:: Venice, Italy ::
After 18.5 hours of travel and moving forward through 9 time zones we landed in Venice 27.5 hours after leaving San Diego. Needless to say we were a little tired and confused as to what time it was, for the record, it was 10am the next day by the time we landed. After catching up on some sleep I was eager to get out and wander around, Amanda on the other hand was perfectly happy sleeping off the jet lag, so I set out alone with my camera. I didn't realize it at the time but that night I would get some of the best pictures of Venice because during the day there were so many people and the streets were so narrow, it just wasn't very condusive to getting the great shots I wanted. Venice was awesome, but very crowded since it was summer. If we ever get a chance to go back, we'll plan it for the off season so it won't be so crowded with tourists.
:: Ruby Princess ::
After a few days in Venice we boarded the Ruby Princess for the majority of our trip. I wish I had taken the time to take pictures of the ship but it just never happened, so what you end up with is a handfull of picturees of us. Of the 12 days we were on board there were only 2 in which we didn't port in a city. We were always on the go so the time we did spend on the ship was mostly spent eating, sleeping and just relaxing after a long day of walking. The ship itself was a great experience! We had a great room and great food 24 hours a day. We spent a little time in the casino and of course had to sample all the different lounges and bars around the ship. Amanda really liked the pools, I enduldged her sun worshipping ways some of the time, but had to head for air conditioned parts of the ship after a while. The best part... As much free ice cream as you can eat :)
:: Dubrovnik, Croatia ::
Dubrovnik was neat, but so hot and humid that we only spent about half the day in the city before heading back to the ship. It's an old midevil town that is completely surrounded buy the castle walls. No kidding... it has a draw bridge, canon turrets and everything, just like out of a movie or something except this is the real thing! The city is completely self contained with residential areas, market places, churches and so on. We walked around the top of the wall that completely surrounds the city which took us a couple hours but gave some great views of the city and surrounding areas. In the pictures you can see all the roofs are basically the same orange tile and there is very little vegitation inside the city walls. It's all stone and tile which made it even hotter than it already was. You can see that the city was built with defense in mind in case an enemy invaded from the water. Craziest part of the whole thing... People still live here, inside the city walls, in the same buildings that were here 600 years ago.
:: Corfu, Greece ::
Since Corfu didn't really offer any "can't miss" sites, we decided to take it easy and relax this day. So many of our days were filled from the minute we got up to the minut we went to bed we needed a few days that weren't hectic and just offered time to rest. There were a few really popular beaches that would no doubt be filled with thousands of tourisits from the cruise ships so we rented a car, drove the other side of the island and tried to find something out of the way to get away from the crowds. For the most part, we managed to do that and the only picture I really came away with was one of the little cover we decided to hang out in for the day.
:: Athens, Greece ::
Athens was one of those stops with absolute "must see" sites so we were up and off the ship early this morning. I arranged for a private driver for the day so we could get to all the places we wanted to and be able to do it at our speed rather than that of an organized tour group with 50 other tourisits. It was well worth it to not be hearded around like cattle. We spent the morning at the Acropolis and the temple of Zeus, then the afternoon at some of the other ruins around the city as well as THE Olympic stadium and finally the Acropolis museum, which was amazing, but unfortunately I wasn't allowed to take pictures inside of :(
:: Mykonos, Greece ::
Mykonos was a neat little island that provided plenty of photographic opportunites, but not much else. There were said to be some great beaches around the island, but we stayed close to town and just wandered around. It was super windy out in the open. I was literally being blown off my feet when trying to take pictures out by the windmills. For a while I thought I might not be able to get any good pictures because I couldn't balance myself long enought to look through the lens. All the buildings in the pictures are actual houses. These are the actual homes of the people that live on the island. The entire town is like one huge condo or apartment complex with all the walkways just wide enough for two people to pass. In the end, the day just turned out to be a liesurely stroll through town before heading back to the ship to get out of the punishing wind.
:: Kusadasi, Turkey ::
I was expecting Kusadasi to be interesting from what I had read, but it was absolutely amazing, definately one of the highlights of the trip! Again we had a private driver to get evrywhere we wanted in just one day. This area is said to be where The Virgin Mary and John the Baptist each spent thier final years, it's also the location of some of the best preserved ancient roman ruins. In the morning we visited what is said to be the ruins of Mary's last residence (no pictures allowed) and then we went to Ephesus. Ephesus is an ancient city that is amazingly well preserved. Parts of it are still an active archeology sites where they are still uncovering parts of the city. Ephesus was absolutely amazing! As you tour the city you literally walk down the same streets as they existed back when the city was part of the ancient Roman empire. You can still see mosaics in the floor of the ancient homes and shops. The walls still have paintings and mosaics on them as well, and everywhere you look you can actually imagine how the city looked in it's hayday. After Ephesus we had lunch and went on to the ruins of The Basilica of St. John the Baptist. All the pictures are from the ruins at Ephesus except the last 5, those are from The Basilica of St. John the Baptist. Turkey is definately on the list of places to visit again some day.
:: Rhodes, Greece ::
Rodes, Greece is an island in the Mediterranean pretty close to Turkey. There were opportunites to venture inland and visit some significant ancient ruins but we had plenty of that and there was more to come on the trip so we stayed close to town. Rhodes Town was another midevil town surrounded by castle walls and everything. Again, it's just amazing that people still live in this town that was originally built as a fortress to protect the residence from invading countries. It was a little windy when we first got off the ship and the picture with Amanda's hair flying all over the place was too funny not to put up. Also, if you look close at one of the other pictures of us you can see our ship in the background.
:: Santorini, Greece ::
It was an adventure just getting on to the island of Santorini. The first picture is the view from the ship. There aren't any roads from sea level to the top, the only way up is by donkey along the zig zag path you can see in the center, or by the tram lift that is just to the left of the path... We opted for the tram :) The cliff is near verticle and riding up in the tram, dangling from the cable feels like your literally hanging from a thread 1000 feet over the sea. The second picture is the view from the top, well worth the ride up the cliff. You can see how the clouds settle into the bay and you literally rise above them as you travel up the cliff. You can see our ship in the distance below the clouds, ours is the furthest one out. Once up top we rented a car and drove to the northern tip of the island for what was supposed to be the best views of the town and bay below. There was a lot of low cloud cover so unfortunately the pictures I was hoping to get weren't possible but there were still some fantastic views.
:: Naples, Italy ::
I almost rented a car for Naples since where we wanted to go was quite a ways from the port, I'm glad I opted for a local driver instead! Driving in the city of Naples itself was completely out of control! Typically we think of New York driving being crazy, this place was 10 times worse. In the city there were basically no lanes at all, people just drive where they felt like it. The streets may have had lines to form 4 lanes, but cars were 6 across, just plowing their way through traffic! Our first stop was the ancient ruins of Pompeii. This was the city that was infamously frozen in time after being buried by the ash from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius The second and third picture are views of Mount Vesuvius from within Pompeii. It's a very ominous figure that appears to be looming over it's victim from decades befor. After spending the morning wandering the streets of Pomeii we headed south to the Amalfi coast. The Almafi coast is covered in small towns embedded into the cliffs, and lemon fields lining the hills. The lemons from this place were the size of a babies head, no joke! The coast is amzing, it's no wonder the rich and famous vacation here.
:: Rome, Italy ::
Rome was the last city on the trip but was definately the best. It was big city and ancient ruins all mixed together. The city seemed to have it's own personality, there was always a buzz of people regardless of time of day. The first night we were there I wandered around until almost midnight and there were so many people out and about you would think it was mid afternon, except for the lack of daylight. We did the best we could to see everything but it just isn't possible in 3 days. There are so many different basilicas all over town and all of them have ancient relics that are worth seeing; the chains that bound St. Peter, thorns from the crown worn by Jesus, the plaque from the cross and so on, they are spread over the many many basilicas of Rome. Not to mention the museums, the Vatican and the landmarks such as the Coloseum. We did the best we could to see the biggest and the best but it will take another trip to Rome to really see everything. We spent couple days touring the major basilicas of Rome and ancient ruins then spent nearly the entire final day of our trip at the Vatican. The vatican iteslef has just so much to see. We started underground touring the excavation of St. Peter's tomb, where his remains can still be seen (barely). Then we made our way up one level to the grotto, where most of the previous popes are on display (closed coffins of course). Next to the ground level and St Peter's Basilica. It was absolutely huge, the detail and size of everything was just incredible. After that we headed to the Vatican Museums which were unbelievable. They had everything from paintings and sculptures to ancient roman, egyptian and religeous artifacts. The museum system also include the Sistine Chapel, unfortunatetely no photographs here either. The last thing we did was to climb to the top of the dome on top of St Peter's. It was a seriouse climb but worth the view for me, Amanda had a somewhat different opinion :)
