We visited some unknown Italian islands before arriving in Rome.

From Capri we sailed north to the island of Procida, next to Ischia. It was a good anchorage and we had a plan to go ashore. We also had a plan to visit Ischia, but it was hard to find the rules about anchoring there, it looked like it was only possible if you are Italian… And because of the weather forcast we decided to leave Procida to manage to arrive in Gaeta, on the mainland, before sunset.

But Procida looked really beautiful so I wished we had time to go ashore.

Maybe next time? The island will be on our list for places we want to go back to!

You will find a map for this part of our journey further down in this post.

As everywhere, a castle on the top of the hill.

We had a nice sail up to Gaeta and anchored in front of the town before sunset. It is always best to anchor when we still have daylight.

We had to be in Rome within some days and the wind was not on our side, from north every day. So we didn`t went ashore here either, because we decided to sail a little bit north west of Gaeta, to Terracina.

Terracina is not far away from Gaeta so we still had many hours with daylight when we arrived there. Terracina is a known tourist destination so I wanted to check it out, so we went ashore.

We took the dinghy into the marina. It is too shallow for our sailboat in there, but that would have been perfect since the weather forcast was not good for anchoring in this bay. It is like that almost on all of the west coast of Italy. And bad weather makes a lot of swell. And too much swell = no sleeping.

Astor had found Lidl on the map, so we walked along the promenade to do some shopping.

A beach as long as you could see!

The swell was really bad so early next morning we decided to sail west to the island of Ponza, then it should be better to sail from there up north to Rome. We hoped…

Ponza lies like a banana and when the wind came from northwest we were sure it would be a quiet night on the east side and we found a really beautiful bay.

But not… shit what a swell! We woke up at 1 o`clock in the morning and the boat was rolling around and we thought everything was moving inside the boat. We used 3 hours to re-anchor in the middle of the night, and at the end we found a spot in the bay next to our first anchorage. At that point we also use stern anchor so the boat didn`t roll that much.

After some hours with sleep we hoisted the anchor and sailed close to the town to have some photos. A beautiful place and it will be on our “come back to” list. We didn`t had time to go ashore because we still had a long way to Rome.

From Ponza we sailed in the afternoon and we knew it would be a overnight sail to Rome, and our plan was to reach Rome the next morning.

Ponza town

***

***

***

From Ponza to Rome it was almost no places to stop, but when we come closer to the mainland, to the town of Anzio, Astor woke me up and said we had to take a break. A thunderstorm was on the way and even if the anchorage was not good, we dropped anchor in the bay. It was so rolly so I was awake reading a book until 4 o`clock in the morning and at that point we decided to continue further north to Rome. After many nights of too much swell and too little sleep it was so nice coming up the river to Blue Dolphin Marina were we had ordered a berth for 4 weeks while we should go back to Norway.

Here is our route from the coast of Amalfi to Rome. It`s a tough one, a lot of swell and no protected bays on the mainland.

We had a couple of days in the marina before we were leaving, so we decided to take a day to visit Rome.

The marinero from the marina took us to the trainstation on the other side of the river (too far to walk) and then we took the train to Rome. It was still early so not that many people.

We took the train to Colosseo and started to explore Rome from there.

A newly married couple inn front of Colosseo.

When you have only one day in Rome you don`t have time to visit all the attractions. You have only time to see it from outside.

Arco de Constantino, build in year 315.

Colosseo seen from the other side.

Forum Romanum. I really wanted to see this inside with a guide, but the quay was endless, so that has to wait until we are staying in Rome for a week!

I have been in Rome once before, together with my job, and then we had a Swedish guide. It was very interesting listening about the history of Rome.

***

Julius Cæsar

The Mercati di Traiano Museo dei Fori Imperiali – Trajans Market

***

Atrium Libertatis

Rome`s 2777th birthday!!

When we took the train to Rome we didn`t knew that it was Rome`s birthday!! And they are celebrating with historical re-enactments of ancient Roman rituals, costumed parades and gladiator fights in the Circus Maximus. It was fun that we came so close to the parade!

***

***

***

***

***

Trevi Fontaine

Rome has a really good train/underground system, but we decided it was possible to see more if we walked around. Next stop was the Vatican City. Then we had to cross the river Tiber, the same river as we moor our boat at the moment.

***

The Vatican City

***

***

Theatro di Marcello, estableshed by Julius Cæsar and it is older than Colosseo.

Since we live in a boat it is not space for suitcase onboard, but since we were flying home to Norway we needed one. So we bought this yellow one! (this was on the way back to the train, we didn`t walk through the entire city with it!)

At Circo Massimo it was a lot of people and the gladiators were fighting!

***

To see more about Rome and the parade, check out our video:

We had a nice day in Rome, and of course we should have had more time here, or an extra day. But it was a bit complicated to go there from the marina, so it would be better if you are staying in a hotel in the city for some days.

The last days we used to do the last shopping, pack our stuff, and clean up. We went to a supermarket with our simply bicycles and they had a good offer for water and Pepsi! It was a long ride back to the boat!!

As you maybe has seen, this blog is not about sailing, it is about our daily life. And in our next post we are back home in Norway, and we will show you how it is there! And we will also tell you what happened when our flight was cancelled!!