Well, we’ve been busy the last several days! After our first at-sea day Sunday October 5
during which we came down the east coast of Italy, rounded the end of the
peninsula and then came up the west side, we arrived at Naples on the morning
of October 6. We decided to spend the
day on Capri, where we’d had such a great time in 1999, when we rented a
scooter and cheated death for most of the day.
We took the jet boat to the island, then boarded small buses to take us
up to Anacapri, where we took the chair lift to the top of the island
(beautiful views) and then toured the Villa San Michele, which had beautiful
gardens and views of the island below.
We then took the bus across the island to Capri, where we had lunch, saw
the view from the gardens of Augustus, and then did some shopping, before
taking the funicular back down to the harbor and the boat back to Naples. The pictures for the last several days have
been added to the photo album – same web link as last time - http://mcsmith.blogs.com/photos/2008_europe_trip/.
If it’s Monday, October 7, we’re in the harbor at Civitavecchia, which is the port of Rome. Another bus ride to St. Peter’s Square, where we were dropped on our own for the day. Jamie and I had just realized that morning that we had not gotten a number for my cousin Cathy’s son Paul Kolker, who’s a seminarian at the Pontifical North American School, and we really wanted to see him, so we called and woke Paul’s dad Mike up (at 1:30 am, Texas time) to get numbers. We left messages for Paul all morning, but didn’t actually reach him till early afternoon, when we learned that he’d be finishing up giving a tour under St. Peter’s at exactly the same time we were meeting at St. Peter’s to leave, so the drama was intense all afternoon wondering if we’d actually hook up.
But we found ways to amuse ourself anyway, getting on a tour bus for an hour and a half tour of the city just to get to the Colosseum , which was the one major Roman monument we’d missed two years ago. We hooked up with a guided tour (which we enjoyed very much) then grabbed a cab back to St. Peter’s. We were headed into the tunnel for the bus station when Paul came running up and we took a quick picture of the three of us before getting on the bus. Coincidentally, Paul’s seminary was literally only a hundred yards from where our bus let off, so he actually walks through our terminal daily to get to and from St. Peter’s.
Tuesday, October 8 we were at the port of Livorno (where we saw our first cruise ship, formerly the Marco Polo, now under a different name) where we caught a bus for tours of Florence and Pisa. In Florence, we were dropped near the Accademia, where our guide took us to see Michelangelo’s David (second time for me, and third time for Jamie, but we never fail to be amazed). We then walked through (though not in) virtually all the Florentine sights – the cathedral (with the famous Duomo), the Ponte Vecchio, the Uffizi, the Palazzo Vecchio, and ended up shopping at Santa Croce, where Jamie bought her first Italian purse of the day. Time for lunch, so our bus picks us up on the banks of the Arno, and we head east to a villa outside town, Villa La Massa for a “gourmet lunch” and neither the villa nor the lunch disappointed.
Then back on the bus for the trip to Pisa, where we were dropped near the Campo dei Miracoli, where they have this campanile (bell tower) that leans a bit. Tour groups can go up it, so Jamie and I did (after she bought her second purse of the day), and you can see from the pictures that we had a great time. It is truly unnerving to be circling a leaning building going higher and higher, and when we came outside of the building at the bell tower level and then had to circle the leaning building on an outside railing to go to the very top – well, Jamie did it, but I stayed at the bell tower level! But we were feeling those 294 steps the rest of the day (and into the next day).
Wednesday, October 8, we finally left Italy for France, and spent the day touring the Cote d’Azur from Cannes. We picked up a tour bus in Cannes and drove past the waterfront to Nice, where we got out and toured the flower market (incredible, incredible food for sale – Jamie bought a hunk of parmesan, some figs and nut candy, and I photographed the octopus, squid, shark, and eels for sale for the boys). We then toured the city and went up to the original castle site to get pictures from the air.
From Nice we went to the medieval hilltop fortress of St. Paul de Vence, sort of a fortified French version of Santa Fe, where we looked at art and bought a tablecloth and napkins for home. The bus took forever to get back to the ship, and we were very, very happy when it finally did. (I haven’t mentioned this, but the first thing we’ve done every day, as soon as we got in was take a nap for two (sometimes three) hours before dinner. We’re on open seating for the first time w/Princess, and to our surprise we’ve just loved it. We’ve never know who we are sitting with, and have enjoyed every night.
Today we were in Barcelona, and since we’ve seen pretty much everything we wanted to on prior trips, we slept in and didn’t go into town till almost noon, when we went to La Rambla (the main street for shopping) for a couple of hours. We had an excellent lunch of tapas in the Barri Gotic region, then came back to the to the ship a little early to relax in our room. Tonight we’re skipping the dining room for dinner at the Crown Grill on deck 7, and looking forward to our second sea day tomorrow.