It was originally Lazio region, then Marche. Different trees to Liguria – smaller, more sparse and then higher up more conifers.

Into Ancona and a bit of delay with getting our ferry tickets – we had a booking but had to swap it for a ticket. Arrived at the train station, then had to bus to the ferry offices, wait there for 90 minutes until they opened, pick up our tickets, then bus to the ferry terminal to drop our bags, then into Ancona itself. A long process.

From our cafe above Ancona

Ancona was a bit of a surprise. It has a really nice old part to it, just above the ferry port. We had a most enjoyable couple of hours walking through this area, starting with an espresso way up high above the port in a café with the best location possible. We spun the coffee out for ages as the views were so good. Be warned – a latte here will get you exactly what it says – a hot milk. My espressos are fine, but Karen’s cappuccinos so far have tended to be well short of being hot.

Ancona Cathedral

Square in Ancona

Onto the ferry at 6:30, did some reading until just before it left at 8:30 before going on deck for departure. We had booked inside rooms with basin, which would have had us in separate segregated 4-berth cabins, but being low season we had a 4-berth with WC and shower together to ourselves.