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Buongiorno! Our 9 night cruise was fantastic (thanks Mom for recommending it!) and we are now in Venice spending the night since we had to disembark the ship early this morning. Our journey was jam packed with seeing 7 different cities and experiencing the luxury that this Carnival cruise had to offer- minus WiFi! They were charging .75cents a minute and beyond…seriously the most ridiculous prices we have ever seen for internet so we refused and were deprived all this time (except for the days when I was able to squeeze in 15mins thanks to the places we stopped in that offered it for free) Hence why there hasn't been a new blog update- which I know I said wouldn't happen again- so my apologies but this time it wasn't my fault ;)
So picking up where I left off…Barcelona was great and we had a really good time for 5 nights in this wonderful city. We had perfect weather which allowed us to make up for our lost beach days from Cascais. We got to enjoy the small but crowded beach called "Barceloneta" on a gorgeous afternoon. You'll see pictures of us with chairs and an umbrella- funny thing about them is that they weren't free- which we thought they were since we were able to snatch the first available ones we saw and no one said anything. Then after spending an hour on them we took a break to get lunch and when we came back none were free but we did notice stacks of them all over the place. So we go to get a new set and these men come out of nowhere and start saying they cost 7Euro…. Still not sure if they were scam artists or not since it did seem sketchy- no uniforms or advertisement or signs…just these different men coming over to you from meters away when they see you trying to take a set of chairs. We didn't let it phase us and we plopped ourselves right on the sand where Andrew eventually ended up burying me. We also did the HOHO bus (HopOnHopOff) to get a good look at all the different sites the city had to offer- especially the different works of the famous architect Antoni Gaudi including Sagrada Familia, Park Guell, Casa Batllo, and La Pedrera. Since entry to all of these sites cost money- we decided to do Sagrada Familia (considered his masterpeice which is STILL being built after being started in 1882 and may not be finished until 2020) and Park Guell (which to our luck turned out to be free only during the week we were there) Both were very worth it since they are so unique and beautiful in there own way-Andrew described it as something you'd see in Dr.Suess ;) The rest of our time we spent enjoying our amazing hostel Casa Gracia which had different dinner specials each night for 9Euro that included unlimited sangria, plus delicious mojitos for 3Euro, live music certain nights and a very cool outdoor terrace- such a great atmosphere. You'll see from the pictures how nice it was. This place was like no other hostel we've ever been to and we'd definitely recommend it to anyone who visits Barcie. Oh and speaking of Sangria- I loved how abundantly available and cheap it was everywhere in Spain! I will definitely miss that so I'm glad I drank lots of it while there- I even made it myself two nights since they sell it in the grocery stores for less than 3Euro.
Now time for the smooth sailing which began on Sunday Oct.11... The day of embarkation was spent taking in everything our ship had to offer- the various places to eat that were included, the hot tubs, the entertainment (comedians in particular) and our cozy room . Oh and of course the views of the open sea! The first day we started bright and early at 7am in Marseille, a port city in the South of France. We rode the "Petite Train" which took us from the center of town to the hilltop basilica that overlooks the city- Notre-Dame de la Garde which means "Our Lady of the Guard". The huge gold statue of the Blessed Mother and Child is believed to protect the city. Day two was Cinque Terre which stands for the villages of the "5 Lands". This we did as an excursion through Carnival but we had Italian tour guides that told us all about these villages with their funny accents (they ended every word with an "A" and sentence with an "uh" sound) The pictures describe how wonderful these cliff top villages are that overlook the ocean and are able to grow wine and olives on the steep hills. These small residential villages of 5,000 are visited by over a million tourists a year- and it was a very crowded day for us. We had to take a long bus ride to the first village from the port of Livorno, then a 1 minute train ride to the next village, then two boat rides which I videotaped for you to share the experience. Andrew got a little seasick since the waves were pretty rough which made our boat very rocky. We had some free time at our last stop to enjoy some authentic Italian pizza&pasta ;) Day 3 was Rome which was very hot and swarming with people. We did the HOHO bus to get to around to all the sites we wanted to see- the Vatican, Colosseum, Piazza Navona, Pantheon, Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps. The buses were pretty slow due to amount of people but we were able to fit it all in plus enjoy some gelato and lunch at a outdoor restaurant across from the Pantheon and the nearby fountain. Day 4 was probably one of my favourite excursions that we did through Carnival- the tour to Sorrento & a winery. From the port of Naples we took a bus to the small pretty town of Sorrento that had gorgeous views overlooking the coast of the Mediterranean (we were able to spot the island of Capri in the distance) After walking around this town for an hour we then headed to the vineyard that was located on the volcano Mt.Vesuvius. Here we enjoyed a tasting of 6 of their wines plus some food accompanied by their delicious olive oil (probably the best I've ever had) We enjoyed all of the wines so much that I bought a couple of bottles- they were decently priced at 12Euro except for the special reserve one at 28Euro. It was also a gorgeous day so we got to enjoy the scenery of the vineyard and Mt.Vesuvius in the background which made it perfect. On day 5 we did a tour to Sicily's volcano Mt.Etna from the port of Messina- it was so windy! Day 6 was spent at sailing the Adriatic seas headed towards Croatia- where we spent day 7 in their beautiful city of Dubrovnik. We had bright blue skies upon us while we walked around the old town surrounded by ancient walls. Finally, the cruise came to an end on day 8 once we docked in Venice-although we got to stay on board overnight. We enjoyed this unique wonder of a city and loved everything about it-the canals, Rialto bridge, St. Marks Square, Bridge of Sighs, and of course the gondolas (no we didn't ride one because they cost too much). Except we did deal with some very unfriendly Italians here that didn't help us out as tourists very much...ironic since it is SUCH a major tourist attraction and is always crowded with them. Guess I can relate as a New Yorker ;) Next we are off to another gorgeous famous city in the country where Pilsner comes from…..
You'll have to figure out my cheap clue & sit tight for the next post while we figure out where to go from there ;)
Grazie & Arrivederci!
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