October 21 - Genoa
Mimosas and a western omelet with very good bacon greeted us for breakfast. For some reason, breakfast throughout our entire trip was always brought to us around 15-30 minutes earlier than we requested. It’s a good thing I am an early morning riser.

We caught one of the tour buses for a daylong tour of Portofino & Rapallo located along the Italian Riviera. The hour and 15 minute drive to Rapallo was quite beautiful and was our first introduction to the countryside of Northern Italy. Rapallo is a charming little town located on the Italian Riviera.

We caught a boat for the 30 minute cruise to Portofino where we strolled around the town and its various restaurants and shops – typical tourist town. Our guide warned us that the natives can be very rude and, sure enough, while we were walking up the hill to view the church, the group stopped briefly to listen to our guide describe some of the lace sold in the town. A shop owner then proceeded to go into a tirade that we were disrupting entrance into his shop. Our guide said, “See, I told you so”. All in all, I was ready to leave after about 15 minutes as there just isn’t much here to hold one’s interest.

We then caught our boat for the return trip. The countryside from the boat’s vantage point is quite beautiful and our guide pointed out the villa that Rex Harrison once owned. Property along the coast is quite expensive as development is greatly limited. Once arriving back in Rapallo, we ate lunch at the Hotel Europa. Lunch was very good with pasta and shrimp. The best part of lunch was the rustic table wines, both white and red, that, although nothing memorable on their own, paired very well with the food. After lunch, we took the bus back to the ship. Although we enjoyed the tour, next time we would decide to either explore Genoa on our own or take the half-day Introduction To Genoa excursion.

October 22 – Livorno
The day started out with no wake-up call, but, never fear, I had been awake since around 4am. Then, mimosas and waffles for breakfast and out the door for a daylong private limo tour of the Tuscany wine region, arranged with Papillon tours via the internet. We both fell in love with this area of Italy, reminding us a lot of the mountainous wine region outside of Portland, OR. Tuscany was everything it was cracked up to be and more. Our tour guide from Papillon tours did not speak English very well, but this did not turn out to be a problem at all.

We drove first to San Gimignano where we had an hour to stroll through the old town, dating from the 10th century. Although very old, the old town seems almost pristine as it is cleaned and scrubbed constantly. Places we visited were the Duomo or Collegiate Church with its frescoes, statues, and sculptures and the People’s Palace and Dante’s Hall where we viewed some very beautiful Italian paintings and climbed the Great Tower, built in 1311 that provides a gorgeous view of the countryside. Numerous small shops to visit on the way back to the limo where my wife bought some monogrammed towels and an olive wood cutting board. What did I buy? Why, wine, of course. I would definitely liked to have had a few additional hours to further explore this enchanting city.

We then took an hour or so drive through the countryside to the Castello di Verrazzano estate and winery. One of the Verrazzano ancestors, Giovanni Da Verrazzano, was the first to enter New York Bay in 1524. The bridge spanning the entrance to New York Harbor at the narrows and joining Staten Island and Brooklyn is known as the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. The countryside around the estate reminded me of the wine country outside of Portland, OR, simply stunning.

The estate manager, who was quite interesting, very entertaining, and quite passionate about winemaking treated us to a tour of the estate. He lived in the U.S. for a little over a year and learned excellent English in that time, oddly enough, by reading Patricia Cornwall and John Grisham books. We toured the winemaking facility and then tasted a sampling of the estate’s wines served with a perfect lunch of pasta and wild boar salumis made at the estate. The best way to sum up the experience is we both felt like family after the three hours at the estate, albeit a slightly tipsy family after tasting six wines (the manager, who invited us to sit with him, kept bringing out more wines for us to try that weren’t on the tasting menu – how could we refuse). I bought four bottles of their wines along with some of their olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The wines were quite good, being of the old school, somewhat austere without up front fruit. This was true even for the super tuscan Sassello, which are normally more fruit forward. This was my wine of the tasting.

From the Verrazzano estate, we took a long drive towards Bolgheri near the coast for a tasting of Sassicaia and Ornellaia. These are world famous Tuscan wines that were stunning and a good buy considering the dismal exchange rate and the prices here in the US. I bought a bottle each of the Sassicaia and Ornellaia as well as a bottle of Cristo, which I had never heard of, but was in my opinion just as good if not better than the Sassicaia and Ornellaia for a lot less money. We also got a chance to drive by the vineyards of Angelo Gaja, another world famous Italian winemaker. Following the wine tasting, we drove back along the coast to the ship just as the sun was setting. A picture perfect ending to a nearly perfect day.

We both decided that we will rent a villa sometime within the next few years for about a month during the fall in order to really explore and do justice to the Tuscan countryside, food, and wine.

For dinner, we had the Sassicaia and our sommelier Bomba, as usual, did a marvelous job of decanting and serving. As I headed back to the room reminiscing of the adventures of the day and the wines tasted and bought (seven all told), I had a disconcerting feeling that I am either taking home a lot of wine, or I am going to have trouble remembering a lot of the cruise.

Snoring away as soon as my head hits the pillow.

October 23 – sea day
Another lazy day aboard ship. We had a late breakfast, snuggled in, and watched the L.A. Confidential DVD that we obtained from the ship’s library, being in a James Ellroy mood from reading the Big Nowhere. Russell Crowe’s acting in this movie again blew me away. When I first saw the movie, I thought Crowe stole the movie from all the other cast members, and what a stellar cast it was. My wife did whatever one does in the spa for a couple of hours.

Another mindless day poolside reading Ellroy and drinking Margaritas, this time. For lunch I had one of the pizzas. It was amazingly good, quite possibly the culinary highlight of the cruise as it was so unexpected, certainly sticking in my memory. Odd that my most vivid food memories of the entire vacation are the hamburger and pizza. The evening meals for some reason just blend into each other. Who would ‘a thunk it?

We had dinner at La Champagne around 8pm. I don’t remember the dinner, but we ordered a Chateau Margaux to go along with it, although I can’t remember the vintage, possibly ‘95. It was very good, and not overly expensive compared to the markup one would expect in the majority of fine dining establishments, the salient word here being “compared”.

Back to the room for another snorefest.

October 24 – Porto Empedocle
Breakfast arrives early again, although we had it ordered it for 9am. We decided to pass on any of the shore excursions and spend a lazy day onboard the ship. We went up to the pool area to read, where I settled in with a gin and tonic and James Ellroy’s The Big Nowhere. Major gripe - is it just me, or does anyone else see the need to ban 60-80 year old, overweight men from wearing speedos in the pool area?

Lunch consisted of a good ‘ole American style hamburger. After all the fancy food so far, sometimes a simple burger is all that is needed. It was quite good, even better because they allowed me to order it medium rare, quite a luxury these days given the recurring Salmonella scares.

When we arrived back at our suite, our clothes that we had set out to be cleaned that morning were waiting for us – an amazingly good cleaning/pressing service on the ship. As we were in a Silver suite, all laundering (except dry cleaning) is complimentary and we took full advantage of the service during the length of the cruise. I asked a Silversea representative before we left on the cruise as to whether laundering was gratis in a Silver suite, but was misinformed that it was not. We both misguessed what to bring for the cruise as most of the weather reports for Monte Carlo for a week prior to the cruise had high temperatures in the mid-60s. As an afterthought to the long pants and sweater shirts that I packed, I brought along three pairs of shorts and short sleeve polo style shirts. As it turned out, this is all I wore during the cruise during our shore excursions.

I don’t remember what we had for dinner, but do remember that we had the ’94 Latour to accompany the dinner. This was one of the best wines of the trip, and is uncommon for a Latour due to the atypically high percentage of merlot in the blend. This is still a young wine and should age gracefully for another 30-35 years. As per every evening, we had a small glass of the 2001 Y’quem with desert. This is simply the best young sauterne that I have ever had. Indeed, both Parker and Wine Spectator have given this vintage of Y’quem a perfect score.

I also remember that Aniko, our surly waiter for lunch when we first embarked, waited on us again. Although she did not ruin the dining experience, my wife and I both decided that we would make certain the maitre d’ did not sit us with Aniko as our waiter again. Unfortunately, we could not ensure that she would not serve us breakfast in the mornings, which she did two more times during the remainder of the cruise. The last time she served breakfast, my wife decided that she was going to make Anika talk to her. She was successful, only to find out that Aniko had been serving aboard cruise ships for seven years, hated her job, and couldn’t wait to retire.

More about the cruise in Part IIb.