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, among 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…

Sandwiched between two days at sea, is our final stop on our honeymoon cruise, Tunis. Tunis is the capital of the north African country Tunisia. So our cruise involves two continents, among all of the different countries we are visiting. I think the first thing we’ll do when we get to Tunis is to leave. I’d like to immediately take a train out to the ancient city of Carthage and continue on to Sidi Bou Said, a town which is famous for its white buildings with blue roofs and windows. It looks very picturesque!

Once we are done exploring the suburbs, we’ll head back into the center of Tunis and explore the sights in town, including the medina (old town) and souk (more or less the market). Depending on the time, we may also try to take in the Bardo Museum or the Zitouna Mosque. I think it will be neat to just see a country that should be quite a bit different from the others we’ll see during our crusie.

So here is our final cruise itinerary:

• Start: Barcelona
• Day One: Cannes / Monte Carlo / Nice
• Day Two: Livorno / Florence / Pisa
• Day Three: Rome
• Day Four: Naples / Capri / Sorrento / Pompeii
• Day Five: At Sea
• Day Six: Venice
• Day Seven: Venice
• Day Eight: Split, Croatia
• Day Nine: At Sea
• Day Ten: Tunis, Tunisia
• Day Eleven: At Sea
• End: Barcelona

I still have some research to do for Barcelona, since we’ll spend a night there before the cruise, but we are definitely in good shape for the majority of the honeymoon. Now if only I could skip over the next week.

Once again, here is our honeymoon itinerary with all of the stops that I’ve planned. This includes our second sea day of the trip, which will take us to our final port on the tenth day. I will write about that final stop next week.

• Day One: Cannes / Monte Carlo / Nice
• Day Two: Livorno / Florence / Pisa
• Day Three: Rome
• Day Four: Naples / Capri / Sorrento / Pompeii
• Day Five: At Sea
• Day Six: Venice
• Day Seven: Venice
• Day Eight: Split, Croatia
• Day Nine: At Sea

Since I last wrote about Split, we decided what we are going to do there, at least part of the time. We are doing one of the excursions through the cruise line, the Off Road Safari. This excursion involves a little adventure, but still allows us to sit back and relax as we drive vehicles through the wilderness.

And while we were shopping for the excursion, we also added something else to our itinerary, a Mystery Dinner Theater. This will take place on the seventh day after our boat leaves Venice. Kim said that she has always wanted to go to one of these, and I was all for the included special Italian menu and wine. From what I’ve read online, this should be a good time. Now we just need to figure out what to do during our days at sea.

Let the honeymoon planning resume. So far I have attempted to plan out the first seven days of the cruise. Here’s a quick recap:

• Day One: Cannes / Monte Carlo / Nice
• Day Two: Livorno / Florence / Pisa
• Day Three: Rome
• Day Four: Naples / Capri / Sorrento / Pompeii
• Day Five: At Sea
• Day Six: Venice
• Day Seven: Venice

The eighth day of the cruise brings us to Split, Croatia, which should be our fifth country on the trip if everything goes as planned. When Split was built, everything revolved around the palace built for the retired Roman emperor, Diocletian. Outside of Diocletian’s Palace there doesn’t seem to be much that interests me in Split. With that said, I’m actually considering taking one of the more adventurous excursions offered by Royal Caribbean. A few that interest me are Canoeing on the Cetina River, an Off Road Safari, or Sea Kayaking in Trogir. Thoughts and/or opinions?

Just over five weeks from the big wedding day. If they haven’t already arrived, invitations should be showing up in mailboxes in the next day or two. We’ve already received some great feedback on the invitations, and obviously we feel that Amy did an incredible job with them. We’ve been putting the finishing touches on lots of things recently. A few that I can remember are the church music, the readings for mass, and picking some songs for the reception band. That reminds me that I’ve yet to receive any submissions in the big Mix Tape Challenge contest I announced months ago. If you were going to put something together, please do so soon so we can get some good music together for the set breaks at the reception. Things are moving along pretty smoothly thus far, I’m sure it will be here before we all know it.

I took a week off from cruise planning to reflect the day at sea we will have on the fifth day. During this time we will be traveling from Naples on the west coast all the way around Italy to Venice on the northeastern coast. Once we arrive in Venice at 1pm on the sixth day we will have lots of time to explore, in fact we won’t leave there until 5pm on the seventh day. Yes, we will be doing an overnight stay in Venice on the docked ship.

With all of this extra time, we really need some suggestions on things to do. It sounds like you can get lost for hours navigating through the streets and bridges that span the many canals. And I don’t think a trip to Venice is complete without a gondola ride. But what else is there to do? I’ve read a little about some of the neighboring islands like Murano but was hoping that someone had some advice. I’ve received a number of emails on previous stops, but I encourage you to post in the comments section. Let’s get some conversation started, don’t be scared!

The itinerary thus far:

• Day One: Cannes / Monte Carlo / Nice
• Day Two: Livorno / Florence / Pisa
• Day Three: Rome
• Day Four: Naples / Capri / Sorrento / Pompeii
• Day Five: At Sea
• Day Six: Venice
• Day Seven: Venice

All of the previous cruise stops have been relatively easy to plan, but that all ends with the fourth stop, Naples. I felt like all of the previous stops had one (maybe two) places that you were supposed to travel to, but Naples has multiple destinations outside of Naples itself, and I’m not sure that we can do them all in the twelve hours we have there. Here are some of the top destinations:

• Ruins of Pompeii
• Hiking Mount Vesuvius
• Coastal town of Sorrento
• Island of Capri

I’m hoping that someone has been to some/all of these places and can offer some advice. I think we can stop in multiple destinations during the day, but I think it would be impossible to see them all. I’m continuing to read more and more about each, and every time I do I find more reasons for going to each place. This could be the hardest decision of the trip. Please help!

Last night we went down to Castle Rock to meet up with Amy Collins and her husband Corey. Amy is a longtime family friend who recently moved to Colorado Springs. She is also a graphic designer and is going to make our wedding invitations for us. So it was very convenient that we could get together to check out some samples and to have dinner along with a couple beers at Rockyard, one of the few restaurants in the town. Things are looking good for the invitations, so expect to see them in next few weeks, well if you are one of the chosen ones. :)