Today we went to Florence and Pisa. It was a beautiful day in Tuscany - the region or state in Italy - sunny and warm, just like you would expect in that part of Italy. Our tour guide, Angelo, is taught us a little Italian as we drove the hour or more to Florence. It was another day where we walked for hours; from the time we got off the bus until we got back on to go to Pisa - about 4-5 hours. He was a very good guide in that he knew the history of the city, the monuments, [View Full Entry]

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Well, I lied about my next blog being about St. Peter's cuz I haven't written that one yet. I also lied about the 29th being our "last day at sea" because this morning the Mediterranean was too rough to go into Monte Carlo. The port isn't big enough for the big cruise ships so we were supposed anchor and to take the tenders (lifeboats) into port, but when it was time, the wind was too strong and the swells were too big to be safe to go. I know that my sister, Kathy, remembers what I mean as that happened to [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in the Italian port of Civitavecchia about 7:30 AM, May 1, 2009. It is the port that serves Rome. The name of the city means Old Town - Civita which means “town or city” and vecchia which means “old” . Tomorrow in Florence, we will see Ponte Vecchio, the “old bridge”. It is the port that served Rome and the surrounding area. Today is May 1, Labor Day, a Holiday in Italy and I think all over Europe, which is a good thing since there will be less traffic; bad because the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel and shops are [View Full Entry]

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We spent the whole day in Rome today and I am too tired to fill in the blog. You'll have to wait until tomorrow for words and pictures. Just know that it was the most amazing day ever. We have to be up at 5:30 AM tomorrow to go to Florence and Pisa. I will post tomorrow when we get home. Love L and K [View Full Entry]

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Cagliari is the capital of Sardinia, the second largest island in the Mediterranean; Sicily is the largest. It was colonized by the Phoenicians in the 7th century B.C.; the first city was settled by the Carthaginians. It was captured by the Romans in 238 A.D.; controlled Pisa and Genoa in the 13th century and then the Spanish Kingdom of Aragon. Eventually it was controlled by Italy but our guide told us the natives of the central part of the island don’t speak Italian or Spanish but Sardinian, a language that is a combination of both. She couldn’t speak it as she [View Full Entry]

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This is a day behind so forgive. Tuesday is my birthday and we are going to see the Rock of Gibraltar. Out our deck we see lots of ships in the bay and we can see Aljazeera, Spain. Gibraltar is on the other side of the ship. After we got dressed we stepped out on the deck and found a huge oil tanker RIGHT alongside us. It was going to refuel us with thousands of gallons of marine diesel fuel. As we left the ship at 9:30 AM, they had just started refueling. When we left the cabin there were 3 [View Full Entry]

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Today is our last “sea day” so it’s pretty laid back. We are sailing from Gibraltar to Calgiari, Sardinia. It is now 2:30 PM our time and we have about 320 miles to go to Sardinia. We are about 5015 miles from Ft. Lauderdale, and have about 1500 to go to the end. Several Europeans joined us in Madeira and again in Cadiz. We have discovered that this cruise could have been done in several configurations. Some passengers who got on in Ft. Lauderdale are not getting off in Barcelona but continuing around the Mediterranean to Greece, Turkey, etc., and ending [View Full Entry]

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This morning we arrived in Cadiz about 7:30 AM - it was still dark when we got up to watch the arrival. Cadiz is one of the oldest ports in the Western world, having been established by the Phoenicians in 1100 BC. They still grow the olives and grapes from that time. The Romans took over the area in 218 BC; today we saw some of the aqueducts and roads from Roman times. Amazing when you consider when the US was settled. The Moors invaded Spain from North Africa in 711 AD and you can still see their influence in the [View Full Entry]

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More from Friday We went to the early Captain’s Circle party and had our pictures taken with Captain Tony Yeoman, our very British ship’s Captain. Then went to an early dinner and the theater production. It was wonderful - great singing, costumes and staging. After it we went to the Explorer’s Lounge to listen to “dancing through the decades” - we listened to music from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. Since we had slept in we decided we should actually try to get up early on Saturday. But neither of us could go to sleep - well after 2 AM before [View Full Entry]

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Rest of Thursday - After our naps we got dressed up for the second formal night - I wore a red jacket with my long Black skirt. We went to dinner - lovely meal with candlelight and all - keeping with a Valentine’s Day theme. We were just about done with dessert when the Cruise Director came on the intercom and announced that there was a medical emergency on the ship and they wanted active blood donors who were A Pos or O Neg to report to the conference room. I figured that the patient was an A Pos and they [View Full Entry]

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