Ponza and Rome

Our last day on the cruise was spent on the island of Ponza. It was almost uninhabited, only two small towns occupy the island. We took an excursion in which we sailed around the island with a tour guide and learned about the mythology and history of the island, as well as getting to jump off the boat and swim in the Mediteranean! Ponza was beautiful, as you can see in my numerous pictures. After the boat tour we went to the water sport deck on the Wind Surf and swam in the Mediterranean! I think that was probably the coolest part, swimming in the Med. It was something I'll always remember, splashing around with Chris with the beautiful island of Ponza in the background. Later that night we had dinner at the fancy seafood restaurant on one of the decks with a couple we met from Canada, and we popped open Chris's winning bottle of champagne.

Ponza Sept 2009

Early the next morning we had arrived in Citavecchia, the port of Rome that's really an hour away from Rome. It was funny to eat breakfast on the deck and look down to see a concrete parking lot/road rather than water. We ventured into Rome and checked our bags at the train station for the day. I took Chris to the classic Roman sights, we started with the Colosseum and explored the Roman forum. We ate yummy pasta for lunch, and went on to the Pantheon and the Trevi fountain. We walked around and explored more, and then made our way to the airport to come home.

Rome Sept 2009

Today we went to a farm festival in Hitscherhof. It was lovely! Craft booths, pumpkins, food, and wine. Chris ate his bratwurst (my ever-promised bribe to convince him to go places with me) and I found pumpkins, a fall wreath, and a friendly ghost. Oddly enough, I didn't take any pictures - it looked exactly the same as it did last year.

Sicily and Amalfi

After Croatia we had our day at sea. Chris and I played Wii tennis with and against other couples. We also joined a putt-putt golf tournament in the lounge. Let's just say that one hole involved a popcorn bucket and a swimming flipper. Chris won the tournament, and the prize was a bottle of champagne!

Returning to Italy, next port was Sicily. Gritty is a very good term to describe Sicily. We took a bus nort of Messina and laid on the beach for a few hours. It was lovely! The scenery was beautiful. We walked in the sand, and found a spot on a pebbly part of the beach. The Mediterranean is so beautiful! It's a beautiful blue color. We read and wet our feet. After sunning ourselves, we took a bus back to the ship and read on the deck by the pool until dinnertime. The sail away was during dinner and it was nice to watch the coast lights as we ate.

Messina Sicily Sept 2009

The next port was Amalfi. The Amalfi coast is beautiful! We hopped on our tour bus and rode along the coast, then through the mountains to Pompeii. We spent two hours exploring Pompeii, seeing remains of shops, houses, ampitheaters, and temples. It was really neat. Returning to the town of Amalfi Chris and I went into town and had a delicious Italian dinner. We walked around the shops for a bit, and then returned to the ship.

Amalfi Sept 2009

Croatia

The first two ports we sailed to were Rovinj and Split Croatia.

In Rovinj we excitedly walked to the aquarium, which though it had several examples of Aegean sea wildlife, it was very small and run-down. Then we got lost in the residential area because of Chris's lack of attention to detail on maps. Eventually we righted ourselves and enjoyed the main part of town. We walked up and down lots of narrow alleys. In the middle of town at the top of the hill we finally found the cathedral we had been looking for. It had beautiful courtyards and awesome views of the sea. We were able to walk right down to the sea and sit on rocks. Then we walked over to the marina, explored a few more streets, and found the monastery. Feeling we had experieced Rovinj to the best of our ability, we returned to the boat.

Rovinj Sept 2009

The next day in Split we had our first excursion, canoeing on the Cetina river. We had a beautiful drive from the coast of Dalmatia through the mountains to the river. At the river we met our Croatian guides and slipped into wetsuits. The water was cold! We canoed (well they call it canoeing, but it was a raft for 3 people and the first 2 people have canoe paddles and the third person in the back of the raft steer with a kayak paddle) 12 km in 2:20. The scenery was nice, and we had a few rapids. We saw ducks and fish. I did not particularly enjoy wearing the wetsuit. The wouldn't let us take the camera :-( so I have the scenery embedded in my mind. After lunch we returned to the town of Split and had just enough time to go to Diocletian's palace. I was impressed, it was much more intact than the Roman ruins in, say, Rome. Also Diocletian's palace is still thriving today, it was filled with shops and other things, it is a big part of the town. We walked through and bought our Split shot glass, and had some gelato as well.

Split Sept 2009

Venezia, Italia

Chris and I went on an Italian cruise last week! We started with a weekend in Venice. After finding cruising down the Grand Canal and finding our hotel, we started exploring. We came across a church having a performance of Vivaldi's Four Seasons that evening and bought tickets. The next church we saw hosted an exhibit of musical instruments from Vivaldi's time. Past all the music fun, we explored alleys on our way to St. Mark's Square, which is very impressive. We had a delicious Italian meal, and went back to the hotel to rest before the concert. Out and about again, we had pizza and watched the Vivaldi concert. It was amazing! The musicians were fantastic. The cellist had quite a bit of character, he was very entertaining to watch.

The next morning we started walking the opposite way and walked around to the Rialto bridge. We found lots of good Venetian souvenirs, such as leather goods, a silk tie for Chris, a Venetian mask for me, and a Murano glass wine stopper. We continued on to St. Mark's Square again and went in St. Mark's Basilica. It was breathtaking! The inside was covered in gold mosaics. I loved it. We decided to take a gondola ride and it was wonderful. It was relaxing and fun to see the city from a gondola. Chris loved being on the water. We had lunch at a restaurant on the bay and decided to make our way to the cruise ship. It's a good thing we didn't take the vaporetto to the port because we would have been on the opposite side of it as our boat! We walked along the bay toward a stop recommended by our hotel host, and it ended up that we were walking straight toward our boat! We could tell because ours was the only cruise ship with sails, the Wind Surf is the largest sailing vessel in the world.

We hopped on the boat and settled into our room, then we went exploring. We had a free acupuncture appointment at the spa (eek!) and Chris got poked with needles whereas I opted for pressure points instead. We had dinner, watched the boat sail out of Venice about 10:45, and passed out in bed.

Venice Sept 2009