For my parents 50th wedding anniversary, they offered to take all of us adult children and our spouses on a 10 day Mediterranean Cruise!! Thankfully COVID didn't cause us any problems and everything went off without a hitch. We all got there on time and off we went.
Day 1: We flew in to Venice and arrived midmorning which gave us the whole day to explore. Venice looks just like it does in the movies. We had some amazing food and did some shopping.
We also had the opportunity to go watch one of the local glass makers create the world famous Murano Glass. It was pretty amazing to watch this one guy make multiple items so quickly. He made a Ferrari Horse in under 5 minutes with just basic tools.
Day 2: We left Venice and headed to Trieste by bus to get on the boat. We got settled in and enjoyed watching the ship leave port from the top level of the boat
Day 3: Split, Croatia
I really liked Split and our tour guide was so great.
We started at Diocletian's Palace - a very brutal Roman Emperors palace.
It's amazing how old these structures are and the care with the restoration.
We walked through old town Split and so much of the architecture was awesome to look at.
It was a great start to the cruise!!
Day 4: Kotor, Montenegro
Montenegro was awesome. It was very beautiful and we had a great tour guide.
We went to the little man made island with the church on it in the picture down below. The church is the one on the right side. The one on the left is a functioning monastery and no one is allowed on that island. Our tour guide explained that once every year, per tradition, the locals all come out on their boats and drop rocks around the island and therefore the island continues to grow.
This is the inside of the church. If you look close, you can see all the separate tin pieces that are all individually donated by people who have had their prayers answered.
We had a free afternoon after the morning tour so all of us, minus my parents, hiked up to an old fort and it was a pretty killer work out that was rewarded with a beautiful view of the harbor. That is our cruise boat in the bottom left corner.
Montenegro would be a place I could go back to and explore more.
Day 5: Igoumenitsa, Greece
Igoumenitsa is a small port town in Greece with not much to do tourism wise so one must travel inland to see anything. So that's what we did. According to the brochure, it was to be a 90 minute bus ride. Turned out to be a 2 1/2 hour bus ride - but it was totally worth it.
The ride was worth it because we got to see Meteora.
Its a collection of over 20 monasteries on sheer cliff edges.
It was unbelievable and the pictures don't do it justice.
Between the bus rides there and back and touring a couple of monasteries, that was our entire day in Igoumenitsa.
Day 6: Argostoli, Kefalonia
For our next day in Greece, we went ashore to Argostoli.
First, we went to Drogarati Cave with all its stalactites and stalagmites.
Next, we headed to Melissani Cave and took these little boats out into the cave. It was small but beautiful. Good photo op!
Then we got to spend a few hours at Myrtos Beach.
It was definitely looked more amazing from the look out -
the beach itself was super rocky and provided much entertainment watching people amble to the water barefoot.
We definitely saw a lot more of people than we wanted - Europeans do not have an issue with nudity!!
Day 7: Sicily, Italy
Unfortunately, one cannot control weather. The wind picked up pretty crazy and the ship was not able to dock or even drop anchor.
So we had a full day on the boat which actually turned out to be a nice day to relax and catch up on things.
Day 8: Amalfi, Italy
Definitely one of my favorite days because we went to Pompeii!!
Getting to Pompeii itself was an adventure. The roads in Amalfi are crazy skinny and our drivers just go!
I always imagined Pompeii being this small village - but no, it was a HUGE city. Miles by miles wide. And it is so amazingly preserved. We could have wandered for many more hours.
Day 9: Rome, Italy
Our Rome day was awesome - crazy fast and long, but amazing.
Once we docked in Civitavecchia, we loaded up in 2 vans to make the 2 hour drive to Rome.
Totally worth it to see the Roman Forum and the Colosseum.
The Colosseum was pretty cool - the engineering of it and all the subfloors...
After a quick food grab, we headed to Vatican City to see the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel.
Again, its all pretty overwhelming and one could spend so much more time there than we had as we had to race back to the ship.
Day 10: Portofino, Italy
My dad had almost every day planned to the T but he couldn't find a local tour guide for Portofino.
So it was just gonna be a free day . . . and then we realized that Pisa was not that far away.
The group got brave and we figured out the train schedule and made our way to the Leaning Tower of Pisa!! It was actually really fun taking the train and we were proud of Grandma and Grandpa joining us on the unplanned adventure.
Day 11: Marseille, France
We loaded on to another bus and headed to Aix en Provence and walked around the old town.
Stopped here on our drive to Cassis for a photo op.
Wandered around Cassis and had lunch and shopped. Darren's favorite item from France?? Mojito soap that he regrets not buying like 20 of . . .
The we ended our day in France at the Basilica Notre Dame de la Garde.
The view was pretty amazing and you could see everything as it was on the top of a hill.
Day 12: Barcelona, Spain
Not even one picture in Spain.
We had to get off the ship first thing in the morning to make it to the airport.
And then learned that our flight was delayed 4 hours.
Luckily, other than our departure flight being delayed, every other transfer, flight, bus, etc went off without a hitch.
It was an amazing trip and other than the horrible jet lag, it was so worth all the coordination and other things that went in to planning to being away for 13 days!!
No comments:
Post a Comment