Venice. We sort of feel like our trip had two chapters, so to speak. The first chapter was our time in Venice. We spent three nights in Italy at the Hotel Danieli right next door to San Marco's Square. Our hotel was beautiful- all marble and historical. We had a special (water) taxi ride right to the door of our hotel. Literally. We hopped in a speedboat and they drove us right to the side entrance of our hotel, where they took our bags, and sent us on our way! In the three days in Venice, we toured around on foot and by boat, ate pretty much everything (dairy included!), and watched a lot of World Cup futbol. At the end of every day in Venice, Hubster and I would go to the bar in the hotel lobby, where there was live piano music and free wifi (so we could check in with our families).
Pictures below:
Our private water taxi to our hotel. Excellent combover, no?
Our view from breakfast at our hotel. Gorgeous!
On a water bus to the island of Murano!
We got all snazzy to eat at the restaurant on the rooftop.
Of course we hitched a ride in a gondola.
After taking this picture, we found a postcard with almost the exact same picture. Seriously.
Piano Man in the hotel bar.
Our last breakfast at the Hotel Danieli.
Then we boarded our ship, the Disney Magic. It was a 9-night cruise to Greece and Turkey, both starting and ending in Venice, Italy. We met a lot of characters (literally, we met Disney characters), and made lots of friends. During the time we spent on the ship, we kept ourselves busy by watching Disney movies, singing along to the Disney music that was playing EVERYWHERE (but in a good, unobtrusive way), reading, watching the amazing shows, enjoying the live entertainment, and most importantly, eating. Below I'll post a bunch of just-on-the-ship pictures:
Fancy night :)
So it was a bit breezy on the decks.
Sorcerer Mickey!
Two entrees..
Demolished.
This night, we watched a strangely modified version
of Beauty and the Beast on the top deck. Considering
the high temps during the day, it was shockingly cold up
there around and after sunset.
I participated in a magic show (new friend Judy on the left)
Pirate night!
Mickey on a stick!
So, fun story about Pirate night on the ship. This evening, there was a big ship-wide deck party up on the upper decks. Families, adults, kids, characters, and employees were all out enjoying themselves with the entertainment and fun. There was a dessert bar, and the 24-hour soft serve machines, drinks, music, and dancing. A young child walked past our group and dropped some ice cream onto Hubs' flip-flopped foot, so he went off to the restroom to de-stickify his foot and shoes, and while he was gone, I may or may not have had a Dane Cook moment.
A small girl was walking past me while I was doing the dance that the entertainers just taught the crowd. At that particular moment, as I swung my left hand down to my side, this little girl was right in the line of fire, and I ended up smashing her ice cream cone into her face (in a "You remember me forever!" -Dane Cook sort of way). Now when I say that I smashed this little girl's ice cream into her face, I mean I smashed this ice cream. The cone was flattened, and the ice cream was dripping down her chin. A few seconds later, after she gave me a death stare, and I gave her the oh-my-goodness-I-can't-believe-that-just-happened-I-can't-wait-to-tell-Husband face, I went to flick the remaining ice cream off my hands. At the precise moment I chose to flick my hands, the little girl turned back around, no doubt to show her friend the jerk that just slammed ice cream into her face, and I ended up flicking the remaining ice cream into her face.
Such a horrible and sort of amazing moment.
Three entrees demolished. (They kept taking the empty
plates from me before I could get a picture)
Our fun group at O-Gill's Irish Pub! Allan, Ashley, Iva, Judy,
Nancy, Larry, Hubster, and I.
Katakolon, Greece - "The Gateway to Olympia." Husbands and I traipsed around the spot of the first ancient Olympic games. Interesting facts about the Olympics: the games were completed naked, and therefore women were not allowed to attend. There was a separate womens' Olympics, also completed naked.
Before the guy with the whistle found us when I convinced Hubs
to climb an incline. Apparently, climbing the ruins is not OK. Also,
for those interested, taking pictures with the ruins holding sports
merchandise (or other logo items, I assume) is not OK.
The archway to the stadium.
The stadium. The box in the background is where the judges sat.
Piraeus, Greece - The port to Athens, where the Acropolis and the Parthenon are located.
It was hot and shade was a rare commodity. Hubs was lucky.
An ancient theater, where people still play, to this day. I
spent most of the day amazed that we were climbing to
the top of this ancient site, while modern-day civilization
completely surrounded us.
"The gateway to the Acropolis"
Because if you're going to travel over 5,700 miles,
the Parthenon may as well be under construction
on the day you're there.
Athena's Parthenos
Hubs kept joking that the Parthenon in Nashville was better- much better maintained and cleaner. I'll admit, he wasn't wrong, but that doesn't take away any of the majesty of the original.
Kusadasi, Turkey - The port to Ephesus, where we saw, from afar, the house where the Virgin Mary lived her last years, and St. John's Basilica.
How did I get so lucky as to marry this stud?
Our last two stops, in Rhodes and Mykonos, Greece, were spent at the beach. The water was cold, the sand was rocks, and the sun was hot- but not hot enough to convince this Floridian to get in the water. Here are pictures from both:
Rhodes, Greece
Mykonos, Greece
I lent him my towel to cover his feet because he kept curling
into a smaller and smaller ball to avoid the sun's death-rays.
But I did get him out in it for a moment!
This really was the quick and dirty version of our trip, as hard as that may be to believe, but I'll make some quick summations:
Number of countries visited: 4 (including USA)
Number of continents visited: 3 (including North America)
Number of pictures taken: 973 (not including those on Hubs' phone)
Number of days from Home back to Home: 15
Number of Lactaid pills consumed: ~200
Fun facts about the trip:
The weather was about 10° C hotter than average, forcing us to buy shorts from H&M in Venice, Italy. Go figure we'd travel across the Atlantic Ocean to make our first journey into an H&M.
This was Husband's 2nd time out of the country; his first was our honeymoon.
This both our first time to Italy, Greece, or Turkey, though not my first time to Europe.
We had a really good time with the people who were assigned to our dinner table, and learned a lot about them and their families and jobs:
- Ashley works in California at Disney Animation, and worked on the Frozen project; and this was the end of a three week backpacking trip across Europe with her sister, who was not on the cruise.
- Allan works in Orlando in events at Disney, he loves all things Disney, and even his handwriting is basically the Disney font! He and Ashley have been best friends for years.
- Larry is a lawyer in Pennsylvania, 4 kids, great sense of humor, and enjoys tall water slides, cranberry juice and beer (but not at the same time).
- Judy is married to Larry and works part time at a courthouse in Pennsylvania, and isn't afraid of fun (for example, she sang karaoke and participated in a magic show with me). Judy and Larry's daughter Melanie worked on our ship in entertainment and she was really fun, too.
Judy and Larry at the top, the Ashley and Allan, and Hubs and I
on Pirate Night at the Animator's Palate!
Hubs and I only bought one souvenir for ourselves- a handmade glass picture frame that we bought at a glass factory on the Island of Murano in Venice. We watched a presentation at this place, and saw a man make a beautiful glass horse in about a minute. Horse picture below:
The only other souvenirs we bought were postcards (two from Italy, two from Greece, and two from Turkey), stuff for our parents, and our magnets (we always get a magnet whenever we go somewhere new).
We had a great time, and we are already looking for our next big overseas adventure. Baltic islands? England? Australia? Stay tuned.
