Mediterranean cruise from Rome to Barcelona
There’s a feeling of exhilaration to be back cruising the Mediterranean, but something is missing.
It’s hardly the starriest of starts to a week’s cruise in the Med – a swab-stick up the schnozzer – but that’s how it is at Civitavecchia, Rome’s cruise-ship port, where the departures hall resembles a field hospital. Hundreds of white-coated nurses are poking at the nostrils of every last traveller booked on the 4200-passenger ship Norwegian Epic. Norwegian Cruise Line is evidently taking no chances when it comes to the Great Cruise Comeback, as it’s being billed. On top of the legion procedures and paperwork required these days where international travel is permitted – the tests, the vaccination certificates, the passenger locator forms and the rest – NCL has piled a comprehensive raft of its own precautions and protocols, starting with further tests at the point of embarkation for all passengers and crew.
Nobody said travel in the time of Covid was going to be easy, not least for the cruise industry where the dread spectre of mass contagion has long hung heavy; it was way back when that cruise regulars learned to dutifully cup their hands at the sanitiser dispensers. Truth is, I did wonder if it was all worth the bother, not least as Italy’s especially rigorous anti-Covid regimen forbids cruise ship guests from putting ashore except on closely monitored organised tours. To get around that, if only temporarily, I’ve arrived early to allow myself a day of wandering around the Eternal City. I join the (comparatively short) queues for a few moments of awe in the Pantheon before wolfing down a bag of roasted chestnuts at the Trevi Fountain which I top off with a maritozzo, a brioche filled with sweet whipped cream that’s a Roman specialty. It’s bliss, and a reminder of what it is to be out in the world again.
Thence to Civitavecchia where NCL’s testing process proves super-efficient. My results are back in 20 minutes. And I’ve tested negative, as does every last one of the 2000 or so guests boarding the ship (to ensure social distancing, NCL is running its cruises at half-capacity). “Where else do you get to be this safe from Covid?” asks the steward with a reassuring smile, issuing me with a pink wrist band that indicates I am good to go.
On board, there is a palpable sense of exhilaration. All over the ship guests are rediscovering the joys of getting out again after so many months of confinement. Poolside, where resident band 4Blue is belting out a succession of rock anthems in the warm afternoon, guests are reacquainting themselves with the marvel that is the premium beverage package. Hair is being let down good and proper. Later, after the ship has headed out into the Tyrrhenian Sea, the sense of making up for lost time continues in the Bliss Lounge, where a heroic karaoke session gets underway, while at the casino tables high rollers are gathering. Exploring the ship, all 15 decks of it, I come across the Humidor Cigar Lounge where panelled walls feature portraits of legendary smokers such as Winston Churchill, Groucho Marx and comedian W.C. Fields, whose famous dictum – “I always keep a supply of stimulant handy in case I see a snake, which I also keep handy” – seems to have been coined with my fellow guests in mind.
It’s later I realise that what’s missing from this famously family-friendly ship are the children; only the doubly vaccinated being allowed onboard. And where are the Australians, who count among the cruise line’s most loyal clientele? In their absence, the rest of us are quick to pitch into the Australian double-cut lamb chops at Cagney’s Steakhouse, one of the ship’s 15 consistently excellent and varied restaurants. That evening’s show in the Epic Theatre, a bravura performance of award-winning Oz road comedy musical Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, feels like NCL’s way of saying it would like its Australian guests back at the first opportunity.
We wake to Naples which, it goes without saying, we’re all up for exploring, even if government regulations insist we keep close. As our tour bus leaves the port, we pass the ruins of the ancient harbour lately uncovered during excavations to extend the city’s metro line. “Naples has as many layers as a lasagne,” says guide Brunella. The food analogy, the first of many, is as it should be in the world’s pizza capital where the Margherita, named for Italy’s first queen, was invented shortly after unification, the red tomato, white mozzarella and green basil honouring the colours of the new nation’s flag.
We file down Spacca Napoli, the teeming lane bisecting the city’s historic heart, which proves rich not only in shops of every description but references to Naples’ twin deities – Christian martyr San Gennaro (4th century), whom the Romans, typically the villains in these parts, found so hard to kill; and Napoli footballer Maradona (20th century), who opposing players found as hard to stop. At one of many shrines to the late Argentinian football star, the memorabilia-laden bar on Piazza Nilo, we pay our respects over heart-kicking espressos.
Back at the gang plank the staff welcome us on board, but not before they have taken our temperatures and reminded us to wear our masks. It’s all just as rigorous as it should be, and part of NCL’s comprehensive safety regime, which has seen Norwegian Epic fitted with its own Covid lab, dedicated public health staff, medical-grade air filtration systems and much else besides. If NCL has the beating of Covid in mind, then the fact it already has six of its 17 ships back in operation, with another six under construction, suggests the company is bullish about the future. As we leave harbour that evening, with world-class views of Vesuvius, the Sorrento Peninsula and the island of Capri unfurling before me, I find my own doubts being rapidly dispelled.
After Livorno, and an excursion into the Tuscan hills and the medieval fortified town of San Gimignano, there is a day at sea. Across the sun decks people are splayed in poses of stupefied pleasure. Active types are trying their luck on the climbing wall or, in my case, the aqua park, where the absence of kids means a welcome lack of queues for the water slides.
And so to Barcelona, where those leaving the cruise face another stick up the nose (this time in the pop-up clinic in Headliners Comedy Club). This being Spain, we are not required to join a tour but are free to wander a city evidently emerging from the worst of it. It’s the morning after the night before, it seems, as it was the first time since the pandemic began that the city’s clubs were permitted to stay open into the early hours. Knots of bleary-eyed but happy students doze in parks. I take myself off to the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi’s unfinished masterpiece, and wander this great cathedral’s forest-like interior. It’s final proof, if any were needed, that boarding a cruise ship is indeed worth every bit of the bother.
In the know
Norwegian Cruise Line’s five-day voyage from Rome to Barcelona calls at Naples, Florence, Cannes and Majorca. Departs September 27 and October 2, 2022; from $1913 a person, twin-share, in a Balcony stateroom.
Jeremy Seal was a guest of Norwegian Cruise Line.
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