All Good Things Must Come to an End.

Friday was our third day straight of all day tours.  Granted on Wednesday and Thursday we just took the transfer into Florence and Rome we spent all day shopping and sightseeing.  Friday was our adventure to Pompeii and Herculaneum.  Our day started out late we started about 2 hours late.  We had a small group that day which was perfect only about 12 people.  Char had already been to Pompeii but never to Herculaneum.  Both cities fell victim to the eruption of Mt. Vesivus in 79 A.D.  Pompeii was buried in ash and Herculaneum was buried in mud.  Pompeii was very crowded when we went but the site was amazing to see all the buildings and the condition they were in all this time later.  They even had casts of bodies from people that died there.  I would think that that would be a horrible way to die.  It was extremely hot that day but what is new.

 After Pompeii we stopped for lunch at a nice hotel.  The bathroom was one of the nicer ones that we have come across.  They had a unique way to tell if the bathroom stall was occupied or not.  They had 2 lights above the door.  If it was red it was being used and if it was green it was empty.

After lunch we headed to Herculaneum.  The buildings in this city were fully intact granted they had restored some of the roofs but the buildings were in much better shape than in Pompeii.  One of the things that really amazed me was the mosaic flooring that was still intact as well as the frescos on the walls.  We visited a bathhouse that was still all there the mosaic floors in there were almost completely still there.  Both Char’s and my camera batteries died when we were just about done with the tour and we were disappointed with that.  Oh well what are you going to do about it. 

After our day at Pompeii we decided to come back to the ship and freshen up and then head back into Sorrento.  The streets in this city are crazy narrow and windy.  The bus ride up to the top was a little crazy.  The bus would have to make sure no one was coming and then go wide to make the turn.  I took a picture of the view from the top down.  We found a great little shoe shop well more like a sandal shop where they made the sandals right there.  They are handmade it was pretty cool.  Sorrento is known for its inlaid wood.  We found a cute little shop that had the machine on display that they use to make the wood.  It was pretty amazing. 

After three days straight of all day long tours we opted to skip going to the island of Capri and head to the beach.  It was the only time I’ve ever had to pay for use of a beach but totally worth it.  It wasn’t quite as hot actually it was overcast but it was nice to just lounge and read our books and not have to worry about counting people and making sure that everyone is where they needed to be.  We noticed that European women really don’t care what people think about them.  We saw some women who were wearing quite revealing swimsuits.  At first we were like oh my gosh that’s just gross.  The more we thought about it the more we realized it must be nice to just be comfortable in our own skin to be accept how we are right now.  Since we love to people watch we have come up with some codes so that we don’t have to say oh look at what they are wearing that’s awful.  If we see ugly shoes we just say USA and we know it’s an ugly shoe alert.  If it’s ugly hair we say UHA and if it’s an ugly outfit it’s UOA.  It works quite well for us.  We know that it’s getting to be the end of the trip because we aren’t paying attention so much to what the other is saying.  For example last night it was formal night on the ship and we had decided to go to Karaoke but it didn’t start until 11 and we were finished with dinner at 8 as we were sitting watching people I made a comment to Char about how we would be in trouble if we came across someone who read lips.  Char looks at me and says red lips why would we be in trouble if someone had red lips.  We had quite the laugh over that.  Today Char made an offhand comment about being frugal and I said what beef rougle what is that?  It was comical.

Sunday was our second day at sea of this cruise and Char taught 3 classes.  It was a pretty boring day.  We opted not to eat at the buffet because we knew it would be really crowded so we had lunch down in the dining room.  The seated us at a table right next to the waiter’s area where the prepare everything.  We had our own private concert.  It was quite funny as we are sitting having lunch we hear a few of the servers start sining along to songs.  It was nice to see them a little more relaxed since the dining room wasn’t packed.  The crew is amazing and they work really hard.  I know I could do the work and the long hours I just don’t know that I’d want to. Today was spent in Dubrovnik Croatia.  We went to the walled city which is the old city and we walked around the top of the walls.  We had amazing views of the city and the ocean as well.  It was another warm and humid day.  After we walked along the walls we walked around the city and did a little bit of shopping and then called it a day and headed back to the ship where we had lunch and then a nice long nap.

Tomorrow is our last day of the trip.  We will be packing tomorrow morning and have one last class in the am and then we will spend the afternoon and evening in Venice before we head back home.

France Revisited

We spent 2 more days in Cannes.  I could have not visited that port again and been totally ok.  On the first cruise we spent 2 days in Monaco and we did a few things in Cannes.  Don’t get me wrong it’s beautiful there just not much to do there.  We did tours both days while we were there the first day was much better than the second day.  The first day we went to Eze which is an old medieval village.  We didn’t have much time there that day.  Then we went to Monaco and we got to go inside the Grand Casino.  It’s actually quite small inside but it’s beautiful in there.  The next day we did a half day tour each of us had our own tour again but we didn’t get to see each other all day.  We went to Nice and saw the highlights.  We had some free time in Nice and as I was wandering around searching for Char some yucky stinky French man hit on me.  I was happy when that tour was over.

The next day we went back to Florence.  We just escorted the transfer in and we spent the day shopping.  This was our second time in Florence and we planned on doing some shopping and shopping we did.  We also found a little Italian restaurant and had bruschetta and pizza.  I have to say it was the best bruschetta I’ve ever had.  The first time we were in Florence it was really hot and tons of tourists.  When we were there the other day it was just right.  We were going to go and see The David but we couldn’t get our tickets ahead of time because the operators were on strike the day we were there and wouldn’t sell us tickets.  We decided we’d rather shop then wait in line to see The David.  Besides from what we understand no “real” men look like that anyway why torture ourselves.

Then we were off to Rome.  Char had already been there so she let me decide what we were going to do.  We took the transfer into Rome so we could spend the day doing whatever we wanted.  It is an hour and a half bus ride from the port so by the time we got there we only had about 5 hours so there really was only time to do one big thing.  I had been debating for a week between going to the Vatican or the Coliseum.  I finally settled on going to the Vatican.  We thought we’d be super smart and get our tickets online and skip the lines.  We spent $50 on our tickets and thought piece of cake.  Well that’s what we get for thinking.  We had to be there at 10:25 to get our tickets and if we were late no tickets for us and no refund.  Well we didn’t leave the port until about 9:30 and of course someone on the bus couldn’t wait the 90 minutes to use the rest room so we had to make a pit stop.  Needless to say we didn’t make it by 10:25.  Lucky for us by the time we made it to the Vatican by 11 there was no line so we got right in and paid another 15 euro to get in.  We had quite the expensive day at the Vatican.  It was beautiful though.  I’m not at all disappointed with the choice I made or with the amount of money I ended up spending to get in.  We spent about 2 hours there.  It’s so overwhelming it’s almost overload for the eyes.  There is art floor to ceiling.  The Sistine Chapel was breath taking.  I was a little disturbed by the lack of respect that people showed.  They have no pews in there but there is a bench along both sides so you can sit and enjoy it.  It was crowded because there were tons of people there and I was shocked that people just came in and felt like it was ok to sit on the floor.  The guards had to keep telling people to get up and to be quiet.  After we went to the Vatican we went to St. Peter’s Basilica.  That was also amazing.  It wasn’t as crowded in Rome.  I think we had good timing because everyone was just getting done with their Holiday as they call it in Europe.  After that we found a nice restaurant and had lunch.  We spent about half our bill on diet coke and water I still can’t get over having to pay for water at a restaurant.  The waiter at the restaurant was so enthralled with Char that he felt the need to write her a love letter.  We got a kick out of that.  We seem to be attracting on sleazy European men through no fault of our own.  What can I say when you’ve got it you’ve got it.

Today we are off to Pompeii.  I’m really excited about this tour.  This is our last tour that we are escorting and I’m so very happy with that.  We were supposed to leave at 7:45 this morning but we are late getting into port by about an hour and 45 minutes so here I sit blogging.  I’m about done with tourists and rude people and as much fun as I’m having and enjoying my time here I’m just about ready to come home.