Last week for Instagram Travel Thursday I shared Snapshots of Venice, which was the second to last city Mary Polly and I visited on our Mediterranean Cruise. Today I’m sharing…

Snapshots of Sicily

It was over a year ago that we visited our final port of call, the island of Sicily. Until this week, I never went through the photos we took in the enchanting town of Taormina.

I think there are a couple of reasons for this. One is that while I was writing about our cruise last year, we were making some life changing decisions that took over most of my brain, which kept me from getting through all of our vacation photos.

The other reason is that even though I followed all my own instructions about having a great port day which included getting off of the boat quickly and being on the first bus to leave the dock area, we had the unforeseeable misfortune of spending our one precious day in Sicily with a terrible guide.

I really am such a Pollyanna when I’m on vacation that it is difficult for me to talk about the things I encounter which aren’t perfect because I am so busy spinning them in a positive light to myself. I believe this attitude is a recipe for happy travel (and happy life!), so I am always looking for the parts of the day that are treasures. The moments for which I can be grateful.

On this day, our treasured moments were the ones where Mary Polly and I were able to escape from our guide, who was, in the immortal words of Buddy the Elf, a Cotton Headed Ninny Muggins.

He was an older, disgruntled British gentleman with a sort of slurred, affected way of talking that left me trying to puzzle out whether he was attempting to speak with an Italian accent or if he was just a bit hungover. Either way, it was painful to listen to.

At the start of the day, I felt sorry for him. Because he was so hard to listen to, no one was paying attention to him so I began by making an extra effort to hear the bits (that I think were) about Sicily, a place about which I was (and remain) completely ignorant.

By the time our bus reached the town of Taormina, I was rolling my eyes right along with my 13-year-old daughter.

I asked how much time we had before we left for Mt. Etna, and Mary Polly and I ditched the tour until then.

Unfortunately, we could not ditch it entirely because in the off season you need either a chartered bus or a taxi (expensive) to get back to the cruise port.

So we spent our allotted time touring the Greek Theater, marveling at the brightly colored town of Taormina and stuffing our faces with pastries.

Needless to say, we were perfectly happy with our personal version of the tour.

But alas, we had to get back on the bus and ride the long way to the volcano to the sound of Mr. Muggins’ voice.  Also, to add insult to injury, the air con on our bus was broken and it was super hot. Again, those are details I would never have remembered had I not been already annoyed by the tour.

We stopped for lunch, which was lovely, and then made our way up to the Silvestri Craters, which Mary Polly had really wanted to see.

The ancient lava flows were very cool to see, but we still both would have traded the sight of them for more time in Taormina. In trying to see both the town and the volcano in one day, we did not realize that we were actually choosing to spend the bulk of our day driving.

Still, I wonder if I would have been bothered by this if the tour guide had been more interesting. Our drive to and from Rome was very long, but I was riveted and taking notes as we drove and the guide told stories. So, it is a bit of a crap shoot really. And you can’t win them all.

But now, over a year later, I find myself looking at these photos of our day in Sicily and most especially of our hours in Taormina and remembering how beautiful it was. I smile thinking about how Mary Polly and I laughed at our guide. How we stopped in more than one shop to buy pastries.  We ate gelato in the hot autumn sun and imagined what kind of perfect summer holiday it would be to spend a month in this town.

Looking at the yellows and oranges of Taormina while I am currently in the dark gray winter of Scotland makes me want to pack my bags immediately. I think I might even be willing to catch a ride with our same, silly guide, as long as at the end of the drive, I could be let free to stay in Taormina for a month this time instead of just a few hours.

I’m curious. Have you ever had a bad guided tour experience? I know a lot of people don’t like them at all, but I find that when I’m traveling with Mary Polly, she often prefers the bus and guide to my marching her all over a city. It can reduce the conflict between us to have someone else giving the orders.

Follow me Instagram? Want to see all the posts from our cruise?

Did you enjoy this post ? Maybe you’d like to subscribe to the Chino House via RSS feed or by email.

Want to join Instagram Travel Thursday? You can now link up below! Here are a few guidelines:

Instagram Travel Thursday is a weekly blog post collection with a purpose to promote the great travel experts on Instagram and Instagram as a source for travel inspiration. Add your Instagram Travel-related post to the Linky.

Here are the Linky rules:
Link to a new Instagram travel post and use the permalink of your post, not the homepage URL.
Only new posts from the week of the linky and no giveaways, other linkys or sales pitches.
No links to your Instagram profile, only links to your blog.
Link back to one of the Instagram Travel Thursday Linky hosts.
Visit a few other posts in the linky and show them some love (comment, tweet, Pin etc.).
Links that do not follow the guidelines will be removed.

The post Snapshots of Sicily appeared first on Alison Chino.

I am sharing photos of Venice for Instagram Travel Thursday this week! All of these images were taken from the front seat of Vaporetto #1, which is a water bus that runs along The Grand Canal.

I’m not sure any place gets the kind of reaction that Venice does on Instagram. Instantly recognizable, the floating city of color just begs to be photographed!

I’ve been to Venice twice, and both times I had to fight the urge to take a picture of every single bridge, gondola or doorway. The doorways and windows alone are like something carved out of a fairytale.

My first time to Venice was almost ten years ago. Taido and I arrived by train, and per the advice of our guide book we made sure to get a front seat on Vaporetto #1 from the train station. These “water buses” are much less expensive than a water taxi (or a gondola, of course) but if you ride in the front, you have the same views of the canals as you would in one of the other boats. The Vaporetto #1 goes all the way from the train station to St. Mark’s Square, and the #2 goes back the opposite direction. The #1 and #2 make all the stops, so you can enjoy the longest possible ride on The Grand Canal if you take one of these numbers.

Last year, I could not wait for Mary Polly to see Venice when we went on our Mother-Daughter trip to Europe. On our second morning, we got on the Vaporetto #1 as early as possible. It was almost empty, so we sat right in front and rode all the way to St. Mark’s Square, and though I had ridden in this same spot once before, I was again overwhelmed by what has to be one of the most magnificent experiences you can have in Europe.

Riding down The Grand Canal of Venice is one of those life dreams you can look forward to for many years and then in reality, it does not disappoint.

The colors of the buildings in Venice are crazy wonderful, and many of the boats are brightly painted too.

I am absolutely that silly girl who cannot stop smiling on a trip, and if I go to Venice twenty more times, I would not get tired of riding the water buses through the canals.

This photo of the Rialto Bridge was one of my most loved Instagrams of all time! (Fun Fact: it won me a new camera in the Capture the Color contest!)

Vaporetto #1 drops you off right by all the gondolas at the edge of St Mark’s Square. As soon as you step off the boat, you are right in the middle of everything! Pigeons, street vendors, gondoliers and tourists are flooding the square with the noises of Venice.

If you go, be sure and sit for a while in the square for the some of the best people-watching in Europe, but when you get weary of all that activity, you only have to wander for a minute before you are lost in the smaller streets and squares of the city.

When you find a little bridge or a brightly colored building with arched windows, be sure and send me a photo!

Follow me Instagram?

Did you enjoy this post ? Maybe you’d like to subscribe to the Chino House via RSS feed or by email.

Want to join Instagram Travel Thursday? You can now link up below!  Here are a few guidelines:

Instagram Travel Thursday is a weekly blog post collection with a purpose to promote the great travel experts on Instagram and Instagram as a source for travel inspiration. Add your Instagram Travel-related post to the Linky.

Here are the Linky rules:
Link to a new Instagram travel post and use the permalink of your post, not the homepage URL.
Only new posts from the week of the linky and no giveaways, other linkys or sales pitches.
No links to your Instagram profile, only links to your blog.
Link back to one of the Instagram Travel Thursday Linky hosts.
Visit a few other posts in the linky and show them some love (comment, tweet, Pin etc.).
Links that do not follow the guidelines will be removed.

The post Vaporetto #1 in Venice, Italy appeared first on Alison Chino.

Visiting The Campanile in Venice, Italy

When you’re walking in dream-like Venice, there is not a single moment in which you do not want to snap a photo.  Every doorway and window.  Each little bridge or canal.

Venice is breathtaking at every turn.

You have to force yourself out from behind your camera to take it in a little deeper.

I don’t think you can mess up a trip to this city.  All you need to do to be struck by its beauty is to show up.

That being said, on my first magical visit to Venice, I did not ascend the bell tower in St. Mark’s square, The Campanile, from which, I believe, you can see the Best View In Venice.

On my second visit with my sweet daughter, Mary Polly, we arrived at the tower by boat early in the morning.  (The next best view of Venice might have to be from the front of a boat.)

The tower opened at 9am, at which time there was no line to ride the elevator to the top and take in the 360 degree views of Venice.

And Wow. Just WOW.

The lagoon, the Grand Canal, the gondolas, the square below and the city stretched out before us until we could even see our cruise ship parked at the distant edge.

People, it was AMAZING!

It had rained the night before and the square was filling up with water.  We watched from above as little worker bees set out the planks for people to walk through the square.

I also absolutely loved seeing San Marco’s domes (St. Mark’s Cathedral) from above.

There are five bells, and one still rings on the hour, but the days events, such as lunch or quitting time used to be marked by certain bell chimes.  I love the idea of a day marked by the ringing of ancient bells.  Not school buzzer bells, but great, deep musical sounds that call you to the next part of your day.

The tower is up Oh-So-High, so I was glad for these little bars over the windows, which would make it less scary to take a little one to the top, but they were plenty open enough for your camera, which is handy since you want a shot from every possibly angle.

After a while we made our way back down to the bottom and wandered on the planks in St. Mark’s Square (Piazza San Marco).  Everyone was going somewhere, but Mary Polly and I just stood around watching people make their way around and through the flooding.

An elevated line was gathering on the planks outside San Marco, and just as many people were just looking for a dry spot from which to take a photo.

The water seemed to keep the usual venders from braving the square, which made for a wonderfully empty space.

Eventually, you come to the end of the planks though, so we pulled off our shoes and waded through the water to our next stop.

On our second day in Venice, Mary Polly and I mostly wandered.

And wandered.

In and out of churches and gelato stands.

But our favorite part of the day was this fun morning at the top of The Companile, finished by wading through the square.  Such sweet memories!

In the fall of 2012, I took a Mediterranean Cruise with my daughter! It was the trip of a lifetime! We called it #Eurocruisazy! Read about more of our adventures here!

The post Snapshots of the Campanile in Venice, Italy appeared first on Alison Chino.

I have so many pictures from my trip to Europe with my daughter (which we affectionately refer to as Eurocruisazy) that it has been overwhelming to think about printing them.

I didn’t think I could begin to choose, so when InstaThis contacted me about reviewing some Instagram prints, I jumped at the chance to choose a few Instagrams to print.

I only had about thirty Instagrams to pick from compared to thousands of regular photos, so it was a little easier to choose.  I tried not to overthink it and quickly landed on a few favorites.

I LOVE how they came out.

InstaThis uses wood or acrylic to print your Instagram photos.

They are really different from any of the other photos I have in my house, which is fitting, since I think Instagram is an original digital art form in and of itself.

These prints represent our trip perfectly to me in that they are both dreamy and a little surreal.

The swirls from the wood grain make the sky even more lovely to me.

I am drawn to the deep blue on the gondolas, and I can almost close my eyes and be back there again, sitting at the edge of the water and looking out at San Giorgio Maggiore.

Ah, Venice. (Sigh.)

The prints came beautifully packaged.  I love those kinds of details.

Also, they might be the easiest things I have ever hung on my walls, with custom screws that the prints slide onto.  We had them up in a matter of minutes, again, a nice detail.

Right now you can get 15% off your InstaThis order with this code: ARBLOGGERS15

They are also running a Spring Break contest for a few more days in which 4 Instagrammers will get a Spring Break photo printed for free.  Enter your photos to win by tagging them with: #INSTATHISSB.

Disclosure: InstaThis provided me with free wood prints of my travel Instagrams to review, but all opinions of these lovely works of art are my own.

The post Printing Eurocruisazy Instagrams appeared first on Alison Chino.

A Visit to The Doge’s Palace in Venice, Italy

This post is part of a continuing series about a Mediterranean Cruise I took with my thirteen year old daughter in the fall of 2012.  After wandering the city of Venice for several hours, we visited The Doge’s Palace.

Overlooking the Grand Canal, Doge’s Palace was the seat of the government of Venice until it came under Napoleonic rule in 1797 and then in 1866, a part of Italy.  Before then, the palace was the residence of the Doge of Venice, the supreme authority of the Republic of Venice.

Today the palace is a museum and you can walk through the Doge’s apartments; stand in the large rooms where court was held, decisions were made and foreign dignitaries hosted; and tour the dark dungeon-like prison which you reach by crossing the famous Bridge of Sighs.

On a previous visit to Venice, I had not toured the palace, so I was excited to go inside.  It was around 3:30 in the afternoon when we went, and there was no entry line at all.  Also, it was relatively empty on the inside, a great relief from the crowds in the square.

We spent a long time just in the courtyard, walking around the grand staircases and looking at the facades.  These wells are from the 16th century.  I love how San Marco (St Mark’s Cathedral) is rising behind the palace wall.  The Doge had direct access to the cathedral, which was his personal chapel when it was first built.

You can take photographs in the courtyard and through the open windows of the palace, but not of the interior, so all our pictures are outside.

The light from the open windows made me want to take a picture out of each one.  So many beautiful views from the palace.

I loved seeing the city from a different point of view.

The outer walkways were floored with these beautiful mosaics.

In so many of our walks through ports in Italy, we found ourselves completely enamored with the smaller architectural details, like floors, windows and doorways.  Each one is a work of art in and of itself.

The courtyard columns fell into this category as well.  Rolling pink and white marble make the whole building look kind of like a peppermint candy.

Mary Polly and I never got tired of seeing brides and grooms getting their pictures made on our cruise.  This courtyard was one of many dreamy settings for bridal portraits that we saw on our trip.

The rooms inside the palace were as ornate as the outside facades, filled with paintings and frescoes, some by Tintoretto, including Tintoretto’s Paradise, which is reputed to be the largest painting ever done on canvas.

I mentioned that on my first trip to Venice, I didn’t see the interior of the Doge’s Palace.  I had lists of art I wanted to see in Venice on that trip, so we spent most of our time touring various churches that housed scores of the paintings by Titian and Tintoretto, two famous Renaissance Venetians.  I missed out on seeing Tintoretto’s palace paintings on that trip, so it was fun to get to include them on this visit.

In the armory, Mary Polly and I talked about how much the boys would have loved seeing the rooms full of old guns and swords, a history of weaponry of sorts.

From the armory, you walk through the tunnel that is the Bridge of Sighs.

When you cross the Bridge of Sighs to the prison, you can peek out at the canal and imagine a prisoner, sentenced to go to the dungeon, taking his last look at beautiful Venice.

All the people on the bridge below are photographing the Bridge of Sighs while you photograph them from the slots in the carved bridge.

After we finished our tour of the Doge’s Palace, we went around to the other side to get the opposite view of the Bridge of Sighs. From this direction, it seems like you could hardly see out of the windows.

The prison was another part of the tour we felt the boys would have enjoyed.  There have been so many scenes in books and movies that feature palace prisons like these.  It was just as you might imagine.

Dark, dank and cramped.

Very uninviting.

We were glad to emerge from the prison, with all its maze-like tunnels, and get back to the wide open palace courtyard.

We stopped one more time at this lovely staircase before we exited the palace. On the landing at the top of staircase, the doges in days past were crowned at the beginning of their rule over Venice.

Back in the square, we wandered under these columns and to the Grand Canal.

We sat on some steps by the canal to rest for a while and watch the boats and the people.

After a bit, the skies grew cloudy and a light rainfall drove us back under the columns of the square.  We watched the rain for a while on the square as the museums and shops were closing before we made our way back to our boat.

By the time we got back to the Carnival Breeze that night it was dark and the boat was all lit up welcoming us back for the evening, a magical end to our day in Venice.

Did you enjoy this post about Venice?  Visit other posts about cruising here.  Or subscribe to the Chino House via RSS or by email.

The post Doge’s Palace, Venice, Italy appeared first on Alison Chino.

This post is part of a continuing series about a Mediterranean Cruise I took with my thirteen year old daughter in the fall of 2012.  Today I am talking about Venice!

You’ve seen Venice in movies, pictures and books all of your life, but still, there is nothing quite like stepping onto a boat in the Grand Canal and taking in the magical beauty of this place.

It is no wonder that Venice is such a well-loved destination.  The floating city lives up to all its hype.  You cannot help but take one million pictures, but you can also just sit and take it all in for hours without getting tired of watching the windows, arches and boats pass by.

The Carnival Breeze ports overnight in Venice, so we got to spend two days wandering the streets and canals. I think Venice is about the best place on earth to let yourself get completely lost for a day.

I’m just sharing a few photos today, because I have about a thousand.  These are some of our first impressions of Venice.  I loved watching Mary Polly see the city for herself.  I told her to wander on and I would follow her wherever.  It seems that all roads eventually lead you to San Marco (St. Marks Square), so we just moved slowly here and there for our first few hours in the city.

We stopped to take pictures of gondolas, windows, bridges and loads of cute little corners in the alleys.  Venice is busting with color and life and we were taking it all in.

We looked into shop windows at Murano glass and elaborate Carnival masks.  We sat on bridges when we got tired and watched people.

We were completely enchanted.

Next up: When we finally wandered into San Marco, we took a spin around the square and then decided to visit The Doge’s Palace. 

The Details, If You Go

The Carnival Cruise Port is near the bus and train stations at the edge of Venice.  There are several ways to get to the main sights of Venice from the cruise port.  There are water taxis and cruise excursions leaving directly from the port, which are the more expensive options.

We opted instead (on both days) to get on the People Mover that is just outside the cruise port.  It is 1 euro to ride it, and from there we walked easily into the city.  Walking quickly, it took us about 20 minutes to reach San Marco, but we were wandering through lovely streets the whole way there.  On our second day we caught the Vapretto #1 (like a bus on the water) at the station just after taking the People Mover.  Both ways were fun and we saw completely different sights each way, so we were glad we did both.

I think I would only take a cruise excursion if I were trying to see some of the other other islands near Venice.  Since Mary Polly had never been to Venice, we wanted to spend our two days there.  (More info about Carnival excursions on and about excursions in general can be found at the end of this Tuscany post and this post on Rome.)

Did you enjoy this post about Venice?  Visit other posts about cruising here.  Or subscribe to the Chino House via RSS or by email.

The post Venice, Italy appeared first on Alison Chino.

If you are planning a Mediterranean Cruise in the near future, you should know, The Port of Dubrovnik, Croatia is worth the price of your entire cruise.

So make sure it’s on your ports of call when you book.

Settled on the Adriatic Sea coast of Croatia, this little gem of a port city is one of the greatest examples of a preserved (and oft-restored) medieval city.

Old city walls completely surround the Old City.  Just over a mile long, you can walk the entire distance of the walls, which is the very best way to see the whole town.

We walked from where the Carnival Breeze dropped us to the Old City, which was an adventure of its own.  There are also buses and tours leaving from the cruise ships.

As we walked, we knew we were getting close as the surrounding buildings and walkways got older and more quaint.

By the time we arrived at the main street (stradun), we were quite warm from our walk, so we started our time in the Old City with gelato.  Never mind that it was 8:30 in the morning!  I loved that in Europe the gelato stands are open at all hours of the day!

After a little refreshment we were ready to take on walking the city walls.  I had read that this was an absolute must and that it could become oppressively crowded later in the day, so we snapped a few photos as we walked from one of Dubrovnik’s main entrances to the other to enter the walls.

All around the city are these statues of St Blaise, the patron saint of Dubrovnik and he is always holding a model of the medieval city in his hand.  He is the protector of the city, and he is everywhere.  A fun activity with children would be to spend the day counting all the times you see St Blaise.

We took our time walking the walls.  We stopped for tons of photos of these charming orange rooftops.  We read all the information signs and marveled at how the city had survived earthquakes and bombings, rebuilding itself over and over again.

Though the strong fortress walls we walked survived most all the damage both man and nature could throw at them, the city’s buildings and especially it’s red rooftop tiles have been restored many times.

Most notably to me was the reconstruction after bombing in 1991 during the Croatian War, when 70% of the buildings were hit by bombs during the Siege of Dubrovnik.  One of my favorite exhibits in Dubrovnik was the memorial to those who lost their lives in this war, located in the Sponza Palace.

Even in late September, it was quite warm walking these walls.  There are several places to stop and rest along the way.  You can even buy a drink or something to eat.  The walls became considerably more crowded as the sun got higher, so we pushed on a little quicker through the latter half.

When you look over the sides of the walls, you can still see the spots where the torches were placed long ago to light the city up at night.

Here we are looking down from the city walls at the main street of Dubrovnik where just under an hour before we had stood and had gelato in the nearly empty thoroughfare.  We entered the wall at the lesser used city entrance directly opposite this one.  My guidebook said that the eastern entrance (Gate of Ploča) is a less frequented entrance, and that we would avoid a line to walk the walls by heading to that one.  We are standing here above the western entrance (Gate of Pila) and it was certainly gushing people by the time we reached this side of the wall.

On the western side of the Old City is the Fort Lovrijenac or St. Lawrence Fortress, often called Dubrovnik’s Gibraltar.

This impressive fortress and theater located outside the western wall feels like a setting for a fairy tale.

On the southern side of the wall, there was a lovely breeze from the sea.  It was wonderful to stand on the wall and look out over the sea.

You could also see where the sea kayak excursions started.  Several people on our cruise did this and it sounded really fun.

Though there were lots of people swimming, the sea was too cold for us Southerners.  By late afternoon, it was really hot enough to jump in though.

We also saw this school as we walked the southern side of the wall.  You could hear the students inside and I thought their basketball court all marked off by the city walls was so quaint.

When we got off the walls, we toured the Maritime Museum.  My favorite part was actually these huge anchors outside.

Mary Polly and I are slightly obsessed with anchors.

At the eastern edge of the city, near the monastery, you can walk out onto this pier.  There are even ladders, so you can swim in the sea.

It was a perfect spot to soak in the sun, breathe the sea air and rest after walking the walls.

The view of the city from the pier is also beautiful.  You can book one of these boats and do a sea cruise if you want.  Or there is a ride that takes you up the mountain behind the city so you can view it all from up high.

I think both of those options would be fun, but we wanted to explore more of the city on our first visit so we wandered back inside the city walls to The Sponza Palace.

The Sponza Palace, first built in 1516, is a mixture of Gothic and Renaissance styles, with late-Gothic windows on the first floor and Renaissance-style windows on the second floor. And, of course, there’s a statue of St Blaise nestled in an alcove.

The building has housed the mint, the treasury and the bank. Its official function now is to house Dubrovnik’s historical archives, containing over 100,000 documents, books and manuscripts.

We enjoyed walking through the building and its courtyard.  All these gorgeous arches!

Like I said earlier, our favorite part of the Sponza Palace was the Memorial Room that told the stories of Dubrovnik’s heros during the 1990s.

After the palace we saw the Church of St Blaise.

Then we wandered up and down many of the enchanting corridors in the Old Town.

There were lots of little shops and restaurants tucked here and there as you walked.  All the paths lead you back to the main street, so you couldn’t get lost.

We had a snack in a little cafe and then we found a bus back to the Carnival Breeze.

As we sat on the deck of the cruise ship and flipped through our pictures, we couldn’t believe how beautiful this little town in Croatia had been.

Amazing.

The sun set on this charming city as we sailed away.  I would love to return to Dubrovnik  one day for a longer stay and see the city at night, but this day really could not have been more perfect!

The Details, for if you go:

We purchased a Dubrovnik Card at a little tourist center near the cruise ship, which is good for riding the bus all day, walking the city walls and a few other museums.  However, in retrospect, since we walked into the city and one of the museums on the card was closed on the day we were in town (Rupe), it probably would have been better to just pay for individual tickets at each of the sites.

The cruise ship has a bus that you can ride to and from the Old City for a reasonable fare and I think if you are just wandering the city, walking the walls, visiting museums, you could certainly purchase this ticket and do everything else on your own.

Since we had the Dubrovnik Card, we really tried to see all the museums listed on it, which meant we missed a couple of sites that I really would have liked to have seen, most notably the monastery.

The walk from the cruise ship to the Old City was about 3 kilometers.  It felt like an eternity to Mary Polly, who wished we had ridden the bus, but there were so many people waiting for buses.  Plus I really enjoy walking around a new place and taking in the local feel of the town.

The post Snapshots of Dubrovnik, Croatia appeared first on Alison Chino.

The Lovely Port of Olbia, Sardinia, Italy

Olbia is on the northeastern side of the island of Sardinia.  There are several lovely beaches there, or so we heard.

It sounds ridiculous to me now, but after three days in Barcelona, followed by stops in Monaco, Tuscany and Rome, we were so sleepy.

Also, we enjoyed being on the Carnival Breeze so much that we took in as much of the nightlife as you can with a thirteen year old.  We saw the shows, we went to the Dive In Movie and Mary Polly participated in whatever late night offerings were happening in the Circle C (the club for her age).

So by the time I roused her to wander off the boat into Olbia on this gorgeous day, we just had a few hours to roam about the town, which we enjoyed very much.

With a view of the Mediterranean Sea from everywhere and sunny, blue skies, Oliba’s  pastel brickwork and lovely open air markets and restaurants felt like a wonderland.  We were still sleepy as we wandered about which contributed to our dreamy state.

We were abruptly awakened from this state, when we stumbled out of a gelato shop enjoying our treats in the sun and were suddenly surrounded by several policeman questioning us in Italian.  Mary Polly looked horrified as I pulled out my phrasebook and our passports, trying to figure out what they wanted.

At first I thought we were in trouble for eating our gelato outside, because picnicking is forbidden in some places in Europe, but then one policeman took our passports inside the gelato shop and a loud argument ensued between him and the proprietor.  He came back outside to ask us more questions we could not understand.

Friends, I wish you could have seen Mary Polly’s face.

I finally decided that he was asking us how much we paid for our gelato.  I could still be wrong about this, but we think maybe they were making certain that tourists weren’t being charged a higher price than normal for gelato?

Olbia was most certainly among the most welcoming ports we encountered.  The port provides a free shuttle from the Carnival Breeze to the town center, which runs all day so you can go back and forth if you want.  So perhaps the police are protecting the tourist industry?

Whatever the case, the incident served as an adventure for sure because we were detained for long enough to completely unnerve Mary Polly.  Also, we were making a scene.  Several people stopped and gathered around trying to translate.

When they finally gave us back our passports and sent us along our way, I was laughing hysterically and Mary Polly wanted to get straight back on the boat.  I think she thought we might still get in trouble.

Instead we walked down to the edge of the sea and sat in the sun for a while.  Laziest day ever.  It was beyond lovely.

You could see our boat from Corso Umberto, which is the main street of the historical town center.  Olbia, which means The Happy in ancient Greek, seems like the perfect place to spend a week or two on holiday.  I imagine one could be quite happy for a long time here.

Did you enjoy this post about Olbia, Sardinia, Italy?  Visit other posts about cruising here.  Or subscribe to the Chino House via RSS or by email in the box at the top right of page.

The post Olbia, Sardinia, Italy appeared first on Alison Chino.

One Glorious Day in Rome!

(The Port of Citvitavecchia)

First stop in Rome, The Colosseum.

Pulling up to the Colosseum was one of those surreal moments you dream about when you are planning a trip to Europe.  We glimpsed it from our bus and then our guide let us off enough away that we could take in its full scope before getting closer and going in.

I had Mary Polly make a list of her top ten wishes for our Mediterranean cruise before we left Arkansas, and walking through the Colosseum was Number One on her list, so we were both super excited for the moment we would stand within its famous walls.

We stood on ancient stones and peered into ancient cisterns.

We pondered the moving of and building with giant squares of rock without modern equipment.

Then we climbed high and imagined the brutal scenes that had been played out below us centuries ago.

We were mostly dumbstruck as we wandered around the almost 2000 year old amphitheater, quietly pointing out places we found to one another.

At each window we could spot different angles of the surrounding monuments.

The Roman Forum

The Arch of Constantine

It was tempting to stop at every single window for a picture.  But we pressed on because as our infinitely knowledgeable guide reminded us frequently, we were on a tight schedule.

We walked a little more around the outside of the Colosseum and took in closer views of The Arch of Constantine before we were back on our bus.

Several sights we glimpsed only in passing.

This is the Archbasilica of St John.  It is the mother church of all the Roman basilicas, housing famous sculptures of the 12 apostles.

We saw many ancient Egyptian obelisks in various squares.

These monoliths were transported down the Nile and across the Mediterranean Sea during the Roman Empire.  The logistics of moving these obelisks such a far distance boggled my mind.

After many more spottings of famous buildings than I can even name we made our way to a lovely lunch spot.  Mary Polly and I sat with a precious couple from California who were on their honeymoon.  We enjoyed hearing about their day in Florence.  (Gasp! Was that just yesterday?)  And we drank lots of local wines, enjoyed pasta, bread and maybe the very best ever tiramisu I have ever had.  Ever. Along with a coffee of course.

Next we made our way down the most lovely series of streets to the sight I was maybe the most excited to see.

The Trevi Fountain!

There is a traditional legend that if you toss a coin into the Trevi Fountain, you will return to Rome one day.

I think almost every tour leaving our boat made a stop at this fountain, because of course, who doesn’t want to ensure another visit to the majestic city of Rome?

We certainly tossed our coins in along with the rest of the throng of tourists who had come to see the most famous fountain in the world. With mounting anxiety, I held Mary Polly tight while we pushed through this crowd to get up close to the fountain where we tossed our coins in.

There was a little more breathing room down close, so we sat for a minute and watched all the people.  We were guessing what countries people came from, and we watched a bride and her photographer try to negotiate the crowd to get bridal portraits.

We also spotted this sweet couple mid-embrace.  We decided they were Romans, ignoring the crowd and falling in love.  In their own little world, I thought they really embodied the magical feeling of being near the Trevi Fountain, even amidst the swarms of people.

Part of the facade was being restored while we were there.

For the final leg of our tour, we were headed to The Vatican City.  We passed a few more lovely places on our way, but by this time Mary Polly and I had taken in so much history of Rome that we were slowing in our absorption of details.

In fact, Mary Polly might have closed her eyes until we got to St Peter’s Basilica.

We got to walk down the street, approaching it from afar and marveling at its grandeur as we got closer and closer.  It’s impossible to feel how big it is from the pictures, but we were stunned.  So much so that I had trouble keeping up with our guide as he marched us around the line to enter through a side door.

We wound around columns and through barricades to get to the entrance and then,

Hallelujah!  We were inside the largest church in the world!

Our guide walked us through the Basilica telling us all about it and then set us free to explore on our own for a bit.

I had long desired to see this Pietà by Michelangelo.

Unfortunately, you cannot get very close to it and it is covered with bullet proof glass because a mentally disturbed man attacked the sculpture with a hammer in 1972.

Still, it is beautiful.  I love the way Mary is cradling Jesus in death as in birth.  I have been obsessed with Pietàs in art ever since I became a mother.  Mary’s sacrifice is not talked about much in the evangelical tradition of which I am a part, so the mystery of Mary, Mother of Jesus eludes me all the more.  Which is, I suppose, why I am drawn to her.

The dome of the Basilica, the largest in the world, designed by Michelangelo, was of course, amazing.

We built all day to this moment.  The one where we would stand under Michelangelo’s dome.

And it did not disappoint.

Bernini’s famous bronze baldacchino sits under Michelangelo’s dome and over the altar.

You can take as many pictures as you want inside of St Peter’s Basilica because all of the paintings are not really paintings at all, but mosaics.  They are enormous and you cannot believe they are made of tiny bits of colored glass or marble until you get right up close.

Our guide was particularly enamored with this meticulous art.  It takes years to perfect and most Vatican mosaic artists can only complete two or three of these masterpieces in a lifetime.  I found a fascinating article talking about the Vatican studio where people are continuing to learn this ancient art form.

Finally, it was time to leave St. Peter’s.  We had a few minutes to wave to the Swiss Guards who keep the Vatican City safe, in spite of their jester-like uniforms.  And another minute or two to buy a postcard, a rosary or any number of other small trinkets.

Then we waved Goodbye to Rome and hopped back on the bus.

It was a wonderfully exhausting day, and I think everyone on our bus fell asleep as we made our way back to the Carnival Breeze, where we sat on the deck and watched the sun set on our first ever day in Rome.

A Few Details for If You Go:

These are the boring kinds of details I was looking for before I went on this cruise, so I wanted to share them with you.  Please feel free to skip to the comments and tell me if you could only stop at once place in Rome, what would it be?

How can you possibly see Rome in a day?

You can’t.  That’s why there are 3000 euros tossed in the Trevi Fountain every day! You want to go back!

One night on the boat we ate dinner with a couple who had spent a week in Rome before flying to Barcelona to board the Carnival Breeze.  Then they stayed on the boat the day we ported in Rome.  I thought this was a wonderful idea for several reasons.  Firstly, Rome is the furthest place you drive to from the sea and at all the ports, you are so anxious to see everything that you don’t want to stay on the boat, but I am sure it would be lovely to enjoy a day on board while everyone else has left, especially in a must see stop such as Rome.

Alas, we did not have an extra week to spend in Rome, so we had to make the best of one day.

How do you choose your Rome excursion?

We chose our Rome tour based on the fact that the Colosseum was Number One on Mary Polly’s list of sights to see in Rome.  She had read and studied about the Colosseum and was very excited about seeing it.

Of the tour choices with Carnival, Rome At Its Best was the only one where you entered the Colosseum so our choice was pretty much made for us.

The highlights of this tour were the Colosseum, St Peters’ Basilica and the Trevi Fountain.  I was sad that we had to miss the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel, but with only one day in Rome, you have to make some sacrifices.  If you want more than anything else to gaze at the Sistine Chapel, then you need to choose the St Peters and Vatican Museum Tour.

Our cruise director did a lecture on Rome excursions which I attended while I was figuring out our day in Rome, but I came to it with a list of what I really wanted to see.

In general, I found attending these lectures and reading Rick Steve’s Mediterranean Cruise Ports (which I carried with me) to be enormously helpful in planning our time in Europe.  This book and many others are available for browsing in the library of the Carnival Breeze, which is nice if you haven’t had much time ahead of your trip to plan your days on shore.

How do you move about with 50 people in Rome?  And how do you hear the guide?

I was curious about this, and like our day in Tuscany, was concerned that we would be waiting on other people all day. But we had a bus driver and two guides.  One guide walked in front and the other walked in the back and kept us moving.  The rear guide, David, was so super sweet, but very firm.

One time a lady in front of me stopped to look at a handbag for sale and he was all, No shopping ma’am! No time for shopping!

Her husband laughed and said, I’ve been trying to tell her that all my life!

At one point, Mary Polly and I had to find a restroom and he waited with us and then caught us up to the group because he was able to call the guide in front.

Our front guide, Marco, knew more about Rome than I can ever imagine knowing about anything.  Seriously, I know he does this for a living, but he was unbelievable.

We all wore these little radios with one earphone around our necks (Mary Polly is wearing hers in the Trevi Fountain picture above).  Marco would speak into his little microphone and you could hear him just like he was right next to you even if you were fifty feet back.  I loved this because he didn’t have to yell and you didn’t feel like you had to stay in such a tight pack with everyone.  As long as you could hear him, you knew you were in range of the group.  Plus if you fell too far behind, there would be David, smiling and reminding you to keep up.  Mary Polly felt free to just remove her earphone whenever she got tired of listening.

Also, Marco would give us time to roam on our own at each of the sights.  I noticed that when he did this, several people stayed with him and asked him more questions, which he was always glad to answer.

A word more about Rome

For every one person that visits Disneyworld, there are nine who visit Rome.  We were there at the end of September and it seemed mobbed to me.  However, every time we entered a major monument, Marco would look around and say, Good, not so crowded today!

And I would think, If this is not crowded, I certainly don’t want to see it when it is!

Also, even though it was September, it was quite warm.  Mary Polly and I both wore jeans and short sleeves and sweaters because your legs and shoulders have to be covered to enter the Vatican and the churches in Rome.  By late afternoon, we were quite hot , so it must be positively grueling in the summertime.  However, we did convince David to let us stop to grab some gelato.

Note to self: Return to Rome in January.

More info about Carnival excursions and about excursions in general can be found at the end of the Tuscany post.

Did you enjoy this post about Rome?  Visit other posts about cruising here.  Or subscribe to my blog by email.

The post Snapshots of Rome appeared first on Alison Chino.

Our original plan was to take one of the excursions to Florence, but the one we chose was canceled at the last minute so on an impulse, we jumped on an excursion called The Essence of Tuscany.

This was one of those fortuitous decisions that made me later wonder if perhaps a little travel angel had guided our journey.

Because the entire day from start to finish was positively perfect.

Our day started early so my sleepy girl was thankful for the bus ride from our cruise port.  I had to nudge her occasionally though to look out the window at the happy landscapes.  Immediately we fell head over heals for our easy-going adorable guide, Chiara.

Her soft voice speaking occasionally over the microphone on the bus was a subtle interruption rather than a startling announcement.

She let us know that we would be visiting two Tuscan hill towns with a stop for lunch at a country villa in between.  At both towns she would show us a few things, but then let us roam on our own until an appointed time.

(It would not be until I had been on two other Carnival excursions that I would come to fully appreciate how very perfect this arrangement was.  More on this later.)

We stopped first in San Gimignano, a place I had visited before with Taido.  It is the setting for parts of the movie Tea with Mussolini, an old favorite with Judi Dench and Maggie Smith.

We started in the town square. Chiara told us the very best spot for gelato, which we were happy to eat, even at 10 in the morning.  She recommended two local flavors, white wine and chocolate.  They were both divine.

Mary Polly had berries with lavender which was also sublime.

After gelato we wandered around the square and the surrounding towers for a while.

San Gimignano is famous for its preserved towers and walls which date back to the 12th, 13th and 16th centuries.

Mary Polly loved exploring this small town.

It is walled in on all sides, and everything eventually leads back to the square so it is virtually impossible to get lost, which is why it is a wonderful place to just let yourself go.

Go ahead and get lost and forget your way because the wandering of these little alleys and cobblestone walkways is magical.

Every doorway seemed like it might open to a wonderland.

Mary Polly and I both kept pointing out doors we’d like to live behind.

This might explain the fairly ridiculous number of pictures of windows and doors I have from our time in Italy.

So beautiful!

Some places looked like they might be homes to hobbits or dwarves.

Or even fairies.

Soon we had wandered up to the old fortress and park that overlook the town.

We climbed to the top of the tower and sat for a while to enjoy the view.

I showed Mary Polly the exact spot in the park where Taido and I had enjoyed a picnic lunch many years before.  We listened to musicians playing in the park, and wandered in and out of olive groves.

Then we made our way back down to the square.

Everyone was filled with the same delight as we were, talking about how perfect San Gimignano was.  We got back on our bus and drove a short way to our lunch spot.

At lunch, we were greeted with the most welcoming sight.

Long green checkered tables lined with local wines, olive oil and Parmesan cheese were shaded from the noonday sun.

We filled up these tables and had a lazy first course of bread, cheese, pancetta and bruchetta.

Then we had pasta.  More bread of course.  And traditional Italian custard for dessert.

We exchanged stories over lunch.

I might also have cornered Chiara to see if she could arrange an Italian Countryside 40th birthday trip the following year.  Maybe it was the wine, but I was pretty much in love with her by this point.

Next we went to Volterra.  Thankfully, we had a little drive (and a little nap) to get there.

Volterra also has beautiful towers, but it is mostly known for its Roman ruins from the 1st century.

We stood on a small ridge above the Roman Theater while Chiara told us the its history and gave us a few more tips about walking through Volterra.

Here she is.  So cute, right?

Then she let us go and wander the village on our own.

I loved this striped stone work on the buildings.  It’s from the 13th century (I think…I kind of lose track).

We wandered inside a couple of the churches and Mary Polly even lit a candle for a loved one.

I could look at ornate ceilings and arches and artwork within old European churches for the rest of my life.  So fascinating to me.

More wandering through beautiful streets.

More getting lost and dreaming about staying in Italy forever and ever.

More finding our way back to the beginning by way of tiny alleys.

And fairytale gateways.

We were sad for our Tuscany day to be over because we loved it so much.

It would have been fine with us if our boat had left us there for a day or two more, but it was time to get on our bus and head back to the Breeze.

Goodbye Volterra!

Goodbye lovely Italian countryside!

Caio Chiara!

If you go:

There are a few slightly tedious details I would love to share with you about taking this particular excursion with Carnival and about excursions in general.

I hesitate to share them here because this post is already quite long and this part is kind of boring.  However, this is exactly the kind of information I was searching madly for before I went on this cruise so here they are.  Please feel free to skip to the comments and just tell me how much you want to go back to Italy with me next time.

1. Why choose The Essence of Tuscany as an excursion?

The ports of Livorno (Florence/Pisa) and Rome are back to back on this cruise, as they seem to be for most Mediterranean cruises.  I cannot wait to share about our time in Rome, (next week?) but its pace was dizzying, as it should be if you only have one day in Rome.  Had we done a similar day of touring monuments and museums in Florence as we had originally planned, I am not sure if we would have been to appreciate our day in Rome quite as much.  This is even more true for Mary Polly.  We walked miles and miles every day of trip, are both in reasonably good shape and enjoy a challenging day of sightseeing.  However, this more easy going day in Tuscany turned out to be her favorite part of our entire two week trip.

2. Why do an excursion at all?  Why not just go on your own?

Believe me.  I asked the internet this question a lot, because excursions are not cheap.  We only did three excursions in eight ports.  The other five we did on our own.

However, Livorno (which is an hour from Florence) and Civitavecchia (which is an hour and half from Rome) are both industrial ports.  You have to hire some kind of transportation just to get out of the port area.  There are lots of people (via the mind-numbing chat threads of Cruise Critic) who get into smaller groups and hire excursions on their own outside of Carnival.  I think the main advantage of doing this is that the group size is smaller.  They are not necessarily that much cheaper (though they can be a little), but since it was my first cruise in the Mediterranean, it just seemed safer to me to book with Carnival.  I would love a smaller group size and I would love to hand choose a guide (for example, obviously if I were going back to Tuscany, I would be calling Chiara), but the thought of Mary Polly and I ending up in a car with four drunks from Cleveland, Ohio was frankly worse to me than the thought of being on a bus with 50 people.

How does the excursion work exactly?  Do you have to stand in line for a long time?  What is the group size?  Don’t you waste a lot of time waiting on other people all day?

The group sizes on Carnival’s European excursions are quite large.  There are close to 50 people on each bus.  In the past when I have cruised with Carnival in the Caribbean, you just get off the boat and find your excursion, but on the Carnival Breeze, they have a system where you go into the theater to get grouped for your excursion.  On your excursion ticket is a time that you need to be in the theater.  The excursions that were leaving for Florence and Pisa had the earliest times, around 6:30 or 7am.  Our excursion wasn’t leaving until 8.  We, of course, arrived early to the theater because when I am unsure about a situation I tend to be a little nutty about the details.  So I watched many of the other excursions leave the theater first.

What happens is that as you enter the theater you are handed a number on a little sticker.  This turns out to be your group number and your bus number.  Apart from the fact that this makes you feel a little bit like you’ve been branded and herded like a cow, the numbers are actually make things move quite efficiently.

Because I was early for my excursion, I was handed the number of the first bus leaving for my tour.  As it turned out, there were several Essence of Tuscany buses, as there were several of all the other kinds as well.  So serendipitously I discovered a detail that I found very helpful for all of our other tours.  If you arrive early for your excursion, you are placed on the first bus leaving.  This also means you will be the first bus to arrive at all the sights, ooh and also at lunch.  This was certainly nice on our Tuscany tour, but proved to be even more helpful on our Rome tour since there were so many more buses going to all the different sights.

Also, and more importantly, if you are early for your tour, then your bus tends to be made of people who are responsible and on time.  This detail saves you being on a bus with people who don’t mind being late.  It seems like a small, petty thing until you are waiting on a bus full of people ready to go to the Colosseum, but you are held up by someone who thinks the entire world tour revolves around them.

Once I realized all of this on our Tuscany tour, you can bet that I was a half hour early for our Rome tour, where there is a lot more stopping and starting.  Mary Polly was not really loving me when we had to be in the theater at 6am, but we were on Bus #1 to Rome.

The post Snapshots of Tuscany appeared first on Alison Chino.