I overheard an interesting discussion about Crotone, Italy. If you are unfamiliar with Crotone, it is located on the sole of the Italian Boot. It’s the red dot on the right.

It is a sleepy little Italian town that really isn’t really anything special until you look at it in a different way. On a bus back from a later excursion (I think it was in Messina), I overheard other passengers talking. One lady said, “That Crotone was the most boring port ever!” But another gentleman piped up with, “To me, it was the BEST port on this cruise. It was the real Italy. A small town. No tourist shops, no crowds (Viking Sky was the only ship there), a town square you could walk to, parks everywhere, winding streets with cars parked at crazy angles and then trying to drive up those NARROW streets.” And I guess I have to agree with him. The town itself took a little climbing to get into, and it had its share of ruins, but mostly, it was just a tiny, real Italian town.

How tiny? Viking didn’t even do any city tours there. The included tour was a walking tour of the village without guides. But all through the city, there were members of the community who would tell you about some feature of their town or their history and send you on to the next person. It was great meeting those locals. They were excited that we were there to hear about Crotone. So, all in all, it was a pretty great day. Viking did provide a free shuttle service that you could take up to the top of the village, but Kathleen wanted to save all her walking for the next day when we would be in Messina and going to see Taormina and Mount Etna, so she told me to go walk to my heart’s content. And that’s what I did.

Here are the photos I took of the seaside village of Crotone, a truly lovely place. Don’t forget, if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

A panoramic stitch shot from the ship of Crotone

To get there I just walked all the way down to that building in the upper right and crossed into the park

But not before I shot a pic of Viking Sky

Now I have crossed the street to the seafront promenade.

Found a ancient church on my way up

And cute cat that could not have cared less about me.

Finally the castle I had seen from the ship.

Inside the castle

Looking back at the ship from the castle

Other parts of the castle

A view of the village from the castle

The old cannon

From the highest ramparts

These held the cannons

Looking down on the back streets of the town.

Now a walk into town isn’t as crowded.

Loved this winding stairs and streets

Just a sleepy Italian town

With great captures for me

These tracks had great angles

The buildings were sometimes colorful.

Kathleen found that Vico is Way. So this is purgatory way.

A beautiful church façade

These next few pictures are for my two best buddies, Mike and Bob.

Mike because he loves to shoot in churches…

And Bob because he won’t even go in one.

Here you go guys! Enjoy.

Standing in the town square looking west

And east

And north

Your typical Italian business man hard at work.

A beautiful façade

Another church, just up the hill

And some more shots for Mike and Bob

Roman ruins

Inside that gate

Just up the street, another church.

Back outside.

And back down the street

Love this nonna off to market.

Lots of great places to shoot

Not sure what this is, any guesses.

I loved this verandah

Steps back down to the park and ship

The ship from the castle

This sure looks like Oregon Grape to me but it can’t be. Can it?

That was our (kind of my) day in Crotone. We finished up with dinner in the World Cafe at Nanci’s table again and then off to bed. Between Kathleen’s food poisoning and getting worn out from our days touring, we have spent most evenings in our stateroom. Viking has excellent television choices, but since we were onboard Viking, we decided we had to rewatch the entire Downton Abbey series. We just finished season 3 last night (Naples), so I am not sure we will make it. Viking does have shows, and they put them on television, both live and recorded. We watched a few for a couple of minutes (one was a Beatles tribute), and they were pretty bad. If we wanted a show, we would have sailed Royal Caribbean. The Mama Mia we saw on Allure of the Seas in 2019 was Broadway-worthy. On this ship, it’s all about travel.

As I write this, a new group of people are coming on board. This is actually not a three-week cruise but a series of four one-week cruises, one after the other, and we are on three of them. Our new buddies Corky and Larry have been on since Istanbul, so they are starting their fourth week while we start our third. A great deal of the people on board got off today in Rome, so it was very quiet until around noon, when the new folks who are doing a one-week cruise to Barcelona with us got on. We have never carried over like this before, but this day was great. Most of the carry-over people are in Rome, so that we could do laundry, I could take photos of the interior of the ship that I will share in a future post, and we could just rest. We are about to head down to the spa to try out the thalassotherapy pool and the rest of the relaxation stuff down there. Got to go. Next up for you are Messina, Taormina and Mount Etna. Not sure how soon I will get to that as we leave early tomorrow for an entire day in Cinque Terra.

You know more of a road by having traveled it than by all the conjectures and descriptions in the world.  —William Hazlitt