Day 26

I got woken up by a waiter in the purple lounge at about 8am, having slept remarkably well for someone who had to make do with a sofa that is stylishly curved in the wrong direction. They hadn’t made it easy – to discourage deck passengers (such as myself) from sleeping in the lounge the air-conditioning was set to ‘arctic’ and the TV was turned up louder. I put on a sweater, donned earplugs and continued to slumber undisturbed.Once I was awake, I went for breakfast in the self-service restaurant, and then decided that the time had come to rescue Chris from the confines of his first class cabin. At 10:30 Italian time we arrived in the port of Ancona, and I was quite sad to leave the luxurious Superfast XI, which was definitely the most well-appointed boat I’d been on.