Our second stop was in the port town of Livorno, Italy. Once again, we stuck to our plan for the most part, though we did head to Pisa first and then Florence later. We did this as I had pre-bought tickets for us to climb the leaning tower first thing upon our arrival. Climbing the steps wasn’t too bad, and we were awarded with pretty nice views from the top. One problem is that there really isn’t too much to see in Pisa, so there wasn’t much to look at from up top. But we can now say that we’ve been to the top.

With little to do in Pisa, we immediately headed back to the train station and continued on our way to Florence. Once there, we headed straight for the cathedral known as the Duomo. And as if we didn’t climb enough for one day, we decided to hike the steps here to go to the top of the Dome. This climb was much harder, tighter, and crowded than the leaning tower, but the views from the top were absolutely worth it! I could have stayed there for hours, but being on a short stop, we headed back down and into the Piazza della Signoria after a quick stop for lunch.

The Piazza della Signoria is dominated by the town hall of Florence, Palazzo Vecchio, and the tower Torre d’Arnolfo, which were both great to see up close. Also in the piazza is a copy of the statue David, among many other sculptures. The original David was moved into a museum, which we decided to skip over due to long lines. Just south of piazza is the Ponte Vecchio, which is the old bridge flanked with shops that spans the Arno River. It also has very nice views looking down the river, which I snapped some of my favorite photos from.

With little time left, and an hour or so train ride back to Livorno, we had a glass of wine and were back on our way toward the ship. Florence is on my list of places that I could easily go again and spend more time. Pisa, on the other hand, I feel can be checked off the list and will likely not be visited again. Here are some pictures from this stop.

Has anyone downloaded Chrome yet? If you have no idea what I’m referring to, google has released their very own stripped down web browser. I know they announced it weeks ago, but you have to give me a little break as I’m still playing catchup from the trip. I haven’t downloaded it so far, but from a few reviews I can’t wait to give it a shot. I love the fact that each tab runs independently from others, so if you have a crash on one site it isn’t going to bring the whole browser down. One item that concerns me are some of the add-ons I use with firefox and the fact that I may not be able to function without them.

While catching up on some blog reading over lunch today, I stumbled upon an article on Boing Boing discussing a recent visit to Casa Bonita. Just a little bit of background, this is a Mexican themed restaurant in Denver that features cliff divers, escaping gorillas, cowboy shootouts, lost caves and caverns, amusement arcade and more. It has always been a favorite to local children since it’s opening in early 70’s, and has established a bit of a cult following after being featured in an episode of South Park. If anyone knows where I can view this episode online, please let me know.

Anyway, I was reminded of the first time we had heard of this restaurant. Back in April of 2007 friends from KC, the Kenagy’s and the Martin’s, visited us in Denver. In an email, Kelly Martin mentioned a restaurant in Denver with cliff divers and food that was rated as marginal. Though we didn’t get around to visiting Casa Bonita during their trip, Kim never forgot about the restaurant and decided to drag Amy and I there during a visit of her own.

None of us that went to Casa Bonita that day will ever forget our first (and currently only) experience with the restaurant. The food was definitely marginal at best, bordering on inedible would also be a proper description. And the entertainment was ridiculously amusing, though I’m sure with the right amount of alcohol it could have been much funnier. As most commenter’s on the Boing Boing article mention, the sopaipillas were probably the highlight of the adventure. Any visitors to Denver, consider yourself warned.

Here are pictures from our first stop on the cruise, Cannes, France. As mentioned in this planning post, we immediately left Cannes upon arrival and headed to Monaco first. We used the train system for our travel for the day, and the first ride of the day was about an hour long to Monte Carlo, Monaco. We were just barely able to catch the changing of the guard ceremony at the Prince’s Palace, which had a large crowd gathered. From there we toured the Cathedral and then the Aquarium.

Later in the day, after some lunch down near the port of Monte Carlo, we headed toward the famous casino. Despite what I read earlier, a jacket and tie are only required in the evening. So we tried getting into the casino, but they wanted us to drop off our backpacks first. Since we don’t gamble, we just decided to skip out on the inside, especially since you can’t take pictures. From there we headed back to the train station and headed back toward Cannes, stopping in Nice, France along the way.

Our time in Nice was limited as we spent a little too long in Monaco. Looking back on it, we should have skipped the aquarium, as it wasn’t as impressive as I was hoping for. We were able to quickly see the Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Nice, which is a very interesting building. After that, we strolled around the streets near the train station before it was time to head back to Cannes. Once in Cannes, we walked along the Boulevard de la Croisette before heading back for the ship. It was a very enjoyable day on the French Riviera.

Before embarking on our cruise vacation, we had an extra day or so to explore Barcelona, the city the ship would be leaving from. We arrived on Monday afternoon, September 1 after flying from Cincinnati to Washington D.C., continuing onto Paris as I mentioned yesterday, and finally a quick hop over to Barcelona. The first day we settled into the hotel and headed out into town for dinner and a little sight seeing around La Ramblas, the main street in town.

The next day we had to board the ship, but we woke up early enough so we could go out in Barcelona again before heading for the port. We went down the La Ramblas area again and then headed up to the top of the hill called Montjuïc, which had outstanding views of the entire city. From there we headed over to the La Sagrada Familia, which is the most famous building in town. This church is massive and has been under construction since 1882, with estimates for completion in 2026. Once spending a bit of time there it was time to head for the ship and start our fabulous cruise.

Well we are back in the good ol’ USA after a couple of weeks in Europe. Overall, it was an amazing trip, but at the same time it’s good to be back at home. The cruise went very smoothly, minus the last day at sea, which was cold, windy, and stormy. That weather led to a rather rough ride through the Mediterranean. And we did have a change to the itinerary, skipping Tunisia and instead heading to Palermo, Sicily, more on that later. I have nearly 1000 pictures that I’m going to slowly sort through and add to the site. Today I present the first few shots of our trip and some from a few hour tour of Paris.

And if you’d like to view photos of our wedding, those can be found on our photographer’s website. Thanks once again Joe, the pictures are awesome!

We are just leaving Cannes now on our first stop of our cruise. The sunset is beautiful and the long islands are very tasty! We had a great day today exploring Monaco first, then a brief stop in Nice, and a little sightseeing in Cannes on the way back to the ship. Our stay in Barcelona was very nice, but cut a little short due to overall exhaustion from our trip overseas. And we did have a few hours to spend in Paris on our layover and were able to see the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, amoung other sites. I’d love to start sorting through pictures and uploading some, but I think we forgot to pack the cord I need to transfer them. I’m going to see if one of the shops onboard has anything I can use. I hope everyone who was able to attend the wedding had a good time. Talk to you all after the cruise!

I’m officially a married man! Posting may be a bit slow for the next couple of weeks, but I hope to add some pictures and things while we are out on our honeymoon cruise of the Mediterranean. Try not to be too jealous.

Today is my last day of work for quite some time. I will then have my longest vacation I’ve had since becoming a working adult. If you’ve missed the countless other posts I’ve made about our fabulous honeymoon cruise, this entry has a good summary of events. Who would have thought that our trip to Tunisia would elicit the largest number of comments giving advice (and other ramblings), but feel free to provide pointers on any of our destinations. I’ve pretty much planned out each stop, using mostly public transportation to get from the port to other nearby places of interest, but I’m always open to altering our plans or taking a detour to see something spectacular. Now I just need to get through three more hours…

I’m stuck at work today in the office, so I haven’t been able to keep up with the DNC events as well as the past couple of days. What would have been really cool to see is Rage Against the Machine’s concert that is going on now. I used to love this band, and have never seen them live, though I’m sure it’s full of energy. Instead, I had my yearly review, and despite receiving the highest marks possible, received another mediocre raise. I guess it could be worse, the amount equates to 8%, but still I always expect more. I’m really curious as to when I’ll get my next promotion from level two up to level three. There is always next year, I suppose.