Day 12 - Barcelona, Spain

Barcelona was the final stop. It was the city from which I expected the least but actually was the most impressed by. I'm not sure why I expected so little.. probably because I did not know much about the city except that the Olympics were held there not too long ago in 1992. I am embarassed to say that I did not know much about such this wonderful city until I was there. The architecture is difficult to describe and different than in any other city we visited. Even though it was originally a Roman city, the capital of Catalonia is a global community important both economically and culturally to the region. In contrast to Athens, the city has taken the buildings and facilities built for the Olympics and turned that areas into trendy and high-end real estate. There is an intricate blend of historical and modern visible as you move through the city. At one point on the tour bus, I could imagine an apartment on one of the quaint little cobblestone streets with a balcony overlooking the garden. This vision is one seen frequently throughout this city of over 1.5M.

Unfortunately the pictures from Barcelona are a bit on the light side, I'm not sure why. Or perhaps it is that no picture can truly show the beauty of the city. Just know that Barcelona is definitely on the top of my list of places to visit for a longer period of time. Considering the other cities I visited, that is an extremely high mark!

Day 10 - Tuscany & Pisa

The actual port is called Livorno but the location is Tuscany and not far is Pisa. For those who love rolling hills and gorgeous countryside, this is probably the most beautiful location we visited. As with most of the other locations, where the ship docks is less than glamorous but after 10 minutes in a vehicle away from the port, the beauty of this region of Italy was staring me in the face. There were sunflowers everywhere. And I mean everywhere. Fields and fields of them. Absolutely gorgeous. The picture posted here does not do the true view justice. It seems so simple but it truly is something you have to see in person.

The tour I took started with a scenic drive through the Tuscan countryside, through small little towns and farms as we made our way up hills to San Gimignano. This is a medieval town known for its views of the countryside and its architecture. It is definitely a tourist site and has plenty of shopping and inclines to get a good workout while walking around the town (in fact, if you want to see San Gimignano, you cannot walk in any direction without either walking up or down a hill). Just as impressive as the view the town is the view of the town from afar... it has a little skyline that looks like a major city but is really just this little town built centuries ago.

As many of you know, I am always on the lookout for unique jewelry and I found it in San Gimignano. My new favorite piece in my collection is my handmade and hopefully unique silver/bronze ring I found in this little silver shop. I am certain it is unique here in the US and hopefully even in Italy!

The next visit was to a winery. Which for me is the promised land! We did a wine tasting which is always a pleasure. White wines I can live without but the reds were glorious. Expensive but scrumptous nonetheless. I learned the proper way to drink wine, how to swish it in my mouth, how to circulate air through it and taste what I should be tasting. Honestly, I don't know that I ever truly taste what I should be tasting and the complicated tasting process might just be a little much for me. But it is fun to try to be educated in the art of wine and this visit was definitely worth it!

The final stop for the day was Pisa and most notably the leaning tower. The leaning tower is actually a bell tower for the cathedral that stands next to it. That was news to me but interesting no doubt. The tower's construction began in 1173 and continued to be worked on for about the next 200 hundred years (initial construction phase). The tower started leaning almost immediately due to poor foundation building and natural movement of the earth's material. The direction of the lean has changed over time. The tower is actually shorter than I thought it would be... for some reason I think I expected a tower more like the Eiffel in Paris but the tower in Pisa is only 7 floors. The courtyard with the tower and the cathedral is beautiful and a must see if you're ever in the area.

Day 9 - Rome, Italy

Rome... where to even start with Rome. An amazing city that everyone needs to visit at some point in life. From the beautiful churches and statues to the Pantheon to St Peter's Square and the Vatican. So much to see, so much ground to cover and so little time to appreciate it all in one day. It's almost laughable to say I only spent 1 day in Rome when you need a month to see everything!

We did see the highlights.. Trevi Fountain, the Colosseum, St Peter's square and the Pantheon (so many other things, too, but too many to mention!). We were at first a little bummed about the fact that we were there on a Sunday and that visiting the Vatican was highly unlikely due to crowds. What we learned was that there is likely a method to the madness of cruise ships visiting Rome on Sunday - no weekday traffic. From what the tour guide said, the city is gridlock all day during the week and that a tour bus and tourists could not get anywhere in the city Monday-Friday. So even though we did not get to go in to the Vatican, we did get to visit the square. Maybe another trip will allow a closer look at the historic city within the city.

Rome like many other cities we visited has all of these historical buildings, ruins and sites right next to more modern buildings. One moment you could be walking by the Pantheon and the next moment you are walking past an apartment building. What a city.. definitely on the list of places to go back and visit for a much longer time.

View of St Peter's square

The Pantheon

The Colosseum - yet another amazing feat of architecture and human power. How something of this size and stature was built in the 1st century is difficult to comprehend. I personally choose not to think about the death that occurred in it but rather focus on the human aspect - what it meant to society as a gathering place and a symbol of the culture.

Day 8 - Naples, Italy

Naples, Italy. We are back in Italy and quite excitingly in the city where pizza originated. I know there are alot of cities & peoples who claim to have developed pizza but legend has it that Naples is the truly the birthplace of this favorite of almost everyone.

I spent the morning on a walking tour of the city. I visited San Gennaro's cathedral which is known for the blood of the patron saint of Naples and that it liquifyies 3 times a year. And when it does not liquify, catastrophies such as earthquakes occur. Sounds far out- very much so in fact - but believers claim the happenings to be true. A beautiful church.

After the church, I walked through the city and did some window shopping. The highlight of the morning was the stop at the authentic pizza restaurant. We arrived there at 11am.. were served wine, salad, pizza, coffee & dessert. We left at about 1pm. 2 hours for a meal... honestly too much downtime for me but the pizza was very delicious. It was simple, the crust, fresh sauce and a very minimal amount of cheese. A very different version of pizza compared to what you would get in the US. My opinion, I think the simpler version is the way to go!

In the afternoon, I visited Pompeii. Pompeii is an ancient Roman city that was buried in 79 AD during a catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The city buried under over 50 feet of ash from the volcano and remained submerged and preserved for over 1700 years when it was discovered (accidentally!) in the mid 18th century.

The ruins are amazingly preserved because of the ash and the site seems to extend forever. Walking through the ruins, you get an impressive picture of what life was like living in the first century. Simple things like grooves in the stone streets still show the ruts that chariot wheels carved out thousands of years ago. The ruins at Kusadasi were impressive but Pompeii is on another level as far as preservation. One other interesting find (see creepy picture of what looks like a human body) were the gaps in the ash found when the site was being excavated. In attempt to determine the cause of the voids, plaster was injected into the gaps and the result were casts of people and animals that had been trapped in the ash. Human remains had long since disappeared but the spaces in the ash helped identify where human and animals were left when the volcano erupted.


Mount Vesuvius is a mountain like many others and people live as close to it now as they did in the first century. Vesuvius is still an active volcano and due to erupt in the very near future. This reality however does not deter people from living so close to it and in the path of danger when that eruption inevitably occurs. My question is does that make real estate close to the mountain more expensive or cheap????

Day 7 - Mykonos, Greece

Mykonos, Greece, was the next day. Ahhh, the Greek Islands. They truly are everything you see in photos and in the movies. Sparkling blue water surrounding this little piece of land in what appears to be the middle of the ocean. There weren't alot of organized things to do on the island so we just got off the ship and walked around. We dropped anchor near a cute little town that had shopping and local food. It was very touristy and I honestly have a difficult time imagining what it would be like to live in such a place. I could definitely get used to it I'm sure but I also think all of the tourists would get on one's nerves after a while! That's the price one pays for living in paradise :)

Day 6 - Istanbul, Turkey

Our next stop was Istanbul, Turkey. For me, it truly was like a homecoming, 20 years after I lived there as an exchange student. Many of you probably know that I still consider the year I spent in Turkey to be the best year of my life. Lessons learned, experiences had and memories made... so many to mention (although if I ever finish that book I started....). Anyway, the day we spent in Istanbul was a reminder of why I fell in love with the city and its people so many years ago. I will try to keep the comments on Istanbul brief as I am know I could write for hours about it!

Thanks to my parents we had a private tour of the city. That type of tour is truly the best as you get to see what you want and create as much of a personal experience as possible in one single day.

The first stop was a mosque off the main list of tourist sites that really gave a good perspective of the Islam religion and its followers. The road to the mosque was probably a little scarey for the rest of my family as it was through winding, bending side streets with some not so nice buildings along the way. But once there, I think we all appreciated this as the first stop of the tour as the guide was able to give a true picture of every day Islamic faith (which is not as visible at such sights as the Blue Mosque, which we visited next}. One of the most amusing moments was when we entered the mosque - even though the 'doorman' had given my sister-in-law, mom and me scarves to cover our shoulders, legs & heads, there was a more devout believer in the Mosque who voiced his concerns when we entered the building and started to walk towards the front. In a traditional mosque, women pray in a section separate than the men. This man obviously did not approve of 3 American women in the mosque although amusingly, he kept flashing glances in our way as if perhaps he could not look any other way... We were all amused by his contradiction in belief vs action!

Next we went to the main tourist area with the sites that most people associate with Istanbul. First was the Hippodrome which was a public area decorated with works from areas across the Byzantine empire, built around 200 AD. As with other structures this old, only parts of the original works remain but you can get an idea of the size of the area and what it might have looked like when all was still in place.

On to the Blue Mosque, the national mosque of Turkey. It was built in the early 1600's and was given its name because of the more than 20,000 hand-made blue tiles that decorate its in interior. The Blue Mosque is across a square from the Hagia Sophia and was built as a rival to it. Even at that time in history the idea of 'mine mosque is bigger than yours' was very much alive! Egos of rulers never seem to change...

The Hagia Sophia was originally built in the early 500's AD as a church and for almost 1000 years it was the largest cathedral in the world. Then when Istanbul was conquered by the Ottomans, it was converted to a mosque. The Hagia Sophia is now a museum, unlike the Blue Mosque that is still actively used on a daily basis as a place for prayer.

From the Hagia Sophia, we visited one of the neatest things in my opinion, the underground cistern. Built in 532 AD its original use was to provide water to Topkapi Palace in the city. The water is collected rain water and fresh water still feeds the reservoir. For many years the cistern was forgotten and could not be visited as we did. In fact, it was about a year or 2 before I went to Istanbul 20 years ago that the cistern was opened for public walkthroughs. You will see fish swimming which is a simple intentional method of testing the cleanliness of the water. Also interesting to see are the 2 medusa heads used in the construction of the pillars.

From there we went to lunch. Oh yum, real Turkish food. Fresh and absolutely delicious. Our guide took us to a restaurant where there were not tourists! If everyone in my family is telling the truth, the lunch we had there was the best food we had on the trip! Then we went to a carpet demonstration which is a must for all tourists. While it was tempting, I resisted the desire for an absolutely gorgeous, handmade Turkish rug. Of course the one I wanted was $6000... my bank account appreciates that I did not buy a rug... The photo from the rug demonstration is priceless. My neice being 3 found it quite amusing to roll around and cover up in the thousands of dollars of rugs. She won the room with this behavior hands down.

Next to last was the Grand or Covered bazaar which is one of the oldest in the world. This is the place where if you bargain. You absolutely never pay what they ask and play the game until you think you get to a fair price. I used to be really good at this little game but with so much of my Turkish language skills gone, I felt a little less successful than I probably was in the past. Regardless, I did get to negotiate on a couple of things. There are over 1000 shops in the bazaar and I think 400,000 visitors per day is the current estimate. It is big.... and one can easily get lost there!

We all thought that the was the last stop but we were wrong. Our guide and driver decided that since we had 2 firemen in our group that we had to stop at a firehouse. It was interesting to see how the trucks were different, how the firemen seemed to have things setup to spend alot of time outside and how once they realized what our motivation for the visit, they didn't want us to leave! If we had had the time, we likely would have stayed for tea.

Unfortunately then we had to go back to the ship. The day in Istanbul was over and I can only hope my family got a glimpse of why I love Istanbul.

Day 5 - Kusadasi, Turkey

The next stop was Kusadasi, Turkey. Kusadasi is a port city on the Aegean Sea. It is a popular resort location and sometimes is even referred to as the Turkish Riveria. Remember, Turkey is on the Mediterranean Sea just like Greece and Italy and the beauty is very much the same. This photo was the sunrise as we arrived in Kusadasi.

The sites to see in Kusadasi are a slight drive from the city itself. The first stop was the site of the Virgin Mary's final home. The story has her moving to Kusadasi after Jesus' death with St John accompanying her to look after her safety per Jesus' request. The house is quite small and is nestled up on the side of a mountain. Many of the faithful make a pilgrimmage to the house, which has also been visited by a number of popes.

The next stop is the ancient city of Ephesus or rather the ruins of the city. Like the Acropolis and later as I will note with Pompeii, I am truly amazed at the construction and functionality of cities that are several thousand years old. Houses, fountains, streets, churches, libraries and hospitals can all be discerned from the ruins. Excavation at Ephesus is continual as city after city was built over the ruins of the previous structures as time passed. Currently less than 20% has been excavated. If you've never heard of Ephesus, know that it contains some of the most extensive Roman ruins in the eastern Mediterranean. While the photos may look like alot of stones laying about, know that an educated tour through the area demonstrates specifics of the city that will impress just about anyone!

The final stop on the tour was to St. John's Basilica. As with Ephesus, what remains are only ruins, however, you can see and understand the basic structure of the former church. Although the body is no longer there, the church was originally built over St. John's tomb.

Visible from the basilica site is the Temple of Artemis, which is one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Aretmis was a Greek goddess and the twin of Apollo. (This marks 3 of the 7 Ancient Wonders that I have seen!) All that remains now is a single pillar.