Civitavecchia, Italy

Civitavecchia is the port for Rome, but as Rome is an hour or so away by train, I decided to have a stroll around Civitavecchia instead.
It's actually a place I like to visit, with its vibrant market and its many bars and cafés.
It may be a bit run down in places but that's the same in most of the places in Europe nowadays.
Anyway I took the free shuttle bus to the port gates, which by the way drops you at a different gate from the one we used to get dropped off at, so you now have a 10 minute or so walk in to the main part of town, but it's not that bad.
So I spent about an hour mooching around the market and the back streets, where I came across an interesting memorial to the people killed in the bombings during WWII. It is the end of a building which I'm guessing was bombed during the war, it has been left derelict and had silhouettes of bombs falling on people. To me it is an ingenious and quite moving memorial.
I decided to walk back to the ship using the port gate we used to be dropped off at and there is an impressive old fort at the gate, but you cannot go inside which is a shame.
There was a three masted sailing ship in the port which I decided to have a look at; and it turned out to be quite interesting. It was called the Cuauhtémoc, and it is a Mexican navy training ship.
As I approached I could hear music coming from the ship, and could see the crew with their striped shirts on the deck, so I took a video of it all but only one photo! What a numpty!
Anyway it all made for a lovely morning off the ship.Read more