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!

Map of our cruise course

Beginning & ending in Barcelona, Spain

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!!

:)

Trip of A Lifetime Part 2

Day 3: At Sea
Monday was a full day sailing on the Mediterranean Sea.  Luckily our boat had lots to do.  Swimming, bowling, and Ice Bar, several great restaurants including a Brazillian steak house called Moderno (so yummy), water slides, a casino, shows like the Blue Man Group, Cirque du Soleil and Legends in concert.  We kept hearing that The Norwegian Epic had the biggest spa at sea so we went to check it out.  Sure enough.. it was gigantic!  Massage, facials, pedis, manis, waxing, saunas, soaking tubs, hot stone beds... it was the works!  We indulged ourselves and got a pass for the week to use the saunas, steam rooms and soaking tubs.  It was the perfect thing in the evenings after walking and being on our feet all day.  We also spent a lot of that first afternoon relaxing by the pool getting a tan.  The sun is SO intense over there!  That night we got tickets to The Blue Man group and went to bed early!  We were exhausted after 13 hours of traveling.

The boat was absolutely amazing and HUGE!  When we were in the different port cities our boat towered over all the other cruise ships that were docked.  The only thing I would say is the cabins were pretty small!  There was no room to walk around but since we were just sleeping in them it wasn't too bad.  There was only 1 night where we could feel the boat moving and that was only because it was a little bit stormy on the ocean.  Otherwise it was smooth sailing and you didn't ever feel like you were even on a boat.   

Check out some pictures of this amazing ship 

Epic Theater

Cirque Du Soleil show

 Ice Bar

The ice bar was FREEZING!  They gave you ponchos and gloves.  It was so much fun & we met some super fun people in there!

Sauna over looking the ocean

Soaking pools

A view of Deck 15

Part of the casino

Bowling

Our cabin.  Super small it consisted of a bed, closet, couch, small counter/sink, a shower and a toilet.

Trip of a Lifetime Part 1

I can't believe our trip has come and gone!  We had been looking forward to it, worrying about it & planning for it, for 5 months and now it's over!  I still can't believe we were there and saw the things we saw it was spectacular!

Our trip consisted of 7 days.  1 cruising the Mediterranean sea 2 days in Spain, 2 in Italy and 2 in France.  Since I have a million pictures I am going to do several posts.

ENJOY!

DAY 1 & 2:

We started out flying 4 hours from PDX to Toronto Canada then catching a connection flight of 8.5 hours from Toronto to Barcelona Spain.  The time difference is 9 hours ahead so we slept a little bit on the plane since we would be arriving in Barcelona at 7am with a new day ahead of us.  In Barcelona we had people waiting to take us, along with lots of other Edward Jones couples to a little Spanish Village where we spent the morning enjoying breakfast, shopping and some sight seeing.  It was Sunday and a lot of the Village stores weren't open yet so Tyler and I ventured out and walked to Olympic Park and checked out the location of the 1992 summer Olympics.   Unfortunately we only had a limited time in Barcelona before we had to board our ship.  There was so much iin this amazing city that we didn't get to see.

Spanish Village

View of Barcelona from the Spanish Village

Village square.  I guess there are MAJOR dance parties with live music in this square.

Olympic Tower

Olympic Village

Village cont.

cont.

Olympic Track

Love is..

"Love is everlasting,

Love is only kind,

Love is always patient,

Love will blow your mind!!"

- JeKob

Loving this song!!  The boys and I rock out to it in the car daily.  

I love finding up beat catchy Christian songs.  Cade can seriously memorize a song by listining to it twice, so I have to be EXTRA careful what goes into his little ears.  I'm trying to stay away from secular music but it's so hard because KLove and all the other Christian radio stations are um... lame! 

So I'm looking for a list of songs to download for us in the car.  

Please pretty please leave a comment with your favorite 

upbeat

danceable

funky

Clean songs!

Thanks!! 

rock on, 

Can't believe ...

That in a week...

I will have dropped my boys off in Dallas and won't see them for 8 days!

My sister agreed to watch them for SO long

I will have flown across the ocean SCARY! 

Be having breakfast in Barcelona Spain!!

Boarding the Norwegian Epic and cruising the Mediterranean for 5 days

Stopping in Barcelona, Naples, Rome, Florence, Cannes and Provence

Spending a week with my hubby

SO nervous but SO excited!! 

Wordless Wednesday