Over the weekend we traveled to Baltimore, Maryland for the wedding of two longtime friends of mine, Mike and Carrie. I met Mike many years ago through O.A.R. and we’ve kept in touch for the years following. He’s the founder of OARfans.com, and because of the website he eventually met Carrie, moved to Baltimore, and the rest is history.

Their wedding ceremony and reception took place at the American Visionary Art Museum in the Federal Hill neighborhood of Baltimore. The museum is very funky place and was the perfect backdrop for their big day. They had a short ceremony on the central staircase of the museum. And from there, we had a cocktail hour, followed by dinner, drinks, and entertainment provided by a band that we’ve loved for years, Virginia Coalition. Needless to say, we had an amazing time and wish nothing but the best for the newly married couple.

I have some pictures that I’d like to share, but I’m having a problem with the gallery section of the site once again. Just as I was considering switching everything back to the old way, I have nothing but trouble today. Oh well, I’m sick of messing with it today, I’ll post them tomorrow.

Update: I’ve added the pictures directly inside of this post. Enjoy.

The last stop of our cruise honeymoon was supposed to be Tunisia. I was really looking forward to stopping there, especially after getting all kinds of great advice on a previous posting. Unfortunately, while checking in we were told that our itinerary had been changed to remove Tunisia and add Palermo, Sicily. Needless to say, I was pretty disappointed. We later found out that the change was made after previous cruisers expressed their opinions on the stop and suggested that the ship should stop in a different port.

I’m not sure if the change is really justifiable or not, but after our trip I made the suggestion to consider a port different than Palermo. Overall, I was not impressed by this city at all. Perhaps it had a little to do with my bitterness toward the itinerary change, but I honestly felt that the city was dirty and rundown. Sure there were some interesting sights to see, but we found them to be not very well kept up and were surprised to find graffiti covering even some of the most famous landmarks. After being disappointed on our walk around town, we decided to take a bus trip to the nearby town of Mondello and to visit the beach there. Though it was a bit crowded (and a little dirty too) it provided a much nicer day than Palermo.

One nice result of the itinerary change, was that our ship had extra time on our day after our stop in Croatia, so we cruised past the island of Stromboli. This island is home to one of three active volcanoes in Italy. The captain stopped the ship for a half hour or so, as we took in the frequent eruptions of the volcano in the nearly pitch-dark night. It was pretty hard to photograph, but I was able to balance the camera on railings and set the exposure to a second or two to get a couple of decent shots. Here are some of those pictures and a few from Palermo and Mondello.

The second to last stop on our cruise was in Split, Croatia. As mentioned in this planning post, we participated in our only cruise sponsored excursion of the trip, an Off Road Safari. On this trip we took turns driving manual transmission Land Rovers through the countryside, to the top of mountains, along the Cetina River, and through twisting village roads. We also were fed twice with some traditional, but still familiar, foods that were very enjoyable. We also got to jump into the frigid waters of the Cetina and have great views of the entire area. Though we had nothing to compare it to, everyone we were with said it was the best excursion they had done, and some folks did an excursion at every stop.

After the excursion was over, we took some time to explore the town of Split and especially see parts of Diocletian’s Palace. We didn’t have time to go into any of the buildings, but it was still interesting to see more ancient structures and compare them to the others we had already seen at other stops. Overall, we felt that Croatia was a beautiful country that was not nearly as touristy as other spots, and we would love the chance to go back and do more adventurous activities.

This past Saturday we headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park to view the changing aspen trees and the annual elk rut, aka the elk breeding season. We took Cari, our roommate for the past month, along with us for her first visit to the park. Cari’s family are longtime friends with Kim’s family, and we are happy to welcome her for her two month stay in Denver. She is a pharmacy student at Ohio Northern, and is participating in an internship-like program. Her next adventure will take her to Kenya! I’ll have to encourage her to start a blog about her time there.

Anyway, I wanted to introduce the stranger that is in a few of these pictures. Though the park isn’t particularly known for it’s aspen groves, we were able to find a few bright gold spots, especially on our hike to the top of Deer Mountain. However the main reason I wanted to go to the park was to see the elk in their mating season. Before we even saw them, we could hear them loud and clear. The males have a very distinct call, which is known as bugling. Often, you can catch the males fighting with one another, using their antlers to show who is boss. We only caught a brief physical encounter between males, and it was at quite a distance, but you could feel the tension in the air. The females, however, could have cared less about the males and just continued feeding in the large fields.

As mentioned before, we had an overnight stay in Venice during our cruise. This allowed us plenty of time to explore the canals and alleys of this unique city and even get lost numerous times. The first thing we did once in the center of town was to take a walk across Piazza San Marco. It was packed with people, so we quickly took a vaporetto (water taxi) ride the length of the Grand Canal. This was a cheap way to see a ton of the city and get oriented with it’s layout.

From there we continued on the vaporetto out to the island of Murano. This island is famous for it’s glass, but unfortunately we arrived a little too late to see any of the glass making. We did enjoy the peace and quiet of the island for awhile, and when we were ready for dinner we headed back into Venice where we spent the evening before retiring to the ship.

The second day we arrived first thing at the Doge’s Palace and explored it for an hour or so. From there we went inside of the Basilica di San Marco, and enjoyed the view from the Horses Loggia. Next up on our busy day, was a trip to the top of the Campanile. Fortunately there’s an elevator in this bell tower, and the views from the top were very nice. Before we knew it, it was time to head back to the ship and onto our next destination. Here are some of my favorite pictures from this stop.

If judging solely from the number of pictures I took, Naples would have to be my favorite stop of the cruise vacation. And looking back on it, I may have to agree with that statement. What it may lack in famous landmarks, it made up for in sheer beauty and ancient history. I mentioned a wide variety of things to do in the planning post for this stop, and we did all of them!

Upon arriving in Naples, we took a stroll down to the train station walking through some run down areas. Needless to say, I was a bit concerned, but once we were on a train and moving out toward some other sights I knew we were going to have a good time. We stopped in Ercolano first, hoping to catch a bus to Mount Vesuvius. After leaving the train, we found the company that offers shuttles to the top, but they were not yet opened. I had also read that the city buses would stop nearby and one of them went to Vesuvius. Well after waiting for awhile at the stop, and after a few frustrating conversations with a mix of languages, we finally found a taxi driver who offered to help us out.

He spoke very good English, and said he would take us to Vesuvius, wait for us to make the short hike to the top, and then bring us back down to the train station for 35 euros. He said that we wouldn’t have to pay until back at the train station. So we did it, and I’m really glad we did. We talked with him throughout the 45 minute drive, learned about his life near Naples, and he even sung Italian songs to us. Well worth the cost. And so was the hike up to Vesuvius. Though the crater isn’t much to see (it’s a really big hole) the views of Naples and the nearby coast were amazing!

After this excursion, we proceeded over to Pompeii, which was just a few more train stops away. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much but I was absolutely blown away. This ancient city was buried in AD 79 by one of the eruptions of Vesuvius, and has been excavated since 1748. These ruins are so well laid out and organized, it is easy to imagine yourself living in those olden times. Seeing the plaster casts of some of the victims was horrifying, imagining being buried by the volcano. I’d highly recommend this site.

Next up on our tour was Sorrento, which was at the end of the train line we had already taken so far. This small town is built into and on top of the seaside cliffs. It’s a beautiful little place that I wish we could have spent more time in, but we had to move quickly if we wanted to make it to Capri and then back to the ship in Naples. We took a hydrofoil from Sorrento to Capri, which allowed for great views of the coast, and amazing sights as we pulled into the port on the island of Capri.

We didn’t make it up to Capri Town, as we just explored the port area, had lunch in a cafe overlooking the sea, and waited for our return hydrofoil to Naples. We didn’t want to push our luck too much and end up stuck on the island so we took an early boat back. Once in Naples we explored some of the city, ate a little more food, and then wound up back on the ship with a few minutes to spare. I really loved nearly every minute of our time in this port.

The third stop of the cruise took us to Rome, well actually Civitavecchia. Once again we quickly took a train from the port town to the city of interest, exactly as planned. The first stop we made was at Vatican City, and I’m glad that we did it this way. I’ve read all about horrible crowds for the various sights, but when we arrived there were more pigeons than people in Saint Mark’s Square, and we walked right into the Basilica with no problems at all. From there we headed off to the Vatican Museums (which houses the Sistine Chapel) and though there was a small line, it was nothing like I had imagined. So we took some extra time to visit various rooms, especially Raphael’s Rooms, and then finished off the visit in the Sistine Chapel, where photography is banned.

From there, we took a quick walk over to Castel Sant’Angelo, a castle with great views of Rome from the top. Once finished there, we continued walking and stopped by both the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain with little problems. Both were swamped with people at this point, but still worth a quick visit. One thing I quickly learned is how close together so many of the sights are, which makes for a perfect walking tour. Next, we visited the Pantheon and then continued over to the Forums and ancient Rome.

Our last stop of the day was at the Colosseum. I knew it was going to be an amazing sight to see, but I was completely blown away by the engineering and architecture of something this old. We ended up with plenty of time to spare, so we took our time walking through it, and even got audio guides to listen to along the way. I hope that some of my pictures do justice to this magnificent structure, but really you just can’t get a feel for it’s massiveness without actually being there. By far one of the cooler things I’ve ever seen.

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.

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.