(Updated May 27, 2018)
Day 1 – April 29, 2018
Austin to Barcelona
The first and last days of a cruise to Europe are the worst because you first have to get to Barcelona and then you have to get back. This involves driving to the airport (1 hour), waiting to board the plane to New York (2 hours), flying to New York (3 hours), waiting to board the plane to Barcelona (2 hours), flying to Barcelona (10 hours), taking the shuttle to the port ( 1 hour), then FINALLY, going thru the embarking process to board the ship (1 hour).
When the cruise is over, you repeat the process in reverse.
In case you lost count, that is 40 hours of driving, waiting in airports, riding on buses and flying. Fortunately, most of that time is flying and my Super Power is sleeping on planes. I have no trouble doing that. I miss a lot of meals, but I don’t care. When I wake up, we are usually beginning the descent into wherever we are going.
When I got to New York, I spent a lot of time looking at this:
Before boarding the ship in Barcelona I did what I always do. I counted the life-boats to make sure they had enough. They did.
Day 2 – April 30, 2018
Fun Day at Sea
“Fun Day at Sea” – That’s what they call it when you are just cruising and not stopping in any ports. The good thing is, there is a lot to do on board the ship. I will go into that later.
(Note: It is called a ship, not a boat. A boat is something that goes on a ship, like a life-boat).
The very first thing that happened was I discovered I could not get on the Internet with my laptop. That is very important. First, because I paid a lot of money to use their WiFi and Second, because I like to post pictures and comments day-by-day on this Blog.
One of the problems with sailing on a brand new ship is you are bound to run into some problems along the way as they tweak things. I have a friend who cruised on a first-time ship a few years ago and she said there were some issues, so I knew there were things that could go wrong, but this was a major disappointment for me.
I spent a lot of time with the Customer Support people trying to connect, but it was hit and miss. I would be able to log on from time to time, but it was only for short periods and the connection was so slow it wasn’t worth the trouble. Finally, I gave up and asked for my money back, which they did with many apologies.
So … what I decided to do was create a day-by -day posting of pictures and comments on my laptop and then, when I got back home, post them day-by day as if I were still on the ship. This is the first post. I will be updating it every day.
Stay tuned.
Day 3 – May 1, 2018
Florence/Pisa, Italy
Florence
The first city we visited was Florence. Normally when I travel I have two rules.
1. I travel alone. That’s how I always have rolled and I like it.
2. I avoid guided tours. I prefer to show up at a new location and go where the wind blows me without having to worry about being at a certain place at a certain time. In order for cruise ships to make money, they need at least 2 people in every cabin. If you travel alone like I do, you have to pay for 2 people. I don’t mind because that is still cheaper than a wife or a girlfriend … sorry ladies.
Now I am going to write about ‘excursions’. I know many people reading this have taken cruises and know what excursions are, but I mention them for those of you who have never taken a cruise.
Unfortunately, when I started taking cruises, I had to abandon Rule #2. When a cruise ship docks at a port, you have the option of just going ashore and ‘going where the wind blows you.” However, there are dangers in doing that. If you get lost or lose track of time or have trouble getting back to the ship on time, they will not wait for you. The ship will sail on schedule and you will be left in a foreign country while most of your belongings are heading to the next port.
The cruise ships sponsor “Excursions”, which are guided tours of wherever you happen to be. It is true that they have a fixed schedule and you have to go where they want to go when they want to go. However, the reason for taking them is they guarantee they will get you back to your ship in plenty of time before it sails away. That’s a good thing.
The most famous landmark in Florence is the Cathedral, or, as it is called in Italian, the Duomo. Construction started in the 13th century and took two centuries to finish. As with most of the important structures in old cities like Florence, the people who finished building it were not even born when construction began. That kind of blows my mind. To compare, when they rebuilt the World Trade Center, in spite of many delays and problems, it was finished in about 4 years.
Here are some pictures of Florence and many of its buildings and statues:
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NOTE: The woman holding the sign was our tour guide. I could not believe the knowledge she had about all the buildings and monuments and statues. She knew the dates when every building and every statue was started and finished, the architect or the sculptor and some history about every one. I know that was her job, but it was amazing nonetheless.
BTW The statue of David was sculpted by Michelangelo between 1501 and 1504 when he was just 26 years old. David, of course, was the biblical character in the Bible who had that famous battle with Goliath. The statue was originally intended to be placed on the roof of the cathedral, but the authorities in Florence were so overwhelmed by its beauty they placed it where people could see it up close.
In case you are wondering why David is naked, you aren’t alone. Our tour guide was asked that question and she said there are many theories and speculations, but nobody really knows the answer. The ancient Greek sculptors frequently created nude statues, but David was a character from the Christian Bible and the statue was commissioned by the Catholic Board of the Cathedral of Florence, so why he had no clothes remains a mystery today. From time to time, he has been covered with a fig leaf or some sort of cloth, but, today, he stands the way he was intended by Michelangelo.
Pisa
There is only one reason to go to Pisa … to see the leaning tower, of course. Our tour guide described it this way: “With 207 columns ranged around eight stories, Tower of Pisa looks like a massive wedding cake knocked precariously askew by a clumsy giant guest.”
The construction of Tower of Pisa began in August 1173 and continued for about 200 years. (Here we go again with hundreds of years of construction.) Till today, the name of the architect is a mystery. The tower started leaning shortly after construction began. Maybe that is why the architect wanted to keep his name out of the picture.
The reason the tower leans is because the water table is higher on one side of the tower than the other, so the soil is softer on that side. As the tower was built, it started leaning towards the soft side. The top of the leaning tower of Pisa is about 17 feet off the vertical.
The tower is also slightly curved from the attempts by various architects to keep it from leaning more or falling over. Many ideas have been suggested to straighten the Tower of Pisa, including taking it apart stone by stone and rebuilding it at a different location.
Over the centuries there have been many unsuccessful attempts to stop the tower from leaning and, eventually, falling over. It wasn’t until the late 20th century that engineers finally discovered a solution that worked. They began excavating soil from the side that was not leaning. Eventually they got to the point where the tower started leaning towards the vertical.
In May 2008, engineers announced that the tower had been stabilized such that it had stopped moving for the first time in its history. They stated that it would be stable for at least 200 years.
Many people have speculated that, if they wanted, they could eventually get the tower to be completely vertical.
Can you guess why they won’t do that? (Hint … read my first sentence in the Pisa section.)
Here are some pics. You won’t see a picture of me trying to keep the tower from falling over. Everybody was doing that.
Day 4 – May 2, 2018
Rome
After leaving Pisa, we were taken back to the ship (on time, of course). The ship set sail at 7:30 PM and headed for the Port of Civitavecchia and the Capitol of Italy, Rome, AKA The Eternal City. (They still use the term “set sail” even though no cruise ships have sails any more).
We were only going to be in this port for about 12 hours and there is NO WAY you can see everything in that city in such a short period. The cruise line offered many excursions for different atrractions. I chose the one that went to the Colosseum and Vatican City. I thought I might run into the Pope and strike up an interesting conversation (I didn’t).
It is about a one hour bus ride from the port into the city. If you have ever been to Europe, you know the public restroom situation is terrible and that is especially true in Italy. The restrooms are few and far between. Most restaurants and shops do have bathrooms, but they expect you to buy something in order to use them. The few public restrooms you find will charge 1€ – a little over a dollar.
The tour guides and every sign I saw in English referred to restrooms as “Toilets”. It is a perfectly good word, and I don’t know why, but I found it kind of vulgar.
When we were just outside the city, the bus stopped at a service station. Look at the lines for the restrooms. At times like this, I am glad I am of the male gender. The woman’s line was about 3 times as long. The good thing is, because they are charging money, they keep the restrooms very clean. That was a nice surprise.
The Colosseum
This is the first time I have been to Rome, so, of course, the Colosseum had to be on my list of places to visit. I have looked at the pictures I took and there is no doubt a picture does not begin to show what seeing this structure in person is really like. It is awesome. I highly recommend anyone who has not been there already to go as soon as possible. You will not regret it.
Before I post the pictures, here are some interesting (at least to me) facts abut this ancient stadium:
- The Colosseum has over 80 entrances and can accommodate about 50,000 spectators.
- It is thought that over 500,000 people lost their lives and over a million wild animals were killed throughout the duration of the Colosseum hosted people vs. beast games. However, in spite of the fact that early Christians were certainly the victims of horrible persecution and executions, most modern historians believe there is no evidence that Christians were fed to lions in the Roman Colosseum.
- All Ancient Romans had free entry to the Colosseum for events, and were also fed throughout the spectacles. This was done to distract them from the fact they were treated horribly by the various Roman Emperors.
- Many natural disasters devastated the structure of the Colosseum, but it was the earthquakes of 847 AD and 1231 AD that caused most of the damage you see today.
- Receiving millions of visitors every year, the Colosseum is the most famous tourist attraction of Rome.
Here are my pictures:
One final note, then on to Vatican City.
After experiencing the bathroom situation on the way to Rome, I was curious about the bathrooms in the Colosseum. After all, there would be as many as 50,000 people in the place at any given time. This was 2,000 years ago, so I imagined the facilities would have been pretty primitive, so I raised my hand and asked our tour guide what those facilities were like.
She seemed hesitant to answer the question. Probably because there were a lot of children on the tour. She said there was plenty of information available on the Internet and I should check it out. So, I did.
Here is what I found out. It is kind of disgusting, so you may want to scroll past it.
The Colosseum would have required many toilets, although there is limited information about this subject. There has, however, been evidence found of two very large toilets or latrines in the Colosseum. In the foundations of the Colosseum there are the four underground tunnels and below them there are four big drains (1.3 by 3.8 meters). These passages were made during the building of the foundations. Communal toilets, or latrines, consisted of a row of holed seats. A flow of water circulated under the seats. A system of small sewers led from all parts of the Colosseum to one great circular drain which surrounded the amphitheater. At regular intervals along this drain there were wells that reached 8 meters deep. This large drain, in turn, connected to the Cloaca Maxima, the main sewerage system of Rome. Toilets in the Colosseum have seated as many as 100. The open water channel in front of the toilets was used to wash using “cleaning” sponges tied to the end of a stick.
Sponges tied to the end of a stick and, presumably, used by many people???
Here is a picture I found on the Internet of a part of the Colosseum that was not included in the tour:
The Vatican Museum
It was just my poor luck that, on the same day I was in Rome, there was a huge soccer game in that city between Liverpool and Rome. I am not into European soccer, but apparently, it was the equivalent of a playoff game in the National Football League. The reason it was bad luck for me was there were tens of thousands of soccer fans in the city for the game. While waiting to go to the game, many many of them decided to visit Vatican City at the time I was there. The long lines to see every attraction were horrible. Moving through the Vatican Museum and St Peter’s Basilica was done at a snail’s pace. It was literally wall-to-wall people.
Here is a picture as we entered the museum. Our guide held up her #14 sign to keep us together, but it was tough with the throng of people all trying to get to the same place:
Another view of the crowds moving through the museum. Pay attention to the ceiling. In person and in photos, it looks like the ceiling is a very elaborate painting. It is not. Most of what looks like paintings in the museum are actually mosaics. Every single one of those “paintings” is actually a mosaic, done with painstaking detail, and created with thousands of tiny pieces of colored glass making the mosaic, that they only appear to be paintings.
The world’s largest jigsaw puzzles, to say the least.
How cool is that? Can you imagine the time and effort it took to create these masterpieces?
Saint Peter’s Basilica
In terms of area, volume, length, width, height, and capacity, St Peter’s Basilica is the largest church in the world. Tradition holds that the tomb of the Apostle Peter is directly below the high altar of the Basilica. Besides St. Peter, there are 91 Popes buried in the Basilica, the most recent being John Paul II.
There is one door to the Basilica that is only opened when a Pope calls for a “Holy Year”. It is said that people who pass through that door receive a ‘plenary’ indulgence. A better Catholic than I am can explain what that means.
Here are some pictures:
Ever since I first saw a picture of it many years ago, I have been fascinated by the Pietà, a sculpture by Michelangelo. The marble statue depicts the body of Jesus being held by his mother, Mary, after the crucifixion. I don’t know why, of all the statues in all the world, this one speaks to me. Even after I no longer considered myself a religious person, I have always wanted to see it in person and now I have.
Here are some things I learned about this work of art:
- Of all his paintings and sculptures, the Pietà is the only one Michelangelo ever signed.
- If you look closely, you can see the size of Mary is much larger than the size of Jesus. Michelangelo did this on purpose because he knew he could not could not impose realistic proportions and have her cradle her adult son in the manner he envisioned.
- The first time the statue ever left St Peter’s was when it was brought to the New York World’s Fair in 1964. When the statute was placed on the ship which brought it across the Atlantic, it was equipped with a radio transmitter that would broadcast its location in the event the ship sank.
- In May, 1972 a mentally ill man damaged the Pietà with a hammer. After repair work was complete, the Vatican had the marble statue encased in a triple layer of bulletproof glass.
Now, here it is:
The Pontifical Swiss Guards are the traditional bodyguards of the Pope. Like the soldiers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington, they maintain a 24 hour guard of the Pope’s residence. The Guard is one of the oldest military units in continuous operation.
In order to join the Guard you must an unmarried Catholic male between the ages of 19 and 30 who has completed basic training with the Swiss Armed Forces. (I guess that leaves me out … except for the ‘unmarried’ part).
We happened to be there when they were changing the guard.
Pretty snappy uniforms … right?
The Sistine Chapel
Attached to the Basilica is the world famous Sistine Chapel . It is the site of the principal papal ceremonies and is used by the Sacred College of Cardinals for their election of a new pope when there is a vacancy.
The chapel holds some of the most renown and famous paintings and frescoes ever assembled in one place, culminating, of course with the incredible ceiling painted by Michelangelo. It is really indescribable, so I won’t try to describe it.
Here are some pictures:
Ooops … actually, I can’t show you any pictures. Here is why:
Around the year 1980, Vatican officials decided they needed a complete restoration of some of the paintings in the chapel, including Michelangelo’s ceiling. The price for the restoration was so costly they sought bids from outside entities. The contract was awarded to a television network in Japan called Nippon TV. In return for funding the renovation, Nippon TV received the exclusive rights to photography and video of the restored art. That is why there’s no photography or video allowed in the Sistine Chapel. As my tour walked through the chapel we constantly heard shouts of “No Photo! No Video!” from security guards.
If you want to see some of the art in the chapel, you can see it here:
Sistine Chapel Paintings
One last thing. Once a week, when the Pope is in Rome, he addresses the people in front of St. Peter’s. It turns out that he was going to make that address on the day AFTER we were there. They were setting up chairs as we walked by and, although it would be more than 24 hours until he appeared, people were already lining up to see him. (Take that Beyonce!).
Day 5 – May 3, 2018
Naples
We arrived in Naples early this morning. I went up on deck to see what the city looked like:
Since the city of Naples is right on the port and you can see the ship from just about anywhere you go, I decided not to take an excursion. I just walked off the ship and walked around the city. After Florence and Rome, Naples was not that impressive.
Here is a picture of a typical apartment building. I was told some of these buildings are three to four hundred years old. They all seemed to have balconies.
One thing is certain. You would never catch me standing on a balcony of a 400 year old building (and, the whole time I was there, I never saw anyone standing on one either).
I think most people know that pizza was invented in Italy. According to the information I had, Naples is supposed to have the best pizza in the country, so naturally I had to try it.
I’m not sure what the difference between American and Italian pizza is. I think I read somewhere the difference is in the sauce. We use a tomato based sauce and they use an olive oil based sauce. Also we like to put lots of different meats and toppings on our pizza. They stick to just one topping, one kind of meat. They say, if you ask for pineapple on your pizza in Italy, they will have you arrested.
It wasn’t bad, kind of boring, but at least I can now say I have tried pizza in the country where it was invented.
Of course, when you are in Italy, you also have to try gelato. I liked it better than the pizza, but again, give me a Baskin & Robbins chocolate chip cone any day.
Right at the port where the ship was docked, there was this enormous sculpture which was in the shape of a sail. It was kind of interesting. It is supposed to be some kind of beacon. I remembered I could see it from a long way off as we approached the harbor.
The sculpture is covered with something called “Corten” which makes it change color according to the light. During the day, it is black, like in the picture. At dawn and sunset, it changes to a bright red.
Here is what the inscription said:
Day 6 – May 4, 2018
Fun Day at Sea
Those of you who have taken cruises before know that every ship has a “Cruise Director” who organizes fun things to do on ship. (Every time is see Cruise Director, I think of Julie the Cruise Director on the Love Boat TV show, but I guess that is just giving away my age).
Anyway, the person being “Julie” on this cruise is named Mike and he was everywhere. On the first day he said he was going to try and meet everyone on board (2,900) passengers, shake their hands and ask them if they were having a good time. I don’t know if he was able to keep that promise, but he shook my hand 2 times.
Here are some of the things he planned for today’s Fun Day at Sea.
- Military Appreciation Gathering
- Hairy Chest Contest
- $2,000 Jackpot Bingo in the casino
- Lip Sync Battle
- MusicTrivia Contests (50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s)
- Slot Tournament in the casino
- Charades
- Volleyball Tournament
- Karaoke Contest
- etc., etc., etc.
(I did enter the ’60’s Music Trivia Contest and took 2nd Place …no trophy … just a round of applause from my fellow baby boomers).
That is just a partial list. There were dozens of other activities. In addition, there was the Comedy Club, a Las Vegas-type Showroom and , of course the 18 different kinds of restaurants and the endless buffet.
I usually spend most of these Fun Days in the casino, at the buffet or at the swimming pool.
Here are some pictures:
The Zip Line that went around the ship (I did try that … twice). No pictures from “up” there. They make you turn in your camera before you start. They don’t want you to drop it on somebody’s head. Probably a good idea.
You think you are a good pool player? Try playing on a moving ship where the balls won’t stand still.
The Hairy Chest Contest
Here is something I thought was neat. I don’t know if this is a new thing, but I have never seen it before. It is the elevator system. Here is how it works:
There are no “Up” and “Down” buttons at the elevators. You just pick the Deck you want to go to and the system tells you which elevator to take.
There are no buttons inside the elevator either. By the time you get in, it already knows where you want to go and it goes there. How cool is that?
Day 7 – May 5, 2018
Dubrovnik,Croatia
Croatia was a republic that was part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In 1991 it declared its independence and was renamed the Republic of Croatia. Today it is a very popular tourist destination.
Here is how the port of Dubrovnik used as we arrived:
I signed up for an excursion on a river boat which traveled into the country and ended with a lunch at a restaurant located on the river bank. Here are some pictures:
This is the restaurant. By the time we got here, we were all very hungry, but is was worth the wait. I’m not sure what some of the food was, but they just kept bringing more and more. It was very good.
Day 7 – May 6, 2018
Corfu, Greece
About 10 years ago I did travel to Greece, but I stayed on the mainland around Athens. There were plenty of things to see there: the Acropolis, the Parthenon and more museums than you can count.
Greece also includes thousand of small islands. Corfu is one of those. We were only going to be there for a few hours, so I decided to take one of those “Get off Get on” bus tours where it stops at several locations, you get off the bus and explore, then get back on the next bus. you get the idea.
Here are a few pictures:
The city is one of the oldest cities in the world, dating back several thousand years. Naturally, there are some things that need repair.
This is all Greek to me:
Day 8 – May 7, 2018
Messina, Sicily
Okay, I’ll admit it. One of the biggest reasons I decided to take this particular cruise is because one of the stops is Sicily and one of the places where you could take an excursion is the village where some scenes of the The Godfather were filmed.
My Top 5 favorite movies of all time, in no particular order, are:
The Graduate
American Graffiti
Casablanca
Seven Days in May
… and, of course, The Godfather.
I definitely wanted to visit this village. The excursion was called In the Footsteps of the Godfather. Pretty cool, huh?
As any Godfather fan knows, when Michael Corleone killed Sollozzo (Mafia drug dealer) and McCluskey (NY police captain) at an Italian restaurant in the Bronx, he was forced to go to Sicily and ‘lay low’ for a while until things in New York between the Corleone Family and the other Mafia Families settled down.
While in Sicily, he met and married a local Italian girl named Apollonia. She ultimately met a horrible death, but I won’t go into that. Godfather fans already know and non-fans should watch the movie.
The couple met in a Sicilian village called Corleone, after the family name of Michael Corleone, the son of The Godfather. When Francis Coppola, the director of the movie was searching for a site for the movie, he rejected the actual village of Corleone because it was ‘too modern and too big’ to fit in with his film which took place in rural Italy in the 1940’s.
Instead, he filmed in a village called Savoca, which looked more like the period of the movie. That is the village we went to.
Savoca is located at the top of a mountain in southern Sicily. Here are are couple of views of the winding and twisting roads we took to get there:
Here I am standing in front of the view the people of Savoca see every day:
This is the restaurant called The Bar Vitelli. It is where a pivotal scene in the first Godfather movie was filmed. In the scene, Michael Corleone and his bodyguards sit on the terrace of Bar Vitelli and discuss with the owner of the bar a beautiful girl they saw just a little while ago in the country. “She wore a red dress and a red ribbon in her hair. She looks more Greek than Italian.” This is how one of Michael’s bodyguards described the girl.
Upon realizing that it was actually his daughter, the owner of Bar Vitelli storms off back inside, totally unaware of how important the man asking about his daughter, Michael Corleone, actually is in Mafia circles.
Michael Corleone, however, makes him an offer he can’t refuse, and the owner of the bar agrees to a meeting by saying, “Come to my house Sunday morning. My name is Vitelli.” It is only then that Michael learns the girl’s name is Apollonia.
Here I am actually sitting in the very terrace of the restaurant where the scene was filmed:
For the tiny minority of people who haven’t seen the movie, here is a picture of how that scene looked. It is hanging in the entry to the restaurant:
As part of the tour we also went to the church where Michael and Apollonia were married (in the movie). It was, as almost everyone knows, a very short marriage:
Day 10 – May 8, 2018
Fun Day at Sea
There are lots of bars on a cruise ship. People who cruise really like to drink. At one point I even saw the ship’s Captain standing at the bar.
Not to worry … turns out this was not the Captain. He is a crew member who keeps track of the liquor inventory . Big job.
If you spend a lot of time here …
… you have to spend a lot of time here:
Every morning, all over the ship, lots of towel animals show up:
Lots of towel animals:
This was the maiden voyage of the Carnival Cruise Ship Horizon, so there was some last-minute construction going on:
There’s a lot of water out there:
I finally did learn how to solve the Rubik’s Cube:
Day 11 and 12 – May 9th and 10th, 2018
Barcelona to Austin
Repeat Day 1 in reverse and I am back home planning the next trip (around Christmas, I think).
Stay tuned …
of chairs
