Trip of A Lifetime Part 6

Day 7:  Cannes


On Thursday of our trip we found ourselves in Cannes.  The Beverly Hills of France!  Unbelievable cars, high end shopping, celebrities & home of the Cannes Film Festival.

At this stop there wasn't an actual port for the boat to dock at.  Instead they set anchor out in the ocean and we got to take the life boats in to the little docks.  We had an excursion booked for this day, however we were SO tired and really just wanted to relax on the beach.  So we had a relaxing morning and just took our time getting off the boat.

Once we made it to land we hopped on a bus to a locals beach where we just laid in the sun, swam in the ocean and had a great time relaxing and pretending to be a local :)  After we got got tired of the sun we grabbed some gelato and walked around.

The yachts of the rich

 Life boats

 Our ship from the life boat

 Awesome cars like this everywhere!

Locals beach (don't look to long you may see some topless old ladies)

Fun in the sun

Day 8:

Our final stop was in Marseille.  The stop here was very short as we had to be back on the ship by 3pm to set sail back to Barcelona.  Tyler and I opped to stay on the boat this day.  I don't have any fun pictures :(  we just laid out, went to the spa and took a nap.  It's a vacation right your supposed to do that!

The travel back home was brutal!  With an early morning flight, delays and a 9 hour time difference we  were traveling for a total of 24 hours by the time we made it to my parents house!  So tired but so worth it.

It definitely was a trip of a lifetime and we are so thankful to have gone and seen/experiences the things we did.  It was such a blessing to have my sister as well as my parents to watch our boys.  They did so good while we were gone.  We called every morning & they were usually too busy having fun playing to talk to us!  That made it much easier to be away from them.

I hope you enjoyed the re cap of our trip!!

Spain airport treat (Mc Donals icecream cones come with a kit kat!)

And they have beer!

Trip of A Lifetime Part 4

Day 5: Rome Baby!!

So I don't even know how to begin to describe our day in Rome.  I could go on and on about how amazing the sites were and how cool it was to be driving in the city and all the sudden see ruins pop up in the middle of the hustle and bustle.  Words like incredible, beautiful, and spectacular don't even begin to touch this city.

Some friends of ours had gone on this cruise last year and they recommended doing a private tour of Rome.  We took there recommendation and booked our tour with the same people.  It's called Driver Guide Service and it was AMAZING!  We invited another couple to join us so there were 4 of us.  Our guide/drivers name was Pietro and he was there to make our experience perfect for us.  We could take our time at one location and be quicker at another, stop for lunch, coffee, bathroom..  he was so accommodating and because he was from Rome he was extremely knowledgeable of all the facts and history of the ancient city.  With this tour we were able to see way more than we would have been able to with one of the excursions the cruise ship did.  We were also able to avoid all lines and had our own guide for the Vatican Museum & the Sistine Chapel.

What we saw in Rome:

Coliseum
the Roman Forum of Caesar
Circus Maximu & Imperial Palace
Trevi Fountain
Spanish Steps
Pantheon 
Vatican Museum
Sistine Chapel
St. Peters Square

Coliseum

The middle area that is "cells" where the eild beasts, slaves and prisoners were held before they were killed

the "stage" looking floor is an example of what was laid over the top of the cells where the battles were fought

Forum

The field is the Circus Maximus where the chariot races were

The Palace behind it is the Imperial Palace

Amazing sculptures 

 Trevi Fountain

Statues on the fountain

 The size of these sculptures were incredible 

The amount of people at the Trevi Fountain

 Spanish Steps

There was a Mc Donalds in Rome... weird with the Pantheon to the side of it.  That is what was so crazy about Rome, the city is just built around all of these antient building.

Pantheon 

 Navona Square where we stopped for lunch

La Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi; one of the 4 fountaing in the square

close up of part of the fountain

Vatican Museum (in most of the Museum photos are restricted so there aren't many pictures)

Real mummies in the Museum... I found these SO cool

 Amazing painting on the ceiling.  It looks 3d w/ crown molding but it's all in the painting

Forbiden hallway to the Vatican City

Sistine Chapel

Guards guarding the Vatican city

    St. Peters Square.  The large buidling in the center is where the Pope lives

This square is where people gather each week to watch the Pope give his  speech   The white screen there in the center is used to project him on for a better view. 

   Well I hope you enjoyed your tour of Rome.  If you ever have a chance to go I highly  recommend  the service we use.  I usually don't write reviews on the websites for things but this one was so good I wanted others to know how much we liked it!

Trip of A Lifetime Part 3

Day 4:  Sorrento & Amalfi by Land & Sea

So after sailing for 2 nights and a full day we woke up to our ship docking in the port of Naples Italy!  From this port we had booked an excursion to Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast.  It was an excursion put on by the Norwegian cruise line so the way it worked was everyone going on an excursion that morning waited in the Theater for there excursion number to be called.  From then we all filed outside where the tour buses along with our guides were waiting.  This whole organized group touring thing was a bit hard for Tyler and I, being the adventurous, climb, hike, exploring people we are, the structured out time schedule of the excursion was a little out of our element, but it was a great way to see & learn all there was about the towns we would be visiting.

It was about a 1.5 hour drive to our destination however it didn't feel that long at all.  Being in a different country it was so fun to people watch and look at how the Italians live.  Homes are crammed on top of each other, laundry hanging to dry from every window, vineyards and olive trees, 10-20 antennas on the roofs of houses and we even drove by Mt. Vesuvius, an active volcano in Naples.  

Once we arrived in Sorrento we were given about an hour of free time to explore the city.  All of the cities we visited with the exception of Rome were super close to the sea and built right up to the waters edge, it is just spectacular!  Tyler and I set out to get a look at the beach, do some shopping and to find coffee and gelato!

Mt. Vesuvius

Check out the size of those lemons!!  In Italy they make a wonderful drink out of those lemons called Lemonchello... It's a lemon liquor and it's to die for!

Yummy fruits and veggies

Streets of Sorrento 

Vespa of course!

Enjoying Cafe latte and gelato

 The amazing hotel access to the sea

After our free time was up we met our group for lunch.  They had reserved a table outside at Light Aurora Ristorane which is located on a corner street in the city square.  It was a great place to people watch and driver watch!  Drivers in Italy are CRAZY!  We learned that traffic signals are optional and a car is considered nice if it has 4 wheels and a horn.

After lunch we got back on the bus and drove another hour or so to Amalfi.  From here we got on a boat and did a sea tour that gave us a great view of the Amalfi coast as well as dropped up off in Amalfi to check out the city.  We found the city church which was beautiful!  All of the Italian cities are built with the church in the middle.  They typically have a dome roof and a bell tower which makes it very easy to spot.

Harbor

Amalfi Coast

City center with steps leading up to the church

 Bell tower

Inside the amazing church

Almafi Harbor

Once we arrived back from our sea tour the bus was ready to drive us back to the port in Naples where our cruise ship would be waiting our arrival.  Now I knew it was going to be hot but it was HOT oh my word like 100+ degrees with 70% humidity.  That along with walking and touring makes for exhausted people!  It's hard to be on a ship with so many fun things to do and be so tired.  But of course we pushed through it, we had tickets to the Cirque dinner show we couldn't miss out on!!

:)