Dubrovnik Croatia

This was our first Port on the cruise and one of my favorites. We took a tour bus up from the bay to a small mountain village. We visited a winery and got a real taste for their culture (not a literal taste, we had water) we got to sample their local cheeses, figs, and smoked meats. There were waterfalls and little streams everywhere. There was a grain mill with a water wheel where a man in their traditional attire ran the mill, they also had live entertainment during our luncheon, which was fun to listen to (gotta love the accordian).



From the village we headed back down the mountain to "Old Town" in the port of Dubrovnik. It was a medieval city with a huge wall around it. There were a few towers they were reconstructing when they were bombed during their recent civil war in the 90's. Crazy to think about such recent violent events in some of those countries. The inside of Old Town was so charming. The entire street was paved with beautiful cream marble, and we are not talking cobblestones, they were cut fitted blocks that were smooth and shiny. No cars were allowed on the streets obviously, but the streets just glowed, and the entire city was so clean. Around every corner in Old Town was a postcard picture. It was so beautiful. There were traditional wooden boats in the harbor you could take tours in. I purchased some gorgeous photographs from a local photographer of the city and the boats. We met a lady from washington state while standing in line for the bathroom. She and 7 other people were sailing the mediteranean in 5 sailboats, what a life! The bathroom was my first expreience with an eastern toilet. Literally just a hole in the ground. It was clean and entirely made of marble and stainless steel but there were just two treaded spots for your feet, some railings to help you squat and a hole, that flushed. Come on people save the marble just give me a porcelain toilet bowl! What an experience. We didn't have long to tour the city (the only downfall of cruising is relatively short port o' calls) so we were busting butt to get back to the tour bus. I could have easily spent the entire day in Old Town. There were quite a few people who lived there and you could just wander the streets and get a taste for their daily life. Kids playing soccer in the squares, women making jewelry and lace. We even passed an old lady's house that had tons of cats. She was cursing her neighbor at the top of her lungs in Croatian. It was so funny! She had a scarf on her head, and an apron, it was like we were watching some old foreign film or something. So cute!

Cruisin through the Mediterranean

The second leg of our trip was a Royal Carribean Cruise through the mediterranean. The picture is of our cruise ship in the harbor of Dubrovnik, Croatia. We also visited Kusadasi Turkey, and two Greek Islands: Santorini and Corfu. The ship was really fun. It was amazing how huge it was. It accomodated two thousand people, and there was plenty for everyone to do, and of course plenty to eat. We were so relieved to hit this part of the trip as everything was already paid for, we didn't have to worry about $100 dinners anymore. It was nice to have a buffet also, I'm personally not a buffet fan but with my dietary issues it was great to be able to pick and chose as many fruits and veggies as I wanted. The only ice cream they had was soft serve which I don't like all that well, so the gelato temptation was gone. The ship also had a gym so that was nice to get some workouts in. We played ping pong, swam, soaked in some sun, watched movies, and of course ate and ate. The ship has two formal nights so it was fun to play dress up a little. The first formal was Horace Mann's awards night and Chris was awarded the Leading Edge Award. He worked his butt-off last year and I was so proud of him. All his hard work really paid off. It was fun to mingle with his coworkers I had heard their names many times but never met most of them. Chris was the only agent from Utah to qualify for the trip. So I really didn't know any of them, but they were a great group. There were only about two other couples who were LDS so the booze was free flowing throughout the cruise. Can I say that not drinking can make life so much simpler and cheaper! Some people spent hundreds of dollars on alcohol. It's also a relief that we don't have to wonder what a fool we may have been the night before, or deal with the hangovers the next day. The cruise was also nice because we didn't feel guilty for relaxing. On land in Italy we toured the sites all day and half the night to fit in as much as possible which was great, but exhausting. The cruise forced us to chill out a little. It was nice to have the cruise part right in the middle of our other destinations, so we could recuperate before hitting Venice hard too.

Florence

Florence got off to a shaky start since we lost our hotel information, and could not remember the name or address of it. We searched every scrap of paper in our bags for about 1/2 hr. we looked for wireless service for Chris' laptop and nothing. Finally I remembered searching out our hotel on yahoo maps and I thought I remembered writing the name on the back of the printout map. I found it The Fenice Palace on via de Martelli and we were saved. We took a 5 min. cab ride to the hotel. The first pic is the view of the Duomo just down the street from our hotel. The second is a closeup. It has amazing marble work on the exterior so many different colors. The next morning we headed out for the Galleria de Academia where Michaelangelo's David is kept. What an experience. To see things that you read about and see pictures of are so humbling to see in front of you. The level of work that

it would take to achieve something like that is amazing let alone the talent to pull it off in such a remarkable way. We weren't supposed to take pics there either, but I snuck one in.

We followed a walking tour through some other sites, but one of my favorites was the Museo Nazionale del Bargello. The museum was absoloutley amazing. It was mostly sculpture, but it was an incredible collection, it had Danti, Donatello (his David), Michaelangelo, Giambologna, and a few other lesser known sculptors. As an artist these works quickly make you feel very small, and insignificant. I can hardly express how amazing it is to see these masterpieces. To walk around them and really get a sense of their genius, it is inspiring. From there we went to the Santa Croce where Michaelangelo (below on the left) is buried along with Galileo, and many other influential people. They had incredible tombs right in the main chapel with spectacular sculptures around them to pay tribute to their life. We had to go to Vivoli’s for gelato, it really is the best is Florence. I had a green apple and hazelnut flavor (different in the same cup) strange but delicious. Chris had an incredibly rich Chocolate Mousse gelato I think we had gelato at least twice a day every day in Italy.

After Santa Croce we went to the Piazza della Signoria. This is where the Michaelangelo's "David" was originally and they have a replica there. The original“Rape of the Sabine Women” is in Vecchio on the side of the Piazza along with many other famous statues.

But then our trip went a little sour. We decided to head back to the hotel to meet up with the couple we came with and got pretty lost. It is easy to become disoriented on the winding streets and the tourist maps are not exactly complete. We mistook the placement of our hotel next to a few landmarks, and after searching for about an hour we finally found the restaurant where we ate the night before and could make our way from there. It was a bit stressful, and Chris was getting tired of my “checking down this street or that street” from the Duomo and talked to Alex our waiter from the night before who knew our hotel. Italy has the greatest people, and he saved us. We have meet the friendliest most helpful people, so genuine. We were thrilled to finally find our hotel room and relax. Getting lost was stressful and we were hesisitant to go out to dinner to a restaurant over the Ponte Vecchio that Dave and Jody had been referred to. But we went anyway. It turned out to be a great place, the owner treated us great and it was delicious. I had Strazzeleta or something like that. It was pretty much a ricotta and spinach dumpling covered in a butter sauce. Then we had some assorted bruschetta for an appetizer. The walk back was just magical. It had begun to get dark and the lights were coming up across the Ponte Vecchio (Florence’s most famous bridge). There we listened to street performers and saw couples holding hands, everything felt so romantic. We quickly forgot our previous experience and were able to relax again. We went back to the Piazza Della Signoria when we heard another street performer singing “With or Without You.” Of course we had to check it out as any good U2 fan would do and it was great, they were amazing performers. On the way back we could see something going on down a side street and we saw a great little chapel with an Orchestra playing, so we stopped and peeked inside the door for a few minutes. Then we decided we had better head over to the Reginnella for dessert to see Alex and thank him for saving us earlier that day, and then headed back to the hotel exhausted. A very long but memorable day.

The next day we decided to hit the Uffizi first thing in the morning. We didn’t have to wait in line for long, but we discovered the Rembrandt room was closed so that was a bit of a disappointment. Although you could peek your head in from another room and still see most of the collection. It was exciting to see many paintings I have only seen in books and my favorite Botticelli. We then went to the Pitti Palace to see the Boboli Garden. It was incredible the statues and the layout was amazing. Little buildings, towers, and fountains everywhere. On the end they were setting up seating and a stage for a huge concert. It was so nice to get off the crazy streets full of people and relax a little in the gardens alone. There were the neatest tunnels made out of tree branches that spanned a huge portion of the gardens. The garden was at least a mile long and half as wide.

We ate lunch and then headed over to the Duomo. We climbed to the top (literally at least 15 stories high and over 400 steps in a tiny little winding staircase) we were winded but we needed it after all the gelato we have been eating. The view on top was unbelievable. You could see every site in the city we had visited in the past two days it was the perfect last stop of our day.

We went in for dinner and they had saved us a table and our cake. Our waiter Alex is such a funny guy. He is from Albania, but lives in Italy, and lived in America for a few years as well in New York. He had a great Brooklyn accent, and would goof around like crazy mostly trying to get a date for the night, or teasing people as they walked by. We all hit it off pretty well the first night we came in to Florence and when we got lost he helped us get our bearings. We promised to go back that night for dessert and then after dessert last night we promised we would go back for dinner tonight (our last night in Florence.) Well we all got a bit silly and started taking pictures. Alex had been heckling the owner of the restaurant next door so he had come over a few times, and while we were taking pictures of the waiters we had become friends with and the owner of the Reginella, the other owner came and got in on the picture too. Well then he came back with a trick camera which squirted water and got the owner of the Reginella. So he got a bucket of water and they kept trying to get the other guy to come back over. Then the other guy started dressing up in goofy wigs and coming over to tease them, and brought a horned hat for the owner of the Reginella. Meanwhile we are snapping pictures of all this, then the other owner grabbed the camera and started taking pictures of the waiters, us, girls off the street, other customers, his crotch. It was pretty funny, we were just rolling. I can’t believe how many friends we have made on this trip. The people of Italy are just awesome.

Rome

I already gave a partial update on Rome in my first post. But the pics were pretty terrible, I was trying to hurry pretty fast and they took forever to load and we were on a major time crunch. So here are some better pictures. The first one is somewhere Maurizio took us. It is hard to tell from the picture but it is looking through the keyhole of these huge wooden doors that the Roman cavalry used to pass through from their stables. There is a long shrub tunnel that perfectly frames the dome of Constantine's Basilica. Unfortunately the dome would not show up in the photo.
We stayed at the Hotel Condotti by the Spanish Steps. Our room was very tiny but good by European Standards we even had a towel warmer, which knocked out the power to our room leaving me in the shower after just barely getting wet with no lights and no water. I was pretty miffed after dropping $350 for the room. Sorry, Sorry I will stop complaining about how ridiculously expensive everything was. I am just a deal hunter by nature and it was pretty painful (but still worth it.) After finally showering for the first time in nearly 3 days we felt reborn and hit the town for dinner and to see the colosseum and and the Trevi fountain. Our cab driver recommended a great restraunt just up from the colosseum. I had some of the best gnocchi of my life, it was soo fresh and soo cheesy. Even though the waiter ripped us off, it was a great dinner (he just kept bringing out things we didn't order, including cocktails, then charged us for it, then added it wrong, and said to leave him a cash tip after gratuity was already included on the bill). Our cab driver warned us that there was a price for tourists and a price for locals, we just didn't expect it to be that bad.


This photo is our cab driver he was so hilarious. and the photo below is Dave, Jody, Chris and me on a road above the Roman forum (ancient Rome). We were trying to find our way to the restaraunt, and got a bit lost. Although you can make some awesome discoveries just getting lost. The next photo is of the colosseum at night as we were walking down the street from the restaraunt.











The next day we went to Vatican City. The first pic is Maurizio showing us the spot from where all of the coloumns were positioned(what a goof, it was like having Mr. Bean as your tour guide). If you look from that spot it looks like there is only one row of colomns but there are actually two. The second pic is when we went on our own to tour St. Peters Basilica. However the Pope was addressing the crowd on the steps so we couldn't go in. But we were pretty satisfied to see the Pope instead. You can just make out his picture on the screen to the right. While the whole world was listening to the Pope we went over the the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel. No lines! It is usually a several hour wait. The Sistine Chapel was a surprise I had envisioned a beautiful church with a grand entrance but not so. It was a very simple building that you could only access through a maze of other rooms. The painting is one of three rooms prior to the chapel that had frescoes painted by Raphael, Michaelangelo's rival. Then you enter the Sistine Chapel where you cannot take any pictures. There are security guards all over inside yelling "silence, no photo!" If they see you taking a picture they take your film or make you delete it. That has the famous frescos by Michaelangelo, so sorry read a book.
We left the Vatican Museum and hit their cafeteria. We were thrilled to have a meal that we chose what we payed for and were happy to pay about $35. Much less than the night before. Leaving the museum we went down the coolest staircase. I just had to get a photo of that. I have a thing for swirly pictures, so sorry it's not exactly historical. The next photo is us inside the colosseum the second day. Hard to believe what went on there for entertainment, and harder to believe it is still standing.