Cruising the Mediterranean

For the first time Doug and I took seperate vacations this year. He went on a yoga retreat to Goa, India where he practiced yoga daily and ate a healthy vegetarian diet which he leaned really suits him. I went on a cruise with my good friend Julie and her mom where I ate (and drank) everything under the sun which suited me just fine, thank you.

We embarked from Rome, sailed to Cannes (France), Monaco, Livorno, (Italy), Sardinia (Italy), Amalfi (Italy), Sicily (Italy), Corfu (Greece), Dubrovnik (Croatia) and disembarked in Venice where we spent an extra couple of days.

It was a joy to be able to spend uninterrupted time with Julie in a completely relaxed atmosphere. I wish I could do that with all of you when we will be home on leave in the fall.

Julie and her mom went on a shore excursion almost every day. I went on five with them: Monaco, Pisa, Amalfi, Cavtat and lastly we went to the Islands of Murano and Burano near Venice.

Monaco was a very crowded city. The houses and other buildings are clustered together very tightly on the hills. Even the royal palace is located on an open public square with no private land around it that I could see. Julie and I went to the Grand Casino where I was to gamble. Specifically I was instructed (by Douglas) to play Black Jack. I chickened out. First of all, It cost $15 just to walk in the door and we only had about a half hour to spend there. Secondly, I saw my favorite casino machine when we walked in - video poker. Maybe next time at the next casino. I would not ever choose to go back to Monaco, however.

Seeing sights that I've only seen in photographs was amazing to me. Like the famous tower in Pisa. I took the obigatory photographs of it, but I also went up and took some detailed pictures like these:

We all stayed on the ship one day and Julie and I took a cooking class and learned to make pasta cabanara. Four words: yummy, yum-yum-yum.

The Amalfi coast is supposedly one of the most beautiful spots we sailed to. I say supposedly because, unfortunately, there were swells on the coast where we were to lay anchor and they didn't feel it was safe to take the tenders ashore. So we wound up docking elsewhere and driving through the slums of that area in rush hour traffic to get to what was supposed to be a food and wine tour which included a tour of a vineyard and a limoncello factory. After we were on the bus sitting in the traffic we were told that we would not be going to the vineyard. Apparently the roads and grounds were too wet to accomodate a large bus. I was quite upset as we were not given any choice before we boarded the bus. (There's a warning to those who are considering a cruise - which I highly reccommend - and are looking at various cruise lines. I do not reccommend Oceana for that reason. They refused any amount of refund to us.) Instead we went to an old villa that wasn't particularly interesting to me, but they did provide a good lunch. The limoncello factory did not disappoint. If you haven't tasted limoncello do so on a hot summer day. We also tasted apple flavored and melon flavored liqueurs. I bought a bottle of each.

Cavtat and the Walled City was an interesting tour on which I'm sure we were taught a lot.

Unfortunately for me, these tours are so brief and packed with sights and information from the guide that I walk away and remember little of what they said. I'm so caught up with being where I am - not a bad thing at all - that it's hard to pay attention to the sights, sounds and a mini lecture. We visited a Dominican and a Franciscan monestary which were architecurally beautiful. Here's a detail:

My favorite part of the entire cruise was the area including Vanice and the islands of Murano (famous for its glass making) and Burano (famous for its lace making). Um, apparently I didn't take any pictures of my favorite islands. (I'm not much of a picture taker.) I had one of those "If I won the lottery" moments. If I did win the lottery, I'd buy thousands of dollars of Murano glass and Burano lace starting with a set of highball glasses (about  $500 - 600 for six) and a coverlet (around $4,500.) The Murano glass was everywhere and I never got tired of looking at it. I've seen glass blowers before, but I saw an old man pull on molten glass and, in about one minute, turned a glowing blob into a rearing horse.

After disembarking we took a water taxi to out hotel. After quite a search to find anyone in the hotel we hauled our luggage up to our room. The hotel was right on the Grand Canal; our window overlooked a smaller canal. Within twenty minutes or so we heard a beautiful tenor voice and an accordian. We looked out the window and, passing beneath, there was a gondola with a man standing and singing, an accordian player seated near two lovers. Welcome to Venice!