A Mediterranean Cruise!

This post is dedicated to a friend who encourages me to bring this blog back to life because he doesn't do Facebook!!  So I will let you know what this year has been like and I am going to start with current and work back...why? because it is already a daunting task!!  LOL

A Mediterranean Cruise ~ 2017

 Scott surprised me with a cruise and we decided to spread the joy and invite Dina and her two daughters Ellie and Lily along.  We left July 28, flew to Seattle, boarded British Airways for our trip to London, from there we flew to Rome.  We were in Rome for two and half days.  Scott arranged for a private guide for the two days so we could see as much of Rome as possible  We walked 9 miles the first day and saw so many things my head is still spinning.

      First I have to share the seating in the British Air flight, because this was a big deal for us... the seats lay all the way back and they give you a pillow and blankets, an eye mask, little toothbrush and paste, cream lotion etc.    Our first time flying in business class...the only way to fly long distance!!
the opaque window goes up and down, just in case you are sitting with someone you don't know!                                                                               ROME
                                        

San Giovanni in Laterno (St. John Lateran) is the official cathedral of Rome (not St. Peter's Basilica).  This church is the Seat of the "Pope" and one of the first catholic churches in Rome. This door is huge!  (Did I mention Dina's luggage did not make it to Rome?  For that matter, it NEVER made it to her the whole trip!  It did get to her house the day before we got home!)

 

There are four Papal Basilica Jubilee Doors in Rome.  This is the outside of the door at San Giovanni Lateran.  The Pope stands at this door and knocks on it.  People inside the church stand at the wall where there is a cross and when they hear the knocking, they break down the wall!  Then they build it back up again for the next Jubilee Year (typically every 25 years). 

         

Isn't this door HUGE?  OMG!  Everything about this church was super-sized...the statues inside were all enormous and so impressive.  Every church we went into was like nothing I have seen here in the states.  They really knew how to build them all those years ago, such fine detail in everything they did.    Okay, who was the wise guy that took my phone and did this goofy picture??? MamaMia!                                                           

Throwing a coin into Trevi Fountain is a tradition that ensures the visitor will get a return to Rome!

Of course we had to throw a coin into the fountain.  It is the largest Baroque fountain in the city and the most beautiful in the world. The water comes from an aqueduct originally constructed in 19 BC.

We spent the first day going to Santa Maria Maggiore, the  Ancient City (Pantheon, Palatine Hill), the Jewish Ghetto, famous squares and fountains like the one pictured above.  The second day in Rome was spent visiting Castel Sant'Angelo, Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Basilica, the Colosseum and several more churches.     

FLORENCE & PISA 

                                          

           

Our first excursion on our Regents Seven Seas Cruise was a 10.5 hour day that included a trip to Florence where we had a local guide walk us around and give the history and point out the many churches, statues and other magnificent works of art.  From there we went to Pisa pictured above.  Of course we had to do the typical tourist 'forced perspective' photo shoot.  The center photo is Lily holding up the Pisa. (*wink)

                                                    AJACCIO, CORSICA

Our second port was Corsica Island, which is French.  We docked at Ajaccio and had a blast swimming in the Mediterranean Sea.  The girls loved it!  We chose not to do an excursion as we really wanted one day where we could play at the beach!  We walked around that very quaint town, the girls each had a crepe...Lily had strawberry, Ellie had a banana/chocolate crepe.

 CINQUE TERRE

Our third port was La Spezia, and we took a cruise boat to Cinque Terre for our excursion. The picture on the left is from the boat. The picture on the right shows Dina in the foreground taking a picture, Ellie is in the dress to her left and in front of her. All the cities were the same with many storied buildings, people living above the stores with clothing hanging out windows to dry.

MONTE CARLO, MONACO, EZE, NICE 

We are in the French Riviera!!  OMG!!  Our next port was Monte Carlo, Monaco!  We LOVED it, wish we had more time to stay longer.  We took a tour bus up to Eze a charming hilltop town on the Cote d'Azur!  We were told about 2,000 people live there but in the winter months, don't go because everything is shut down! From there we drove down to Nice; had lunch and roamed the city. Then we went to Monaco and visited the church where Grace Kelly was married, saw the houses her daughters own (but don't live full time), the girls had a STARBUCKS!! We didn't go to a casino in Monte Carlo because it would have cost about 17 dollars to get in and the girls wouldn't have been allowed, so we opted out of giving them more of our money!  LOL!!

The view from the bus on our tour up to Eze.  Isn't that water just gorgeous?   The church in Monaco where Princess Grace Kelly was married. And the girls in front of a statue in the courtyard.

 

The girls called the cruise the geriatric cruise! ha ha!!  I must admit there were not a LOT of young people, but some!  After 6pm every night we were not to wear shorts, jeans, flip flops, or athletic shoes and we had to be dressed up for dinner.  So here we are the night we were docked in Monte Carlo.  Scott and I had a room at the 'aft' of the ship with a lovely deck.  And we had our own private 'butler'!!  He brought special plates every late afternoon (I guess a precursor to the dinner) and so we invited the girls to our room to share the food and we got a picture out on our deck!

 

ANTIBES, FRANCE

We went to a glass blowing Factory and watched them blow and manipulate the glass to become a goblet...then we did a little shopping in their store.

 

After the bus tour to the glass blowing we went back to town and roamed a bit, by the harbor there were many of these sculptures on display  Scott is in the background near this bull.

MARSEILLE, FRANCE

 I had to super size this photo so you could see why I took it...look in the background over Lily's shoulder, do you see it?  "Starbucks Coffee". Oh they were so excited to see that store, of course it was the first stop.  Our plan for the day was to do some shopping for Dina as she was borrowing everyone's clothes.  And she could really use some shoes because she only had flip flops on the plane ride.  I did share one sandal with her and Ellie had a pair of Nike's, but she needed something like a sandal, but good for her feet...we do a lot of walking on these excursions!  We were successful in finding tops and dresses and even a pair of UGG sandals!!  I even bought a top in Marseille.

PALAMOS, SPAIN

                  

 

The Costa Brava is one of Spain's most beautiful regions.  Here we are in Tossa de Mar, a beautiful quaint and almost fairy tale type of village.  Again Dina and I would have loved more time to roam and maybe shop??  We climbed quite high to see the sites below and enjoy the view. This is a well-preserved Old Town with a Gothic church and a view from the ancient Roman fortress that overlooks the bay.  It was built in 1187 to defend the town against invaders approaching from the sea.  This Old Town is the only surviving walled city on the Catalan coast.

From here we continued on the tour bus to Lloret de Mar just down the coast.  This too is a beautiful seaside village.  We stopped for a tour of the Santa Clotilde Gardens.  It was designed in the 1920's in the manner of the Italian Renaissance gardens.  NO FLOWERS!!  All IVY!!  The guide kept pointing out all the 'ivy'...notice how the 'ivy' is integrated into the paths, or into the steps, or even into the hedges!  I guess they like 'IVY", unlike here where it is banned because of how invasive a plant it is!!

This town is full of high rises to accommodate all the seasonal visitors (mostly Europeans) on holiday.  The town will grow to over 200,000 people in the summer months.

                                   

PALMA DE MALLORCA, SPAIN

We went to the Caves of Drach (Dragon), a spectacular underground attraction.  The caves contain stalactites and stalagmites reflecting in the clear pools. It has one of the world's largest subterranean lakes and they put on a little show for us with three boats with musicians in them playing music for us and they had down lighting and lights on the boats...very pretty...they kept it dark while the show was going on so we could enjoy the lights from the boats. This is one of those pictures that is hard to capture unless you have a camera that allows you to use different lenses.  The did not allow flash!

 We also visited the Mallorca pearls being made in a factory.  These are faux pearls made from natural marine products; they are nearly indistinguishable from the real thing.  Of course we had to buy some pearl earrings and bracelets and Papa even bought Lily a necklace!

The Cathedral of Santa Maria of Palma

is often called the Cathedral of Light.

This Catalan Gothic Cathedral was built in 1229 and finished in 1601.

The rose window on the east side of the cathedral is one of the world's largest, it is 40 feet across and constructed with 1,236 pieces of stained glass.

Restoration of this church began in 1851, in 1901 architect Antoni Gaudi took over the project.  Much of his Art Nouveau work can be seen inside this cathedral.  You will see more of Gaudi's work when we get to Barcelona where he took over the construction and design of The Sagrada Familia.  

 

Many of the churches we saw in Rome as well as other cities all had magnificent construction over their altar's.  

I am not standing at the back of the church, but you can still see the stained glass "rose" and the altar with the display above it.  I have so many pictures, but I will not bore you with any more of this church.  I still have Valencia to go to finish our cruise.

VALENCIA, SPAIN

 How fun is this little scene, for a few euro's you can have your picture taken with him...do you see all the bubbles floating down?

 They had a HUGE indoor market filled with vendors who were selling fruits, vegetables, meats, fish everything you can think of...  it definitely had a fishy smell to it!  Here I am in front of some fruit, do you see those big clusters of grapes?  I bought my dad a package of Valencia tomato seeds.

 Ellie and Lily in front of a fountain.

 A statue of Valencia!

 If you know Ellie, you know she loves potatoes...any kind, hash, mashed, and fried...here is patatas fritas...a bucket of them!!

 Final night on board the cruise ship

This is our last night on the cruise ship.  We had one more picture before going to the restaurant for our final dinner.  We had the best waiters who became our friends while on board

 an avocado crab salad for an appetizer...so yumm

 caramel popcorn sundae!  Oh yeah!!

 a chocolate mousse dessert!

THE END OF THE CRUISE

I think I will start another post with Barcelona!

Thanks for hanging in there for the 10 day cruise and 21/2 days in Rome ,

I know this was picture overload and I really tried going light, just to give you a little peek at what we saw.  It was an amazing trip and I think I am ready to try another one...maybe next year!