Well, guess what? We landed in Cannes right in the middle of the Cannes Film Festival. Beautiful people everywhere and as we came into the docks there was the Lady Moura. This is a huge yacht with real gold lettering everywhere and we were told it is owned by a Saudi who is the 7th richest man in the world ;-) As soon as we get less expensive internet we'll try to look her up! On to a walking tour and up the hill (of course at least a zillion steps) to THE church where the monks would have look outs to fend off the "pirates". There were baptisms going on with little children looking beautiful all in white. Flowers blooming everywhere. Although this was nice, everyone wanted to see movie stars, so down the hill ... read more

Overnight we crossed the Gulf de Lyon to Livorno, Italy. We decided to take a tour that would head north along the rugged coastline to a place called Le Cinque Terre (The 5 lands). There are 5 villages along the coast perched high in the hills that are only connected by footpaths and a train. The tour bus could not go from town to town and had to let us off at one end where we began to hike the Love Trail or the “Via della’amore” along with about a zillion other people. As we moved along the trail it began to thunder and lightning and pour buckets of rain. We had umbrellas, which were pretty ineffective with all the wind and rain but there was nothing to do but continue on. As we were going ... read more

Barcelona May 12, 2010 Oh gosh, the adventures continue! From Jean… This morning about 9:30 we took the shuttle into Barcelona where we were left at the bottom of Las Ramblas, a beautiful tree-lined thoroughfare that runs about a mile through Barcelona and has shops and places to eat along the way. Just beautiful. We were warned that pickpockets abound there because there are so many tourists so we should watch our belongings, keep money in front pockets and generally watch out……and we did!!! So… instead of staying in that area we decided to head for a cathedral out of the downtown area, that has been the works for over a hundred years and they don’t plan to have it completed until 2026. One hundred years from the death of the architect, Antoni Gaudi, who was ... read more

Land HO! Gibraltar, Great Britain After 9 ½ days at sea we will be in Gibraltar tomorrow morning at 5 am. Yea! This has been a great crossing. Mostly good weather and the days were filled with reading, lectures on the ports, eating, walking, visiting, eating, making new friends, watching movies on a gigantic screen outdoors on the pool deck, eating, walking the decks, eating, walking the stairs, and more stairs, and more stairs (we’re on deck 11!), and eating to keep up our strength. We crossed over 6 time zones and had to change our clocks so many times our bodies didn’t have a clue as to what time it was. In our dark little cave room (which we love) we didn’t wake up till 10 am one morning and on another night Cope was ... read more

Dateline: May 1, 2010, 10:30pm Eastern Location: 5 hours east/northeast of Ft. Lauderdale- Atlantic Ocean Aboard the Crown Princess Cruise Ship A few minutes ago the general alarm was sounded throughout the ship…a piercing 7 short blasts and one long. The Captain came on over the entire ship’s intercom telling us that there was a report of a person overboard and that he was turning the ship around! All passengers were asked to return to their cabins immediately. Over the next 40 minutes, the Captain came back on with announcement that he was turning the ship around and we were going back to where the person was sighted overboard. He mustered all the crew to their emergency stations. A few minutes later the general alarm was sounded again, and the Captain came on again this time ... read more