Ten days....ten ports.....

Wow! What an amazing and beautiful vacation! I loved it and feel incredibly blessed to have been able to see so much in such a tight little package. Honestly, though....I probably would have gotten bored if I had gone any slower.

I have included a ton of pictures of most of each of the places I went to. No worries, this is about 1/1000 of how many pictures we actually took but it is a little slice of each port and the type of atmosphere we were in.

We left early, to begin with. Yes, a potentially fatal decision on our part, which created no end of torment, mocking and reprimands. The situation is complicated, however. At first, Yvonne (the resident math teacher) and I wanted to go to a safari and relaxing vacation in South Africa. However, upon discovering that three airport transfers, security clearances and $1700 would only just get us to South Africa....we cheap teachers decided to look elsewhere. I suggested a cruise through Italy and Yvonne began the great Internet search. We were tipped off to a website called vacationstogo.com and gleefully researched all the cruises available. Who knew that March was eerily short on cruises? For those of us who don’t know...Mediterranean cruises start in the end of April. Out of the 5 or 6 cruises, we picked one that seems interesting. The only problem was that it was a 10-day cruise. It starts on March 19 and ended on March 29. Our spring break started with a half day on March 20 and ended March 30. We had been informed that the Wednesday and/or Thursday were marked as a potential holiday, but were not going to be notified if it were an actual day off until two days beforehand. Yvonne and I weighed our options, discussed with administrations and then said, "Screw it all, we're going!"

We flew out of Lagos on Tuesday night, a full two days before we were supposed to. We did luck out with getting Wednesday as a holiday but still had to suffer a substitute for a half-day on Thursday. Anyway, our flight took us to Paris where we ran to our connection to Venice. Upon arriving in Venice I was really excited to get my passport stamp, our luggage on our boat and to wander the city for the 6 hours we had before boarding. I grabbed my luggage, walked out the door and.....yeah. No passport checks in Venice. Venice loves everyone and will let anybody in. We managed to get bus passes, directions and even a general idea of what the crap we were doing before we jumped on a bus to the cruise ship to drop off our luggage. After speaking broken Italian, Portuguese and a bit of Spanish (no one speaks English), I managed to get directions to the port and our luggage was safely stored. Then, it was off to the Grand Canal where I spent the most glorious couple of hours traipsing up and down that beautiful city.




















This, dear (and I am assuming bored) readers, is just past the Rialto Bridge and in front of the most glorious gelato store in the history of ice cream. I saw these gondolas gently rocking back and forth to the unique tide of the canal and was caught again by the beauty of the moment. The day was a perfect mid 60's weather and bright blue skies. There was no breeze, which made the sunshine warm and crisp without being cold on the water.



While munching on my chocolate ice cream, I wandered down the narrow market streets around the area. There were tons of masks, blown glass and cheesy tourista things. I finally ran into this little stand where hats and scarves were being sold at a very decent price. While this particular hat was not purchased, I did buy a beautiful green scarf.

Now these are some random canal shots of various gondolas and the silly touristas in them. Do not mistake me....at this point I was also taking pictures like mad and slobbering all over my ice cream, but at least I wasn’t spending 160 Euros to ride in the gondolas by myself.

This first one is of a back shot of the Rialto Bridge.















I swear this driver was going to tip right over. I took this shot with the hope that he would and I would have it on camera. No such luck.















The other visual masterpiece that I became fixated on was the canal doors. These doors were beautiful and ancient and they led directly to the water. Moss covered stairs lead up to splintered wooden doors with slightly mismatched seems. This picture is one of hundreds that I took in the hopes of getting a good-looking door for framing purposes.















After traveling the entire Grand Canal, we came upon San Marco Square. Here there were more vendors with more tourista stuff. Yes, I did succumb and bought two beautiful oil paintings done by this crazy, eccentric Italian man. He mistook me for a German at first and then welcomed me as an Italian. It was a tad bit weird that I had to admit to being an American, but even then he was kind. Especially when I responded that I was from Lucca (genealogically speaking) when he asked where I was 'really' from.
















After we boarded the boat, we shipped out to Bari Italy. Now Bari Italy is actually pretty lame, but we had a shore excursion to Matera...which was brilliant. We jumped in the bus and drove for about an hour through the oddly beautiful landscape of Southern Italy. This picture was taken from the bus of said countryside. Lush green grass covered most of the homesteads while every other acre of land was reserved for olive tree crops. If there had been more hills and a tad more wetness, I would have been reminded of New Zealand.
















After our bus ride we arrived in Matera. Apparently Matera is centuries old and people were living in it until 1940 when the communist leader heard about the living conditions. Each tiny dwelling had at least 10 people in it, as well as donkeys, dogs and chickens. There was no electricity or plumbing and the houses were all literally 2 feet apart from each other. When the communist leader heard of this, he required new housing be built and all of the inhabitants to move out. Now, the little cliff and cave dwelling city is being reconstructed as a tourist spot. Movies like the Passion of the Christ were filmed there because of its unique structure and rugged terrain. This picture is an upper view of one of the many little walkways down the cliff face.
















After Bari and Matera we sailed to the Greek Island of Corfu. Corfu has beautiful beaches and is relatively small and lush with vegetation. I was amazed as I saw my first orange and lemon trees. This island is also covered with Olive trees, which were planted during its inhabitation by the Venetian control. The trees are decades old and are really interesting to see.

This picture is the monastery at Corfu. There were several levels of the monastery and this alleyway is on the lowest level, which was a basement. This particular church had cats everywhere and beautiful flowers and vines.

















This picture is of me...obviously annoyed at something and sticking my arm into a cannon. I have no idea why I am doing that, or what exactly Yvonne said to make me make that face....priceless as well with the giant gust of wind that hit at the same moment.
















As we traveled into the town of Corfu we were able to go shopping, talk to natives and gain a small taste of the culture. This next picture is of the old fort that looks over the entire island. Unfortunately, I did not have the time to explore this one, but the sight of it on the highest hill was pretty impressive.
















This next picture is one of the typical housing alleyways of Corfu.
















This beach shot of Corfu doesn’t show the brilliant blue of the water but it does show that we were the ONLY tourists on the island. Definitely not cruise season.
















From Corfu we traveled to Athens and were able to see the Parthenon. It was completely under construction and so our view wasn’t all that magnificent. However, it was nice to be there and to see the structure I have studied so much about.

This is Zeus's temple as seen from the Parthenon.

















This picture caught my attention. It’s at the base of a lower temple near the Parthenon but I loved the old pots and poppy wild flowers. Yes, I am afraid I had a tendency to go 'art geek' while looking at things like this.




















This is a quick shot Yvonne and I took as we were getting bored with the tour guide.















From Athens we ventured to Turkey where we got to travel to Ephesus and some carpet shops. I spent a ridiculous amount of money on two carpets and wandered around the ancient city of Ephesus for a few hours.

This picture is of me utilizing the public toilets in Ephesus. Yes, public toilets. I was continually amazed at the terra cotta pipes that ran through the entire city as a sewage system.
















This is a random hallway under the huge open theater. I love this picture cause I got it by sneaking past a "restricted zone" to get it.


















And there she is. The face of the city.


















From Ephesis we visited our last Greek Isle; Rhodes. It’s a beautiful island with a ton of ancient roads, shops and friendly people. I really liked it. These shots of the castle have a name....I just cant remember it. Give me a break...we saw a lot of freaking ruins! However, at the bottom of this stairway is the place where the famous sculpture "victory (Nike) from Samothrace, c.190BC" originally sat.















This is a shot looking down the stairs.















From Rhodes we had a day at sea traveling to Malta. Unfortunately our one day at sea showed us what seasickness is all about with 18 ft swells and massive rocking motions. Luckily, I was only sick for an hour or so but still confined myself to bed. Before the unfortunate.....illness, I was able to pop up on deck and take a few pictures of the waves. The results on film are way less exciting and so opted to show this beautiful shot of myself instead.
















Onto Malta which is a lovely little island with....relatively nothing to do. I got some good shots of me on the beach and some random shots of the tiny roads and houses, but other than that, I will remember Malta for its ice cream, bookstore and amiable people.

This is a shot of me on the beach, and yes...sporting a henna tattoo of a spider. I think I look sassy!




















This is a view of the city of Malta and is typical of the huge ancient walls that defended the island from the Turkish invasion.















This is a view from inside the city looking out.


















From Malta we sailed to Tunis. Yes Tunis. Top country of Africa. I thought we would see some Arabic connections....maybe see some mosques.....nope. We saw more carpet shops and huge amounts of ghetto. It seems we were stuck in the ghetto no matter where we went the entire cruise. Yes, this is the only shot I am showing of Turkey. It showed and hailed and rained while we were there. Everyone was excited because it was the first rain in over three months. Yeah, lucky I wore my capris and t-shirt this day!
















From Tunis we sailed to Naples. We took a nice little jaunt to Pompeii where I wandered aimlessly taking pictures instead of listening to our guide. I swear our guide was a homeless Italian man that the bus picked up somewhere. He smokes like a chimney the whole time and rambled in a huge trench coat.

This is a random shot at a shop along the street of Pompeii.




















Here is a nice sideways view (for some reason I cant figure out how to fix that) of an ancient alley way in Pompeii. I have pictures of the ash-covered people, roads with deep chariot ruts and random buildings that are well preserved from the fate of time, but I will save those for people when I come home.
















This picture of a lemonade stand in Naples I got completely for Daddy. These lemons were the biggest freaking lemons I have ever seen! It was as freakishly tart as Dad likes it as well. I have never seen lemons this big. I didn’t think it was possible.



















There are even more pictures of Genoa and of the ship and everything but I think that this is enough to satisfy even the toughest critic (mom). Suffice it to say that it was a lovely vacation that made me hate old women with no modesty, ill-fitting Speedos and the Paris airport.