Twice Mice

We spent a few days in Milan after our Mediterranean cruise. The weather was crummy, and it seemed like we needed a vacation from our vacation. So, embarrassingly, we spent a lot of time reading books and watching movies, rather than exploring the city. However, we were able to brave the weather to wander out and see a few of its highlights.

The Duomo di Milano cathedral was beautiful, one of the most stunning churches that I have ever seen. The entire structure was carved out of pink marble, and the front façade had just been polished. It took over five hundred years to create this glowing patchwork of pink. The colours varied from block to block, yet they all blended together to create a harmony of warmth.

In the museum at the Pinacoteca del Castello Sforzesco, there is a very interesting Pieta by Michelangelo. Our guide told us that this might have been the one that he was carving for his own tomb, but he died before it was finished. He had originally planned a design of Mary facing to the side, but later decided that the composition worked better if she was facing forward. Here two faces are still visible in this unfinished masterpiece.

We were also lucky enough to spend 15 minutes admiring “The Last Supper”, originally painted by da Vinci. It deteriorated quickly after he finished it in 1498 onwards, and has since had to suffer through being restored, scratched off, restored, un-restored, stoned, removed, reattached, cleaned, stabilised, bombed, restored, stabilised, and then restored again. While what we saw might not have been remotely like what was painted by da Vinci, it was a spectacular painting. The centrepiece of what was once the dining hall in the Santa Maria delle Grazie convent, the perspective works perfectly. The figures looked down upon us, and the scene was full of movement and mystery.

Image from para communications.

My working week became a little bit brighter with a gift from my Secret Santa from the intertubes. Even though my Secret Santa posted this box to me in November from Canada, it only just arrived on my doorstep. It was lovely to find all these tokens from Quebec, especially as Montreal it was a candidate for our new home back in 2008. The package contained many regional bookmarks, a lovely card from Santa, as well as The Shadow of the Wind, Flashman, and a local cookbook with lots of interesting family recipes. Furthermore, some delicious maple sugar, coffee candy, and hot chocolate mix to keep me company when I am curled up with these new novels.

I started Flashman on my metro trip to work this morning, and by 29 pages in I agree with his self-assessment that he is “a scoundrel, a liar, a cheat, a thief, a coward—and oh yes, a toady.” I am looking forward to learning about military history from a very interesting perspective, as well as introducing some French-Canadian influences into my Australian-Belgian cooking repertoire.

Thank-you Santa, for sending me some exceptional literary and culinary delights.

When I received our boarding tickets for the MSC Fantasia in November, I was very surprised. We had booked the cheapest room possible - a non-guaranteed category 1 windowless inside cabin on the lowest deck. When I looked at our cabin allocation, I saw that we had been somehow upgraded to a cabin on the 11th deck with an extra-long triangular balcony.

Photo from Travel Mole

As we tended to spend quite a lot of time in the cabin, this change was a very welcome improvement. Although it was usually too cold to sit out there, having a double-window view of the ocean and the coast gave us easy access to spectacular sunsets and peeks out to the other ships sailing nearby. On our first night, we stood out on the balcony, looking out as our ship churned though the seemingly endless expanse of black liquid. It was very easy to imagine that if someone fell overboard they would instantly be engulfed by the dark. It felt so dangerous that Adrian quickly huddled me back into the cabin. Despite the dangers of the ocean, I really appreciated the upgrade and the natural light that filled our cabin.

Photo from cote croisiere

The décor of the ship was really quite terrible. The interior designers seemed to have come from the Las Vegas school of thinking. That is, one can turn the tackiness of all-you-can-eat buffets and discount coupons into elegance if one just has enough gilt, velvet, and sparkles. The ship boasts four crystal staircases and enough mirrors to satisfy even the most demanding narcissist.

Photo from Francesco Federico

The jogging track was not under cover, and the weather was too cold and windy to motivate me to give it a go. The hot tubs at the stern of the ships were a great way to relax after a busy sightseeing trip. The theatre acts each night featured a bland ballad, some flailing dancers, and six excellent acrobats. The gym was located in a great position, on the 14th floor in one of the only forward-looking public areas. It was equipped with modern cardio machines, although there was usually about a 10 minute wait and they had a strict 25 minute limit.

Photo from about.com

We had two days at sea, which gave me a chance to try out the spa. I booked a two hour treatment that included a massage, a facial, and access to saunas and Turkish steam rooms. The massage and facial were both excellent – very relaxing my skin glowed afterwards. Like the majority of staff on the ship, my masseuse was from Indonesia. I talked with her and she told me that she had no other family members on board. During the course of the cruise we learned that MSC pays for the return ticket home, but those outside Europe must work a nine-month contract, rather than the six-month contract of staff based in Europe.

Photo from Francesco Federico

There were no gingerbread house competitions or pottery painting workshops on this cruise. Most of the activities were held on the open-air Aqua Deck, a cold and foreboding area during the winter. I went to one acrobatics class, but had to leave early due to the freezing winds. The Arts and Crafts activity consisted of stuffing crepe paper into a straw and calling it a flower.

Photo from about.com

The staff morale seemed to be very low. The ship provided a restaurant-style service for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but after a few days we started to avoid it. For dinner we had a particular table that we had to sit at, with two other couples who spoke Danish and Hungarian. The table was so cramped that we felt like we were imposing on their space, and the meals came out so slowly that it took at least two hours for us to eat. The food was tepid, bland, and not worth the wait. We paid extra to sit at the Tex Mex and the Pizzeria restaurants. They were practically deserted, and at the Pizzeria my meal consistently arrived fifteen minutes before Adrian’s. It seemed rude to have to say “could you please bring out both meals at the same time please”. We ended up usually just grabbing something at the buffet or eating off the ship. On our last night, the buffet dinner was advertised, but when we arrived the place was empty. The staff just shrugged when we asked them where the food was to be found.

Photo from Francesco Federico

Whenever there was a problem, staff members seemed unwilling or unable to help. There seemed to be a structure in place that restricted initiative and responsibility. The shore excursion office did not know if shuttles would be operating from the port. Every non-European had their passports confiscated on entry, and instead of returning them gradually, every person was required to turn up at 9:15 on the day of disembarkation to wait in line for hours for them to be returned. The captain did not turn up for his advertised question and answer session, and did not wear a hat when he posed for photographs with the passengers (for which they charged 40 euro for a digital copy).

While MSC functioned in its basic capacity to give us accommodation each night, and transport us to most of the ports advertised, there was no service above and beyond like that we experienced on Princess Cruises. We did enjoy our holiday very much, but this was due to our own efforts, and not of that of MSC Fantasia.

Unless they had a very enticing itinerary, we will not sail with MSC again.

This was a difficult day to plan. The ship was only docked in Civitavecchia for ten hours. In that time, we needed to get to the train station, take a 1.3 hour train into Rome, experience the wonders of this ancient region, and then catch the train back again, leaving enough time for any unexpected delays. I had everything planned out in advance, and we were going to attempt to visit three sovereign entities in one day – Italy, The Knights of Malta, and the Vatican City.

The ship let us off early so that we were able to catch the 8:57 train, getting us to the World Heritage listed Colosseum by 11:00 am. I had pre-purchased tickets on the web, so we were able to smugly walk past the long line of people waiting to buy tickets and get inside reasonably quickly. We had both pre-loaded Rick Steves’ audio guide onto our iPhones, and we listened to it as we walked through this immense structure. I enjoyed this particular commentary of Rick Steves’. Hearing the trumpets blare and his vivid descriptions, I could very easily look down into the centre ring and imagine the horrific theatrics that were played out in the second century CE. The underground passages that served as the backstage were also visible, giving an insight into the mechanics that were required for such a spectacle. To think that right on this spot, wild animals were brutally tortured, or that condemned men were placed in costumes and forced to act in a elaborate plays that would end in their death. This is the place where an estimated million animals and half a million people were put to death for entertainment. Although, having just seen the enormous bull ring in Malaga, I wondered how much has really changed in 1900 years.

I told Adrian that we had no time to stop and eat, so we grabbed a pizza and toasted sandwich to eat while on the metro. Our next stop was a visit to the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes, and of Malta. The order ruled over Jerusalem, then Rhodes, then Malta until it was ejected when Napoleon I captured the country in 1798. After the loss of Malta the Order settled permanently in Rome in 1834. The Magistral Villa is located on the Aventine hill, and hosts the Grand Priory of Rome, the Embassy of the Order to the Holy See and the Embassy of the Order to the Italian Republic. The Order still claims sovereignty, and thus the villa has extraterritorial status. I was able to peek through the keyhole and see St Peter’s basilica through the avenue of trees. That was our next destination.

After returning to Italy, it was time to cross another border into the Vatican City, and experience Adrian’s 100th World Heritage site (my count is around 50). The immense granite obelisk towers over the square. Originally carved by the Egyptians to honour the sky god Ra, then stolen by the Romans to venerate Jupiter, it now stands with a tiny cross at its peak to mark the transition from one superstition to another. There was a 100-foot tree nearby that was a gift from Belgium, and when the Pope received it he declared “May the Church in Belgium, and especially the Diocese of Liège, continue to be a land where the seed of the Kingdom, that Christ came to scatter on earth, generously germinates”.

Thanks to the terrible weather, the line into St Peter’s basilica was relatively short, and we were soon inside the church. Once inside, I was very impressed by the vast and ornate interior. The floor looked like a rich carpet, though it was really a pattern constructed in marble. Every surface was gilded or embellished in some way. We listened to Rick Steves’ audio guide, which irked me a little. I didn’t like hearing about his very statements about “Jesus’ message of love”, that “things are much more enjoyable here if you become a temporary Catholic”, and “your time here can be awe inspiring and beautiful if you accept and respect things on Catholic terms”.

However, he did touch upon the financing with indulgences, pillaging of the Pantheon, and torture during the Inquisition. He spoke of how the church betrayed Michelangelo, by promising they would be faithful to his plans and then altering them soon after his death. I learnt that the reason that the bronze statue of St Peter near the alter is wearing a toga is because it was probably originally of a Roman official, and later on the Catholics just replaced the head and placed some keys in his hand.

Suddenly it was 4pm, time to head back to the ship. We discovered that the metro station that google maps claimed was near the San Pietro train station did not actually exist, and thus decided it was best to catch the metro all the way back to the Roma Termini station and catch the train from there. By the time we finally got onto a train it was not going to arrive at Civitavecchia until 5:57pm, giving us only a half hour window for delays and getting back to the ship. Happily, the train moved towards the coast without delay, and we made it back onto the ship with ten minutes to spare.