The Neptune

Since I am leaving Italy in about to weeks I wanted to go and visit the Neptune anchored at the Porto Antico in Genoa.

Unfortunately being Genoa about 2 hours away from here it would cost me about 25 euros and reviews online are partially convincing me I should not go. Apparently you can only visit 2 decks and the poop castle is closed!

I guess I'll have to do with pictures for a while longer ^^" since everybody is saying I should go when there are special celebrations (and I would get to see pirates on the ship, climbing up and down the riggings and doing stuff).

This ship was built for Pirates, by Roman Polanski, which is one of my favorite pirates movies since it does talk about life at sea.

What I like about the ship, other than the decorations and nice colors... is the fact that you can totally see the figurehead representing a beautiful statue of Neptune - and it's such a gigantic, charming sculpture.

I might have said this already... figureheads were used not only in a scaramantic way - lots of people still do believe they were built to scare sea monsters away - but because most sailors didn't know how to read nor write. To figure out the names of the ships they had signed for there was nothing better than... a figure stuck right in the front of the ship!

If you sign to work 2 years on The Neptune but then cannot find it anchored in the harbor... you might end up on another ship, working for free, for some evil captain who values your life less than nothing!

So unless you are tricked and signed to work by devilish recruiters, while drunk... and actually did decide to take the life at sea willingly - and picked a ship with a good captain - that's when figure heads come in handy!