Buongiorno!

After Greece, it was back to Italy. Next stop, Naples. Took a tour of Pompei, which was amazing. It's insane to think that the area was covered in lava in 79AD and still exists for us to see. Well, it mostly exists anyway.
This picture is inside the Roman baths at Pompei...one of my favorite pics I took.

After Pompei, we went into town to a pizza place our taxi driver recommended as being not as touristy. It was there that I had the best pizza of my life. Seriously, I don't know how anything will ever compare to it. I was almost sad when I was finished with it because it was over. Glorious!!!
Next stop was our day in Rome from the ship, and we took a tour of the Coliseum and Forum with our sexy guide Bruno. These guides are unbelievable with how much detailed info they know about everything you see. Again, it was amazing to see how much still existed almost 2000 years later and to hear stories about the gladiators and the history of the place.
Next stop, Pisa and Florence. Booked a tour through the ship to see as much as possible in one day. Went to Pisa first to get our official tourist 'holding up the tower' pictures. Here's mine...
Then it was on to Florence, which was beautiful. There's so many museums and churches I wish we could have visited but there wasn't time. We did a lot of walking through town with our guide and learned a lot of the background of the city. We saw a replica of the famous David statue, walked through the city center and saw so much beautiful architecture and sculpture.
Are you tired of hearing about my vacation yet? Well, it's almost over. I'll keep you waiting for my last installment because I need a break! : )

Vacay Continued - Croatia and Greece

Next stop on our trip was Dubrovnik, Croatia. I kept hearing that Croatia is the new 'hot spot', but I wasn't blown away. It was beautiful, but it wasn't my favorite place we visited. We walked the walls of the old town, since it was surrounded to protect it during war. Spent most of the afternoon back on the ship in our self-titled area "Relaxation Station" outside on the 3rd deck in lounge chairs.
Our first stop in Greece was Corfu. Took a taxi to the beach, driven by our favorite new Greek, Demetrius. I think it's funny how so many people we met on the trip would immediately say they only speak a little english and then be able to carry on a pretty full conversation with you. I was lucky to be able to say anything in Greek! Anyway, the beach was beautiful but the sand would literally scald your feet if you stood in it longer than 5 seconds. I had never experienced that before, and the sand wasn't even that dark in color. Then you stepped in the water and it was freezing. Very strange combo.
Definitely my favorite stop in Greece was Santorini. We took a tour of some villages and then went to a black sand beach, which was really cool. Strangely enough, the sand was not as hot as the orangy colored sand in Corfu.

After our tour, we embarked on our donkey ride up the side of the mountain into town. You either have to take the cable car or donkey to get up, and we knew we couldn't leave Greece without our 'Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants' moment. Little did we know that the trip up on our donkeys was on our own, so we got put on donkeys and off we went. I mean, our donkeys know where they're going since they do it every day, but it was still an adventure. Every so often, they would just stop walking and we'd have to coax them into starting up again. When we got towards the top, we ran into what we called a donkey blockade. Our donkeys stopped and were not interested in moving again. Since we were almost at the top, we figured our ride was over. As we discussed it, trying to get our donkeys moving, the locals had gathered above us watching us sort this all out. Lauren and I got off pretty easily, but Bethany's foot got caught in her stirrup and the saddle slid with her as she dropped to the ground. It was hilarious, and she didn't get too hurt or covered in donkey poop, so it was ok. Here I go up the mountainside on my donkey, Stella...We shopped in Santorini like it was going out of style, and saw the most beautiful sunset. I want to go back there and stay a week...I loved it. Plus, the Greeks are much nicer than the Italians! (Probably because I spent so much damn money.)
Sunset in Santorini...


Next up, back to Italy...

Ciao!

Coming back from vacation is sad, but also kind of a relief. It's nice to be back sleeping in my own bed, not having to listen to the snoring of my roomie, getting water for free in restaurants (and automatically getting ice- Erica I totally understand what you're talking about!), not having to pay to use the bathroom, there always being a toilet seat and toilet paper, and of course having Diet Coke that tastes right since the US is ok with cancer-causing sugar substitutes.
The down side of coming back from vacation is that I don't have all of my meals cooked for me (and have it available pretty much 24 hours a day), I don't wake up in a new exciting locale every day, and I have to go back to work in a few days. Ugh.
Back to the glorious vacation... we started in Rome for two days before taking the train to Venice to get on our cruise ship. We took the hop on/off bus to see as much as possible in the two days. We booked a Vatican tour which was amazing. That place is so huge, there's so much to see, so it's nice to have someone with a lot of knowledge about it giving you a tour. The Sistine Chapel was amazing and I was taken aback by how huge St. Peter's Basilica is. This is one of my fave pics I took of a blocked off stairwell just outside the Sistine Chapel..
We ate lots of gelato and pizza, trying not to think of the horrible Euro-Dollar conversion rate. It was super hot the entire trip and we discovered there is no such thing as clouds during the summer in the Mediterranean. Good thing we were prepared with sunscreen!
Arrived in Venice, but after getting off the train at the wrong stop we had to walk the "short 15 minute walk" to the cruise ship since we were past the area where there are cars. Little did we know there was a huge bridge in our path that had no ramp. Five of us trying to haul 75-100 pounds of luggage each up that bridge was quite a sight. People walking by were laughing at us, and a guy even took our video camera to get footage of our ridiculousness. Even after we got off the bridge, we still had what seemed like miles to walk mostly uphill to our ship. Our embarkation photo is pretty classic since we all look like crap from our memorable adventure. Luckily at that point, we were in the clear and ready to be taken care of on the ship. Turkey sandwiches for lunch and endless chocolate chip cookies made me a very happy girl. The ship was ok, not the best I've been on, but served its purpose. It was definitely mostly filled with old people, but we seem to make friends with the elderly easily so that worked for us. (We are much better off on a ship like that than some crazy Carnival nonstop party ship.)
Our first night we took a gondola ride, which was fantastic! It lasted almost 45 minutes and took us through the main canal and lots of little side canals. We had an accordion player on our gondola and there was a singer in the gondola right next to us, so we had lots of entertainment and singalongs. I kinda felt like I was at The Olive Garden with all the songs I heard. : ) I loved the gondola ride, and was hooked on Venice. I had heard mixed reviews of the city before my trip, but it's definitely one of my favorite places we went. Here's a pic I took from the gondola and Lauren and I in St. Mark's Square...
Gotta run...I will continue my trip review at a later date! : )