and nobody fell overboard! It was an exciting, tiring, fun, italian-overload of a week. After a week I'm finally finished writing the brief overviews of what we did each day. Pictures are up and titled. I have them grouped in
one big set if you want to see all of the pictures at once. If you'd rather look at each individual city/day, just click on 'sets' and you'll see that each day/city is organized into it's own set as well.
Genoa/Savona
On Saturday, Joe and I took the train down to Genoa and did some sight-seeing. We found this awesome little restaurant milling around some back street. The food was great... too bad the food on the cruise wasn't anywhere near this good. Then on Sunday, we took the train to Savona to board the cruise ship. Once on board, we didn't really know what to do, so we unpacked and then went and explored the ship. We were signed up for the late dinner seating at 9:30pm and ended up sitting at a table with really nice people from the states who were all around our age and thankfully not a table of retirees.
-main deck and pool on our boat, the Costa Fortuna
NaplesI got to see Mt. Vesuvius and go to Pompeii! Pompeii was really cool. Our tour guide was this leathered retired Italian high school teacher. He was so funny, in a not-on-purpose way, when he talked to the group, especially to the Chinese in our group, and knew where every piece of shade was on the tour route. Check out the pictures... they're really cool! Unfortunately, because we went on the excursion to Pompeii, we didn't have time to see Naples. So, maybe, if we have time (and money) we can go back down to check out the city and spend more time at Pompeii and go to Herculaneum, which is another excavated city that was buried under mud when Vesuvius blew in 79 AD.
-me & Vesuvius
-finally! the video of our crazy tourguide at Pompei, Romano.
Palermo
What the F$%#!!! That about sums up the craziness in Palermo. For the first hour, it was quirky, even cute how haphazard things were in the city...such as how crazy the people drive and try to almost kill each other. Joe and I went wandering through backstreets and sidestreets and saw some crazy crap. Like a guy carrying a chandelier, unwrapped, in one hand while he drove his scooter with the other. We had to stand flush against a wall while a truck went through a narrow side street. Thankfully we still have our toes. And when we were on our way to the Catacombs we had quite a bus adventure. Unlike normal civilized cities, the bus stops aren't marked clearly, you have no idea what bus stop is coming up next and of course, not that I was expecting them to, nobody spoke english on the bus. So, Joe & I are on the bus, we pull up to a stop, Joe and I get off the bus because we're blocking the door and it was easier than pushing around others. As I'm getting back on the bus, the doors slam into me, so I push them open. I turn around, the bus starts pulling away with the doors wide open and Joe standing on the road. I look at him as we start to drive away, he looks shocked... runs along side the bus and jumps in! Then some italian lady starts yelling at the driver that the door's open, he slams on the brakes, shuts the door and then I'm sure the bus full of Italians is cursing out the stupid american tourists. A cute little old man said 'Cappuccini?' Which is the name of the catacomb we were taking the bus to see, and motioned for the next stop. We got off at the next stop and found the Capuchin Catacomb
(Catacombe dei Cappuccini) and saw some crazy stuff. We weren't allowed to take any pictures, but here's a link to somebody's website. After that strangeness, just check out the pictures, we were ready to head back to the boat.
-crazy market street in Palermo
In a side note/eulogy, my watch officially died this day, the second of October, in the year two thousand and seven. It served me well over the past 10 years and served as a reminder that it's been 10 years since I graduated high school, since that's when I got the watch. Anyway, I'm going nuts without a watch!
Tunis
We decided to take an excursion while we were in Tunis because we were only in port from 7am until 1pm and thought it would be a bit dangerous if we tried to do anything on our own. So we took the excursion to see Carthage and then to the little town of Sidi Bou Said for some shopping. After being in Pompeii, the Carthage ruins were a bit boring.
-Joe and cousin It with Tunis in the background
But the weather was amazing and warm. The Carthage ruins are spread out all over the place, so we were hopping off and on our bus and spent most of our time in a museum with our guide. After that, we went to Sidi Bou Said and walked through the streets of vendors through houses and then to a beautiful lookout point.
-view from Sidi Bou Said
The vendors weren't that bad unless you showed interest in their things, which we didn't since most of it looked like junk from China. Some of our 'friends' from the trip had fun bargaining with the vendors. Like I always do, I just observe... maybe I'll see something I like in Marrakesh and 'marchander' there. While the others were shopping, Joe and I went to a cafe and got some mint tea even though we were warned not to eat or drink anything while we were in Africa. Of course we didn't listen. The tea was really good and was served with floating pine nuts and so I ate them while drinking the tea (a very stupid mistake). We then went back to the boat and hung out on deck reading for the afternoon trying to get tan.
Palma de Mallorca
It was a beautiful day when we pulled into port and we didn't believe the forecast when it said there would be scattered thunderstorms (Boy were we wrong!).
-Me & Palma's cathedral
There was a storm in my belly, however. No idea what exactly I ate (maybe the pine nuts in the tea in Sidi Bou Said or something on the ship), but this unfortunately turned out to not be a transient problem, but the first of many bad belly days, but I hung in there, even though I was mopey and exhausted. After we docked and some confusion trying to get into town, we finally got in a taxi and gave the driver the address of the restaurant in the guide book. She said okay, and then as we pulled away, she said, "it's Thursday? It's closed." So, we got dropped off by the big cathedral and searched for some place to eat, finally finding a tapas restaurant that was luckily still open considering it was 3pm. After lunch, we walked around town to the train station to see if we could take the scenic train around the island. Unforunately, the times didn't work out for us, so we meandered to the cathedral. From the cathedral, we could see this massive black cloud behind our ship and thought that it would blow around the island since the clouds were blowing that way. So we went into the cathedral and checked out the museum and then sat in the church reading about it in the pamphlet. I then walked around trying to get a good picture of Gaudi's bizarre altar piece, when I realized that it was pouring outside and that the rain was hitting the side of the building. Then, all of a sudden, rain started pouring through the roof of the church! I took some video in the church that you can watch.
It was pretty nuts how much water got into this church. But I figured we were safe considering it was finished being built in the 1600s and is still standing. After we got kicked out of the church, we wandered through all of the downed trees and debris (I have a bunch of pictures) back through the city and to the neighborhood where we found a restaurant we wanted to eat at for dinner. Except when we got there, it looked as if a restaurant didn't even exist. The menu was gone, the blinky lights were unplugged and all the curtains were drawn, as if the place ceased to exist. So after a coffee/tea break, we walked back to the touristy part of town and finally found a restaurant that advertised paella on one of their boards, but when we got inside there was only tapas on the menu. But I asked and they agreed to make us paella (and it turned out not to be too expensive either!). And even though I'd been having abdominal issues, I made sure that I ate as much as I could. It was delicious!! I wish that I'd actually had a proper 'Carolyn appetite' and not the 'crappy appetite'.
Barcelona
We decided to sleep in this day since we'd already been to Barcelona (plus I still felt crappy) and the only thing we planned on was going to our most favoritist restaurant for roasted suckling pig and lamb... El Yantar de la Ribera. Of course I wasn't in the best of moods since I wasn't in prime condition for devouring the best meat I've ever tasted, but I did my best. In the end, Joe had a great time gorging himself while I sat there jealous and pissed that I couldn't eat like a pig while eating suckling pig. But we did get a basket of liquors again at the end of the meal, which always soothes an upset tummy!
-preparing the meat with Joe's face blurred into the picture
-our basket of liquors- from bottom left, clockwise: anise, grappa, peach, apple
Then on our way back to the shuttle bus, we stopped for some gelato and realized that we basically had to run to get on the bus... we were on the last one leaving downtown for the ship... this is why I need a new watch ASAP (and why looking at it all the time isn't necessarily a bad thing, Joe)!
Marseilleholy crap... the town was overrun by English and Australian rugby fans and after 2pm, the old port area was shut down to all traffic so people could watch the match on big screen tvs followed by a concert. This proved to be nearly disastrous for us... I will explain. We slept in again, because again, I was feeling a bit ill. We didn't know what to do in Marseille outside of visiting the cathedral on the hill.
-this cathedral, Church of Notre Dame de la Garde
So I got a map at the tourist office and asked how to get up there. We luckily saw the bus 2 seconds later with a massive queue of Brits and Aussies so we ran to join them. What a windy, crazy ride up the hill in this bus! When we arrived, everyone cheered for our driver's successful maneuvering. It was definitely an experience. They were actually giving mass, so I couldn't get any pictures inside the church, but the views from the top are spectacular. Definitely check these out in my flickr collection. We then waited for the bus for half an hour, and of course it never showed up... so we finally walked down the hill and looked for a restaurant with Bouillabaisse, the traditional fish soup originating in Marseille. We picked a good one and had a fun waiter. It helped so much that I could speak french and talk to him. It was really eerie when all of the Brits and Aussies disappeared to go watch the match and there were just us and 2 tables of french people left on the terrace. In the end, Joe consumed a massive amount of seafood and about 2 liters of broth, including a refill from our waiter, that turned his mouth and hands orange. turmeric maybe? Due to me speaking to our waiter in french (or maybe because he saw we left him a massive tip) he offered Joe a free coffee to help settle his full belly.
-Joe and his Bouillabaisse
We then went to a patisserie so that I could get some decent desserts (they absolutely sucked on the ship) and then went to look for a taxi. Couldn't really find any, so we decided to walk to the train station. We somehow managed to walk through an Arabic part of town... I've never felt so white in my life. Once at/near the train station, we couldn't find the taxi stand, so Joe suggested we take the metro to the end and get a taxi there. So we did, only to find that there are no taxis at the stand there. I thought to call for one (it's 4:30 at this point... 'All aboard' is at 5:30), got put on hold, and then was politely told 'There are no taxis currently in your area, please call back later' to which I yelled an obscenity into the phone. So, back on the metro and back into town. We ran around like crazy people for about 15 minutes looking for a taxi stand with minimal help from the police stationed all over the city-they kept directly us to nowhere, and finally Joe saw a taxi dropping people off and ran it down... we got into the taxi at 5pm (I was staring at Joe's watch) and got back to port, sweaty and gross, at 5:20...so close. I immensely enjoyed gorging myself on the pastries I bought as soon as we got back to our room.
After missing dinner the previous 2 nights, we went to socialize and say bye to our dinner companions. We swapped a few emails to send pictures, etc. We'll see if we hear from anybody. It was a fun trip, ending badly for my tummy, but in all, it was a lot of fun and great to spend time alone with Joe.
-here we are dressed up for dinner our last night...my mom's worst fear: drinking on deck and falling overboard...I totally should have staged a photo of that and emailed it to her while I was gone....
