I HEART Barcelona

i am going to apologize upfront for any typos... spanish keyboard -- things are not where you expect them to be...

anyways, we made it to Barcelona and I love it. I may wish that we had stayed a day longer...

We were up early -- had to be off the ship by 8:30. After collecting our luggage, we took a bus to Monserrat, which was very nice. The drive up there was incredible. Not one you would want to take being tired, drunk or talking on the cell phone. You need to be completely focused to drive that road, but there was some great scenery.

From there we went to the airport to get our car. It only took us 2 hours to find our hotel -- which was only 20 minutes away. We are getting better at finding our way.

Our hotel is in the Rambas (sp?) district which has lots of shops and food -- and a great market. We walked around and found some place to eat -- along with some Sangria. Greg went back to the room I wandered around some more. Did manage to get lost, but did ask someone and found my way back, but wow...what a wonderful city.

Tomorrow I hope to get to the Gothic district. Then we will make our way to Valencia -- about 3.5 hours away.

It is going on 9:30 pm and I'm heading back to the room for the night.

Have a great evening.

It's almost over...

It's our last day. It's been relaxing -- just hanging out -- doing a little bit of last minute shopping. I even played bingo today and won $108!!! Of course, I've already spent more then that at the casino... lol

I've already packed -- we have to have our bags out by 11pm tonite. We go for dinner at 9, so needed to get it all done beforehand.

Tomorrow we have our Montserat (sp?) excursion and then we'll get to explore Barcelona a little more. I believe our hotel is near the Gothic District, which is suppose to be really nice, so I'm looking forward to checking that out.

We are really going to miss our new friends from Brittan. We've really enjoyed spending time with them and hope that we'll stay in touch. I had suggested at dinner last night that we'll have to do dinner once a month via webcam or something... lol Time it so they are having a late dinner while we're having lunch or something.

Although the cruise is over, we still have a few days to explore Spain. We'll stay in Barcelona tomorrow night and then we're going to Valencia, which is about a 3.5 hour drive. We'll stay in Valencia and then we head to Cartagena for a night and then to Madrid.

Fortunatey, with the time difference, we leave on Friday afternoon, and arrive home on Friday afternoon! So we'll have a couple of days to recouperate before going back to work.

Anyways -- I'll update when I can over the next few days or I'll post when we get home.

Later!

France

Today we were in France. What a great day! It was an early one tho... 7:15! I'm surprised Greg was so easy to wake up! LOL

We dropped anchor in Cannes. We tendered to shore where we took a bus to Nice -- the 'old city' which was really nice. Somewhat similar to Venice and Rome, without as much history, but still beautiful architecture. From there we went to Eze -- which is nicknamed the Eagle's Nest. It's an old town built in the side of a mountain. It was really nice! And the scenery from there of the coast -- French Riviera was really nice.

From Eze we went to Monaco and Monte Carlo. Completely different from Nice and Eze, but still very nice --- and very rich!! Greg was drooling over the cars we saw in Monte Carlo. As someone said -- there were more Bentleys than there are cabs in Britain! LOL

We've just left Cannes and now we are on our way to Barcelona -- and the end of our cruise. We are at sea all day tomorrow -- which I'm looking forward to and then we arrive in Barcelona on Monday. We've booked an excursion to Montserat (sp?) and then they'll take us to the airport where we will pick up our rental car. We'll be staying in Barcelona on Monday night and then from there we'll be heading to Valencia. Hopefully we'll have better luck with driving and directions than we did in Italy!

Just wanted to drop a note to Patti, Elia, Barb and the rest of the Nook staff. I'm so glad to hear that nobody was hurt at the store when the electrical fire happened. My thoughts are with you all. Big hugs!!!

Probably won't post tomorrow -- but who knows. I will have to get online to print directions, etc. I don't know if any of the hotels I've booked in Spain have internet access, so I don't know how many updates I'll be able to give, but if I can, I will, so keep checking!!

Have a wonderful day. I'm off to meet our British friends before we head for dinner.

Pisa and Florence

Today I was on my own. Greg wasn't interested -- he was too tired from Rome yesterday and we've seen Florence, so he stayed on board. He and our British friends went into Liverno in the afternoon for a late lunch.

I did go on the excursion, since we did pay for it! First it was an hour ride to Pisa. We had an hour there. Took all the pictures (although none of me 'holding it up', which is obviously the most popular pose) and did a little wandering around. From there we were about another hour to Florence. We had about 3.5 hours there. I walked around and took some pictures, but was concerned about getting lost and not finding my way back... lol and they are very strict about you getting back to the meeting point on time, or you have to find your own way back to the ship. Taxi would have been over 300 Euros! So I did a little shopping, bought some post cards, had some lunch and then it was the 1.5 hour journey back to the ship.

Tonite is our last formal night. I bought a shawl today to go with the dress I bought in Santorini.

The cruise is slowly coming to an end... :-(

My feet are still quite swollen and the rash doesn't look a whole lot better. I'm going for a foot message in 45 minutes. Hopefully that will help. I'm sure my last day at sea will help too, if I just stay off my feet and keep them elevated.

Anyways...it's been another great day. Tomorrow we are in Cannes, France. We are doing Monaco and Eze. Looking forward to that. Then it's a day at sea and then finally Barcelona.

Have a great afternoon/evening!

Rome...

It wasn't built in a day -- and it's not visited in a day either!

What loooonnnnggg day today was. We docked at Civi---- somethingorother early this morning. We then took a 1.5 hour bus ride to Rome. We bought tickets for one of those double decker tour buses where you can get on and off whenever you want. We toured all the 'typical' places (St. Peter's Square, Trevi Fountain, Colleseum). We then just wandered -- stopped for a nice lunch where I wrote out some postcards and popped them in the mail. :-)

All the historic roman architecture in this city is amazing. And I certainly enjoyed it more with someone driving the bus then I did when we arrived in Rome and drove around for 5 hours trying to find our hotel... lol I didn't take a lot of pictures tho...really hard to do, so I bought postcards instead. Plus I have all the pictures from when we were here 11 years ago.

We've just pulled out of port. We have dinner at 9pm, but we'll be on our own. Our table companions have booked into a restaurant onboard.

Tomorrow we dock in Liverno (I think that's right). From there we go see the Leaning Tower of Pisa. After that -- I think we in Florence, but I'm not sure. May just be back on the ship.

Greg's foot is better, however my rash isn't. It's spreading. Plus my feet/lower leg are swollen quite bad. Almost 3 x their normal size. Greg says I have Homer Simpson feet... :-/ I went to the spa after we got back on board and then put some cooling lotion and told me to go put my feet up for 15 minutes, which I did. I go back just before dinner for them to do it again. I've booked a foot message for 7pm tomorrow, which I'm sure will feel great after another long day.

Anyways...that's all the news for today. No casino yesterday and probably not today either. I'll make up for it later tho... ;-)

Ciao!

Naples / Almafi Coast / Pompei

Not sure if I got Pompei spelled right...one P or two???? Anyways...

Today was another great day, but a bloody early start!!!

We started out on a bus to Solarno. From there we took a boat along that Almafi Coast to the town of Almafi where we had a little time for shoppping. Then back to Solarno. From there we went to Pompei, which was nice. The weather was very hot again.... about 32 degrees. After a couple of hours in Pompei, we went to a Cameo factory. Not big on Cameo's, so didn't buy anything there.

Got back to our cabin around 5:00. It's now going on 6pm. Going up on deck to take some pictures of Naples. Didn't see much of it at all today.

Didn't have much time for shopping, but I did manage to pick up a cute cotton dress that I'll wear for dinner tonite.

That's about it. We're meeting up with a dinner companions for before dinner drinks around 8:30.

Tomorrow we're in Rome. We'll be touring that on our own, since we've been there before. It should be a nice relaxing kind of day.

That's it for now. Have a great afternoon!!!

Oh yeah.... and Dann... you are my favorite... ;-) (that's for the others, assuming they read these blogs... lol)

Day At Sea...

It's a lazy day at sea today. Slept in after a late night. Just wandered around the ship, read for a while -- did some shopping. Bought a beautiful Italian silver watch.

It's formal dinner night tonight. Should be fun! Can't make it too late tho -- we have to be up and ready for 7:30 am tomorrow for our excursion in Naples. We are going to Pompeii.

Right now, as I'm sitting here, we are passing by or probably going around an island. I don't know what it is. I'm going to have to take a look at our map. It's too hazy for any decent photos tho. There are heavy clouds over the island. The sun is just setting (although not over the island....).

Speaking of sunset, I took some pictures yesterday as we were leaving Santorini. The sun did not set over the island of Santorini, but some of the other smaller ones. I did get some good pictures tho.

Well that's it for now. Not sure what time we get back tomorrow, but I may try and find some time to post before our dinner.

Have a great day!