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Italy

Video of the Day – Cruise ship time-lapse

by Stephen Greenwood on May 10, 2011

We have a lot of great cruise coverage here on Gadling, and today’s Video of the Day is a must-see for all of our cruise ship fanatics out there.

Captured onboard a series of ships such as the Splendour of the Seas & Majesty of the Seas, YouTube user radiofreebc was able to capture some incredible scenes from both inside and outside the ships along the coasts of Alaska, Uruguay, Italy, Turkey, and more. For most of the videos, radiofreebc shot with a Sony Handicam (DSR-SR12) and altered the speed while editing with Final Cut Pro. The fitting soundtrack is by a now-defunct 90’s band called Slide Five.

Do you have some amazing clips or photos from your latest cruise? Share them with our community! Upload photos to our Flickr Group or post a video link in the comments below; it could be our next Photo/Video of the Day!

When in Pisa, do as the Asians do

by Chris Owen on May 9, 2011

We stopped in Pisa, Italy this week on a tour of the Mediterranean to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa. In contrast to lots of other landmarks and places of interest that we had seen in Italy, the tower and surrounding attractions were surprisingly well kept. Beautiful actually. I guess I had expected it to look like other things we had seen on our journey, which, over time, had become respectfully known, to us as “more old stuff”. Apparently we were not alone.

I saw this coming early on in our 9-day tour on Carnival Cruise Line’s new Carnival Magic and thought “I wonder how long it will be until we start saying dismissively: “Oh, more old stuff” but continued shooting photos, more than 1200 so far, to record what we had seen.

Recording our time at major landmarks with historical significance required that we be in the shot. Otherwise we could simply Google it and choose from a number of other photos, most of which would be better than mine. So off to what I thought was the good side of the tower, the one professional photographers would have chosen, to take our personalized photo we went. The plan was to be really inventive and use trick photography to make it look like I was holding up the tower. It’s really technical, I came to find out.

Before I had visited the tower I thought getting a shot like this would be relatively easy. The tower is not going anywhere so that leaves the subject (me) and the photographer (my wife Lisa) as the variables that can move to make it all work. Visualizing what this would look like through the lens, I positioned myself at an optimal place and instructed Lisa where to go. I figured a few tweaks here and there and this should be a wrap quickly then we would go find a nice wine bar to park at for the rest of the day.

Today I learned that it is difficult to tell “the photographer” what to do as they are the ones that are actually looking through the camera lens. When that photographer is your wife who has a new, well-deserved camera and takes some fabulous shots without your input, the moon and the stars align to make for a situation that can go sour really fast.

Such was the case as I tried to direct this scene with the sun at my back.

All I got out of that was the looming meltdown that has to happen on every journey, just to get over the regular life vs. travel life tension in the air. One blow-up and we are propelled into the next dimension, the one that allows us to move along and enjoy traveling.

Suddenly I found myself wishing I had paid more attention/tattooed on my body the helpful photo tips of Gadling’s Dana Murph which I had read but was having difficulty recalling right now in the heat of battle.

Moving to the other side of the tower, the side where the light was good, it was obvious that this was where we needed to be to take this photo.

I wanted one of the photos you may have seen before. One with the tower being held up, pushed over, or coming out of the pants or heart of somebody.

I was not alone.

Apparently the desire to be attached to the Leaning Tower Of Pisa is a universal one that transcends all ages, races, colors or creeds.

It did look like Asians are big on showing themselves pushing the tower over while other peoples of the world seem to want to hold it up and/or have expressions of horror on their faces as they attempt to make it look like the tower is falling on them.

I’m not sure if that means anything. If I had more time I might have polled these people with a battery of qualifying questions but we had just one day here.

I settled for a photo of my open hand holding up/stroking the tower, the open hand being universally accepted as a non-threatening symbol of friendship.

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Photo of the Day: Naples, Italy

by Chris Owen on May 7, 2011

I took our photo of the day this week in Naples, Italy where we stopped for the day to go through the ruins of Pompeii. Pompeii is possibly the most famous excavation in the world, drawing 15,000 people every day, almost as many as lived there before the horrifying eruption of Mt Vesuvius in 79 A.D.

Read all about it in A day in Naples, Italy.

A day in Naples, Italy

by Chris Owen on May 7, 2011

Naples, Italy is the place to be if you want to see the ruins of Pompeii, one of the best examples of a Roman town. It’s the fourth stop on our tour of the Mediterranean where we see 8 different places in 9 days, each for just one day. Of all the places we would visit, delivered by Carnival Cruise Line’s new Carnival Magic, this was one I actually knew something about and visiting would complete a dream that started in eight grade.

Pompeii is possibly the most famous excavation in the world, drawing 15,000 people every day, almost as many as lived there before the horrifying eruption of Mt Vesuvius in 79 A.D. It was a topic covered long and hard in my 8^th grade Social Studies class teacher, Mr. Hoobing, years ago to the point that it had a permanent place on any bucket list I might have floating around someplace.

The drill in 8^th grade was to hand-draw exact replicas of famous archaeological sites as a method of reinforcing information about them…or so I figured out years later. The point was well-taken though; these sites had huge historical significance and told of a time long ago that while vastly different as far as technology goes, was fueled by some of the very same human emotions that rule today.

The 45-minute bus ride from Carnival Miracle through Naples and on to Pompeii came with a running commentary by a tour guide who got most of the facts right. Never mind that he erred 100 years either side of when the big event occurred from time to time; his conclusions were accurate: the site offers a rare glimpse into what Roman life was like back then.

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If you are an armchair fan of archeology, this place takes you back to a time when prostitution was legal, rich citizens ruled and perhaps gave insight to the fall of the Roman empire and all it stood for. If you are not a fan, this is not the place to visit but if you’re in the area anyway, you probably should. There is a lot to be learned here about life long ago that can have some answers to the world of today. Maybe. If you want it to. If you go to Pompeii and find yourself thinking “Oh great, more old stuff”, you are in the wrong place.

Naples offers a bunch of great cafes, shops, and other sites to see as well as some of the best Italian food in the world. It would be a shame to be in the area and miss this one. Off a cruise ship there are a bunch of excursions one can take. Count on them all to be crowded/clogged with people. After hundreds of years, these attractions are still a huge draw to travelers from all over the world.

I think Mr Hoobing would be happy I went. I’m happy I paid attention in 8^th grade.

Photos: Lisa Owen

Sicily in a day

by Chris Owen on May 6, 2011

We have just one day in Messina, Italy to see what we can. The plan is basically the same as our last stop of Dubrovnik, Croatia on what we call our “sampling of the Med” tour that started in Venice, Italy and will end nine days later in Barcelona. We know we can’t see everything and would rather spend some quality time with something or someone of interest. Here the plan was to go to Taormina perched high above on Mount Tauro, which dates back to the 3rd century B.C. Again, flexible plans allow for a rich travel experience.

You could accurately say that Messina in the Sicily region of Italy is barely 100 years old. A massive earthquake pretty much leveled the place in 1908. That’s a sharp contrast from Dubrovnik which I will remember as the place that built a wall around it to keep away enemies, a veritable fortress against harm. Messina opens up right out to the ocean with few visible relics of a time when oceanfront defenses were a necessity.

To make the 45 minute drive we took a shore excursion offered by Carnival Cruise Line’s Carnival Magic that we are sailing on and reporting from this week. The excursion is basically a prepaid bus ride that will be sure you make it back to the ship on time. That’s important because ships leave at a pre-determined time, with or without you. Recent news of a pending strike by a transportation-related union in Italy caused concern. The cruise line had done its homework though and assured us that strike or no strike, their drivers would be operating.

Once there, the tour group headed off to see the impressive Greek Theater and we headed the opposite direction to whatever might lie ahead. At this point we had about two hours before the tour group would make it back to the rendezvous point so off we went.

Granted, two hours is not a lot of time but it is amazing how immersed one can get in a culture just parking at a busy intersection of any given town. Such was the case for us today in Taormina.

Tourists who came off of three different cruise ships dominated the town square but local residents went about their business as they might any other day. Old ladies met for a glass of wine like they may have for years. Merchants chatted with customers in their stores and cursed those outside taking photos then moving on. (Apparently that is frowned upon) Neighbors, an occasional car, dogs and visitors came and went while we sat at the Mocambo Bar, drinking it all in.

The short amount of time we had did not allow any extensive adventures but our time was well spent as we looked out across the beautiful vistas that surrounded the area. The drive back to the Carnival Magic took us into Messina and a different kind of action, that of a modern world with all the noise, honking, and organized chaos of a modern city.

Back on the ship it took me a while to get it, what we had just seen up in the mountains. We had just walked on streets that has been there for hundreds of years, saw and talked to people who’s ancestors had walked those streets and sat watching it all happen much the way it might have back then.

As I looked back at Messina from the balcony of our cruise ship cabin and snapped a few last photos, I realized that the images I was taking were from an angle and elevation not possible when this city was first built. Ten-story-high cruise ships did not stop by back then.

But between volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and the sometimes angry weather that being by an ocean brings, here was an area that survived all that to flourish in today’s world. There’s got to be some lessons there, ones I hope to explore as we continue sampling ports of the Mediterranean.