Today was going to be another long day, but at least I was able to leverage the small advantage of being able to board the bus ahead of the rest of the group, and thereby grab a seat towards the very front of the bus. I can then get off the bus before the entire rest of the group has already off-loaded and left me in the dust. Every little bit counts.

Our guide for the day was William – though his name is actually Guillermo, he was using the English version. Possibly he was a bit new, as he kept asking for directions from other tour operators.

When we got on the bus there was a little confusion about the seating – there was another woman who also claimed the front seat; she saw no problem – she plopped herself down in the guide’s seat. William was not happy – he told her she could not sit there. We offered multiple times to move one row back – the absolute front row is not imperative – but she refused to move. For some reason, William seemed to think this was our fault and explained many times why we had to move. We knew we had to move. We had no problem moving. It was the other woman who seemed content to sit in William’s seat. After several more minutes of this, she finally consented to move, and we were able to get under way.

The port city is Cadiz; Seville is about a 2 hour drive. William’s litany makes it easy to catch up on sleep.

We did have one bathroom break at a Spanish equivalent of a truck stop. The bathrooms were gross. I will leave it at that.

When we arrive in Seville, William mentions in passing that there’s a huge soccer tournament today – Barcelona vs. Valencia for the “cup”? Championship? Of Spain. So things might be a little more crowded and/or noisy than usual.

William says it’s just a short 10 minute walk to the Casa Pilatos (“Pilates’s House”), where we will switch to a local guide. Any time I hear “a short 10 minute walk”, I know this means a “20 minute race along ridiculously narrow cobblestone ‘sidewalks’ {if you can call them that}”, and I was not disappointed. William, a pretty tall guy, loped off at his normal walking speed and left me in the dust. He did stop every once in a while to let me catch up, but not to rest – he would immediately take off again.

As we’re walking through the streets, we hear very loud chanting and singing by the fans of their respective teams.

Juan was there at the Pilate House – it is an Andalusian palace, the current residence of the Duke of Medinaceli. Most of the house is open to the public.

The palace is a mixture of styles.

The reason the palace is called the Pilate House is because of the Pilate Chapel. Apparently this chapel is the same distance to Seville’s cathedral as the site of Christ’s crucifixion was to Pontius Pilates’ palace in Jerusalem:

There was an interesting painting of a bearded woman breastfeeding a baby – an ancestor of the current duke had a wife, who suddenly grew a beard after the birth of their second son.

Next was another quick “10 minute walk” to the cathedral. This time, not only was there massive chanting and singing, firecrackers and other fireworks were blasting all over the place.

Juan said it was the largest Catholic cathedral in the world. Queue protests from the group – St Peter’s in Rome is a basilica, not a cathedral, etc.

Whatever, no doubt about it, it is huge, with the usual assortment of spectacular windows and famous people buried there.

The most famous person is Christopher Columbus.

Particularly amazing is the path that Columbus’ remains took to be where they are today. He has been buried on multiple continents, and moved many times. Basically all that is left of him are some bones. But, it was confirmed by DNA analysis that those bones do belong to Christopher Columbus, because his son, Frederick, is buried near by. Both Christopher and his son were tested, and indeed the identities of both have been confirmed.

After the cathedral, we walked through the “Jewish Quarter”, though there are no Jews living there today. The only evidence we found of any kind of Jewish anything was this wall plaque:

And most importantly, we found the Barber of Seville:

At the end of the walking tour, we handed in our headsets to Juan and boarded the bus to go to lunch at a nearby restaurant.

During lunch we had a great conversation with our table mates, who were from Australia.

After lunch, we walked just a few blocks to the Plaza de España and spent 30 minutes there, wandering around the spectacularly designed park:

Each of Spanish provinces had their own beautiful benches. Andy attempted to get a photo of the bench for each of the Spanish province we had visited or were going to visit. Once again, the soccer fans got in the way:

Now it was time to head back to the bus and head back to the ship. On the way back we had another rest stop break – this time at a gas station, and thank goodness a lot nicer than the morning’s rest stop.

Another successful day!

Tomorrow – Lisbon! We get to check the box for a new-to-us country!

This was our second attempt at a non-ship tour. But, this time it went very smoothly. A driver, Monica, was waiting for us at the end of the gangway. To our surprise, there were several other people from the ship on the same tour.

It was still not clear exactly what was itinerary for the day, and Monica knew only a few words of English. So all we could do was get in the van and see what happens.

What happened was we had a 2 hour drive directly to a visitor center outside the Alhambra. Our confusion continued until we were all registered with a bigger group, given our “whisper” devices, and our tour guide, Marco, showed up.

As we set off on the tour, it became immediately apparent today was going to be a challenge – the walk to the entrance was up a huge hill.

To give you an idea of the tour, here is a high level map of the Alhambra. I think it would have helped to have something like this with us as we went through.

Granada (which apparently means “pomegranate”) was the capital of Moorish Spain for hundreds of years. The Alhambra was the central building of state – the sultan and his government lived and governed from there; his family (all the wives and children) lived there as well.

At some point I asked Marco if the word “Alhambra” in Spanish was a masculine or feminine word – I was courious as to whether it was “El ALhambra” or “La “Alhambra”. Apparently it is “La Alhambra” – “Alhambra” is an Arabic word meaning “Red woman”. No clue as to why the seat of government would be called “red woman”.

Because of the prohibition of depicting human image, all the wall decorations are intricate geometric designs and/or verses from the Koran. Only a few walls and ceilings still retain some of the original color.

Here are a couple of examples of the intricate, geometric designs:

Marco was an entertaining tour guide, for sure. He kept up a constant patter of words, a never ending flow – I found myself getting lost in the river of thoughts, and not a whole lot was sticking. For example, if you notice on the map above there is a section labeled “Medina”. I do remember Marco mentioning “Medina”, but of all the many photos we took, I couldn’t tell you which one(s) were of the Medina. It all kind of blended together.

I think this ceiling was from the “throne room” – it shows intricate woodworking, depicting the 7 levels of heaven. The tiny copula at the top and center is “7th heaven”.

The best preserved rooms were in the Sultana’s palace. The “Sultana” was the wife who was the mother of the “throne heir” (as Marco called it), which to me meant the “Crown Prince”. Typically the eldest son was the throne heir, but if he had lots of brothers he had to watch his back. They were all scheming to kill him to become the throne heir. The Sultan himself also had to watch his back, as his sons were also scheming to kill him to become the Sultan. Just another episode of Game of Thrones.

Here is an example of the sultana’s quarters.

After traipsing through room after room all exquisitely decorated, we finally emerged outside. We had a brief bathroom break, and then on to the fort, the Alcazaba.

The Alcazaba had a ton of stairs up to this beautiful view:

Next we walked back across the entire Alhambra to the Generalife (“hen-er-ah-LEE-fey”), a tremendous series of gardens:

It was now 1:30 and the tour was over. The question was – what to do about lunch? Monica was waiting for us back at the van. We tossed around a bunch of alternatives, changing our collective minds about 5 times. We ended up with some of us grabbing snack at the visitor center {I was so proud of myself for using several words in Spanish, though I would’t call what I produced a coherent sentence}, going back to the ship and then grabbing something from the buffet there.

On the drive back watching the scenery go by, I noticed how groves of olive trees stretched for miles and miles and miles of the countryside.

What an exhausting day! But well worth it.

As a random ending/side note, a conversation with the cruise director later that evening revealed that the ship had tried to set up tours for the Alhambra and the Sagrada Familia and had been totally unable to secure a vendor. That makes no sense to any of us, but what do we know.

Tomorrow: Sevilla!

I knew I was forgetting something about yesterday’s departure. The issue is that I really need to be sitting near the front of the bus, so I can get off the bus before the entire tour group has taken off for the hills. That and the steps in the front are easier to navigate.

Yesterday’s instructions, as we waited for our group to be called, included go-to-the-left-get-your-stickers-then-go-to-the-right-and-walk-to-the-gangway. So I decided to get a head’s start – I gave my ticket to Andy and started walking.

Then I saw that they had moved the sticker line to the other side, and the staff was issuing stickers and sending people on their way immediately. The guy handing out stickers, Joao, told me to get my husband’s ticket and come back (even though I told him we were five). Went back, got Andy’s ticket, went back to Joao, who finally realized that I really really meant five people, so then I had to go back and get everybody….by this time, we had saved nothing, but had provided some entertainment to everybody watching go back and forth.

BUT – Joao told me from now on, I come to him 5 minutes before our official wait time and he will give us all our stickers and we can proceed to the bus.

SO.

That’s what we did this morning. Worked like a charm! Stick with the lady with the walking stick!

Today’s guide was Pedro. Our tour would take us to Murcia first, about 40 minutes away.

Our first stop was at a monastery at the top of a huge hill. I personally didn’t find it all that exciting, but they did have a nice bathroom there (the most important part). Here is the view from the monastery:

Pedro explained that twice a year there is a procession on festival days to carry a statue of the Virgin Mary from the cathedral to the monastery and vice versa.

Back on the bus, we went to the central town square. We walked around the outside of the cathedral as he explained this particular feature – a chapel that had been added onto the cathedral by a town noble. The special feature was the stone chain around the outside of the chapel to symbolize that it was still a part of the cathedral:

Apparently, the noble didn’t want the artist to ever reproduce this feat again, so the noble had the artist’s hands chopped off. This was the 14th century Spain – welcome the dark ages and/or Game of Thrones.

Inside the cathedral we saw the statue of the Virgin Mary that is schlepped up and down the huge hill to and from the monastery:

We were scheduled to visit the “casino” (actually a very old “gentlemen’s club”), but there was a bit of a traffic jam. Instead, Pedro took us on a walk through the narrow streets of the old part of Murcia.

Pedro told us the story of this theater:

In the early 1800’s, a monastery was torn down to build the theater. The priest said, ok, but be warned that the theater will burn 3 times when it is full. Ten years later, the theater, full of people, burns down. It is rebuilt. Twenty years later, once again, the theater, full of people, burns down. It is rebuilt. They are still waiting for the third time. However, to ward off the third fire, the very last ticket is never sold, so that the theater is never “full”.

We make our way back to the “casino”. Each room has a different style:

This one is based on the Alambra

Women generally weren’t allowed, but when they were, they stayed in their one and only room. The ceiling depicted beautiful ladies doing appropriate lady things. And then this is what happens when you don’t follow the rules:

After the casino we had a lunch break, and then we went back to the bus to head back to Cartagena.

Cartagena is a small city with not much to see. We took an elevator up to a high vantage point. We were able to see a Roman amphitheater and nice views of the city. Ok, Andy and the rest of our crew were able to see the nice views of the city, but I sat on a bench and listened to the birds chirping, because the walk to the nice view include a bunch of steps and a not-insignificant hill:

Me, I watched this seagull on top of a 1,000 year old lighthouse:

That was the end of our tour – we were back at the bus in just a couple of minutes right at 4:00 p.m.

Another good day!

Tomorrow: Granada and the Alhambra! Woohoo!

This port of call was the first one that I had never been to before and didn’t know wat to expect.

Apparently Marjorca is a rich person’s paradise, with a significant number of British and German nationals living there. The harbor was filled with yachts. Apparently everybody who lives there either is extremely wealthy, or you work for the extremely wealthy, or you work for the tourist industry.

Our tour guide was Ana – the rare time when I could look the tour guide in the eye! When the bus pulled up and let us off, she told the group she was changing the route we were taking to the main attraction (the cathedral, of course) to avoid the many, many steps.

Here is the far side of the cathedral:

We could see the walls of the older part of town protecting the castles of old.

One of the palaces was the official residence of King Felipe of Spain, though apparently he doesn’t actually stay there. He has another residence he prefers. But foreign heads of state do stay there when they visit.

We walked through the gardens surrounding the palaces and the cathedral:

The cathedral itself has no particular name – just the Cathedral of Palma de Majorca. Antoni Gaudí helped with some of the interior designs, including some of the stained glass windows. Here you can see the Rose window at a distance and more close up:

After the cathedral, we were scheduled for the usual “go to this store to buy something, because the ship (and probably the tour guide) gets a kick back” at a Majorcan pearl store.

Of course, there always has to be a bathroom story du jour. It had been almost 3 hours since the last break at this point. The pearls were going to wait. There was a Starbucks next door to the pearl store, so that seemed fair game. Except the women’s bathroom was out of order. Andy’s excellent idea was to ask if I could use the men’s room – which turned out to be no problem at all (it is a one person bathroom, anyway), except that it was up a flight of stairs, and the guys who were waiting for me to come out seemed a little confused.

We rejoined the group in the pearl store; seemed like we missed nothing, not even a talk or a demo. But we did learn that “Majorcan pearl” refers to a brand of manufactured pearl-like gems, made from crystals using a special method. Majorcan pearls are made only in Majorca – they may not be “real” pearls (as in, made by an oyster), but they are beautiful (and come in fantastic colors!) and special in their own right.

The tour was basically over at that point. We were in the lovely town square, with a 1,000 year old olive tree in the middle.

We could walk back to the bus and go back to the ship, or we could stick around, have lunch, and take the ship’s shuttle back. We were fairly confident we could find it again. Sorta.

We had a delightful lunch near the square, and then eventually found our way back to the ship’s shuttle.

According to our tour guide, Majorca has even more money than Cannes. And everybody is very nice, Palma is beautiful, and the restuarants serve you food whenever you show up. Cannes – take notes!

Tomorrow: Cartagena!

For me, Barcelona and its Basilica de la Sagrada Familia was the first super anticipated stops of this cruise. We were last in Barcelona in 2011? 2010? When we saw the Sagrada Familia for the first time – the inside barely roughed in and the outside only 76% complete. Even still, it was the most stunning building I’ve ever seen.

So looking forward to this!

But first we had to get off the ship. We have all noticed that the senior crew (officers?) on this ship are particularly non-communicative and sometimes downright rude. Typically the cruise ship captain is on the air every morning, ridiculously cheerfully announcing the day’s port, the weather, and if you’re leaving the ship today, please remember <all sorts of really important details like where and how to get off the ship>.

Pretty sure we haven’t a word from this ship’s captain yet, and we’ve been on it since Saturday. Nor were specific disembarkation provided in the daily newsletter. It’s been a bit frustrating.

Susie had booked us a private tour that included Park Guell and the Sagrada Familia. To add to the confusion of the day, a conversation with the tour company insisted that we were now in a group tour (which we never agreed to) and that we had to be ready to be picked up at 9:00 a.m. Even though the ship docks at 9:00 a.m. and we have no idea when we were going to be allowed off the ship. The tour company guy told Susie to “tell them to get in earlier” (!?!). Yes, we’ll do that. Tell the captain we need the ship to show up earlier.

With our “private tour” voucher in hand, we went down to deck 4 to be told that we needed to be on deck 7. Susie commented that we never hear from the captain to an official like person, and he said, “Well, what would you like him to say?”

“Well, maybe good morning and welcome to Barcelona.”

To which he replied in an obviously sarcastic voice, “Good morning and welcome to Barcelona.”

Not sure we’ll be sailing on the Norwegian Spirit again any time soon.

We get down to the bottom of the gangway, and Marta is waiting for us. As we climb into the van, I tell her (like I tell all the tour guides) that I walk pretty slowly, so please don’t leave me in the dust. She assured me it would not be a problem.

It was a problem.

When we arrived at Park Guell (an Anton Gaudí creation), there were 7 other people waiting, for a total of 12. We were “late” (we were not), because the ship had arrived late (it arrived on time).

As soon as we entered the park, the other group bugged Marta to get going, and no surprise, I was left in the dust. Apparently Marta had told the people around her that they would stop at right after the entrance, but Andy and I were not any of the people around her, so we lost them almost immediately in the crowds. Marta carried no flag and with dark hair and dark clothes, just blended in.

Fifteen confusing minutes later, we were reunited with the group, with some nasty exchanges between us and one particular person in the other group. Sorry lady, but I just can’t walk any faster than I do, and no it’s not my fault the tour company screwed up, so too bad you’re stuck with me and it wouldn’t kill you to be considerate of someone who isn’t a perfect like you. {Note: these were inside words, not outside words 😀 }

This is exactly why we booked the private tour.

Fortunately, after that kerfuffle, everything chilled out, Marta figured out that she really needed to make sure I wasn’t left behind (as in talking to *me* about where they were going next, so I could follow along if they went ahead).

And Park Guell’s charms helped as well.

This fanciful house:

The world’s most comfortable bench (and supposedly the longest):

And of course the salamander:

Did a great job of smoothing over ruffled feathers.

And finally at last, to the Sagrada Familia.

If you’ve never seen it in person, photos don’t really do it justice. Here’s a photo of the “happy” side (the birth of Christ):

Marta did a great job of describing Gaudí’s designs on the happy side. We then went into the museum to look at Gaudí’s artifacts and the geometry he used to design and redesign and redesign the church.

This is a map of Gaudi’s design:

And then we went around to the “sad” side (the Passion):

And then at last, we entered the church. It is even more magnificent than the last time! Blue windows on the morning side, red windows on the afternoon side, the entire interior glowed:

We’ve decided we’ll all be back in 2027, the year after the basilica is planned to be finished, to see it in all its splendor.

So the next tour company mess up was discovered when Marta told us that the tour ended in the church. Of course, we had booked a tour to take us back to the ship. But, actually that was ok with us. We still had some time. We were planning on going to Las Ramblas for something to eat before we went back to the ship.

So we said our good-byes to Marta (and good riddance to the other group), and set out to find a taxi to take us to Las Ramblas.

Which was ridiculously easy, no surprise there. The cab driver dropped us off near “La Bouqueria”, a huge indoor market in the middle of Las Ramblas, with all sorts of restaurant choices. We picked the first one we could see.

Tapas! We had some cheese thing with a honey dip, chicken croquets, and cod croquets. Unbelievably good! Sitting outside in the glorious weather. Can’t beat it.

We’re back at the ship now. I figured I might as well knock out today’s blog before dinner. Who knows? Maybe I’ll stay awake long enough to see a show tonight…

Tomorrow: A Place I’ve Never Been To Before – Palma de Majorca

Today was going to be an easy, short day with a relatively late start. I tried to sleep in a bit more, but the sound of the ship dropping anker seemed to be directly under my head.

Cannes (pronounced “cahn”, in case you didn’t get my pun in the blog title) doesn’t have a port, only a harbor. The ship had to drop the anker in the middle of the harbor. The only way to get to shore is through a “tender”, a smaller shuttle boat.

The harbor was mysteriously empty of big fancy yachts today. How disappointing.

And apparently the film festival was happening today as well.

Andy was off to a do a walking tour of Cannes, while my sisters-in-law and I figure out how to get ashore and find a place to eat lunch.

Added to this was the issue of how we could watch the final episode of Game of Thrones before all the spoilers took over the world.

The answer – we were going to try to stream it on Andy’s phone (yes, a not-great interface) while sitting in a park or something in Cannes, so we could leverage our international data package.

You can see how much we cared about visiting Cannes. We had been there a few years ago on an earlier cruise, and were just not impressed in the slightest. At least today was a nice day. A good opportunity to take care of the GoT final episode.

Andy did take the walking tour, and here are some of his photos:

From an overview spot:

From the red carpet:

Susie, Janet, and I managed to get on shore just as he came back from the tour, so we found each other. Susie and Janet went off on a little trolley tour, and Andy and I set ourselves up on a park bench were his phone could find good reception.

Ok, this was a little crazy, but it worked like a charm. We had managed to see the last episode without any spoilers at all. And it was a beautiful day to sit on a park bench.

By the time we were done and found Susie and Janet, it was 2:00. The last boat back to the ship was at 4:00. We attempted to find a restaurant on the way back to the tender dock, but restaurant after restaurant said lunch was over at 2:00. We’ve never heard of this before. We wondered if it was just Cannes snobbery.

But there was one restaurant that was still serving lunch – an Italian restaurant. Oy. One day in France and we’re still eating Italian food!

Because we were running short on time, the server recommended items that could be brought out quickly. Andy and I both had a risotto with mushrooms – SO GOOD.

We were done by about 3:15; I started walking ahead, because I walk so much more slowly than everybody else.

Of course, there was a rush for the last couple of tenders for the day. We ended up on the very last one – that was delayed because a ship excursion bus was late.

A nice easy day, for a change.

Tomorrow: A Bientot to France and Buenos Días a España!

It was an early start (6:00 a.m.) to a long day – a nine hour excursion to Florence. But it didn’t start well – there was no water at all. When I called guest services the bad sign was that it took forever to get someone on the phone. The next bad sign was what the guest services person said, “Yes, we are aware and we are working on it.”

Very encouraging. And we had no idea what to do next.

Luckily the water came back at 6:20 – or that’s when we tried next. When I called guest services again, they said the water was indeed back, but to let it run for at least 5 minutes before using it.

The water was a little yellowish, and the hot water barely made it to “not cold”. No showers for us today!

Then I made a terrible miscalculation by going by the weather forecast in the daily ship newsletter – 60s and partly cloudy! I left my umbrella behind.

Things improved somewhat through breakfast and boarding the bus. Andy ran ahead to get seats in the front of the bus to make it easier to get off.

Our tour guide was Giulia. She was absolutely fantastic. She made the 90 minute drive to Florece fly by.

By then it had started to rain. Not only rain, but pour. Uh oh. And when it was time to get off the bus, the street peddlers were literally in our faces selling ponchos and umbrellas – so close to me, in fact, that I didn’t have enough room to make a soft landing on the ground from the high step wrenched my knee. That still didn’t stop them. I had to shout at them to get away.

It was a long walk from the bus to the Piazza Santa Croce, one of Florence’s main squares. By now it was really, really pouring, but we ducked into a gold shop for a “demo” of gold jewelry and leather work. And a clean (and free) bathroom, though the water pressure left something to be desired.

We continued our tour and stopped to look at the Duomo –

Back out into the rain, Giulia talked about Florence’s four quarters. We were now in the “political” quarter, with a fake “David” and an obviously not-Michelangelo statue of Zeus.

Giulia talked about the covered walkway that the wealthy people used to cross the river without getting wet.

At this point it was really pouring buckets, and I caved an bought yet another umbrella for 5 euros (probably worth 2, but oh well).

By now it was time to wander over to the Galleria dell’Accademia to stand in the line for our turn to see the David.

Giulia explained that the time, representations of David always had him holding a sword with one foot on Goliath’s severed head. That is one of many striking things about Michaelangelo’s David so extraordinary – this David is holding a sling shot. The position of his head, arms, and body show he is focusing on the shot he is about to take.

The rain had stopped by the time we exited the museum, and now it was time for a very long schlep back to the Piazza Santa Croce for lunch.

Giulia had been promoting this one particular restaurant and its lasagna all morning, so now we all had to try it. It was, in fact, amazing – from somebody who is not a pasta/tomato sauce kind of person.

After lunch we went into the Santa Croce church. Entombed there is Michaelangelo, Dante, and Galileo, with a monument to Rossini. This is Michaelangelo’s tomb:

Our day in Florence was over. Giulia arranged for a few of us to take a cab back to the bus, because we were a bit worn out.

Before getting on the road, we stopped for a panoramic view:

The very long day ended on a great note!

Tomorrow: Arrivederci, Italia! Bonjour Cannes!

The Big Day had finally arrived – we’re going on a cruise!

But first we had to check out of the hotel and meet up with the driver who would take us to the port. I had arranged for a transfer that included a 3 hour whirlwind tour of Rome before getting on the road to the ship. As far as I could tell, there was no definitive description of what that meant.

The shuttle company had confirmed the time the day before – 9:00 a.m., so we were good to go.

But first we had to check out of the hotel, which proved a bit more difficult than expected. Andy took the suitcases down to the street to wait for the driver, while I took all the keys to the second floor where we had checked in a couple of days ago.

Except the door was locked and no one responded to the buzzer or my knocking. Not sure what to do, I kept buzzing and knocking until someone opened the door – turned out to be people staying at the hotel on that floor.

Ok so, now I was inside, but no sight of anybody to give the key to. Just as I was ready to leave the keys on the desk with a note, Dianna showed up and I was able to hand everything to her.

Now I was able to join Andy at curbside – it’s now a little after 9:00 a.m. and no driver. Finally a small van shows up across the street. The driver introduces himself as Ahmed. He opens the sliding door to reveal two bench seats – one facing forward and one facing backward. Kind of an awkward configuration for a tour, maybe? And the step into the van was very high. I ended up in the front passenger seat – as hard as it was to get into that seat, it was easier than getting into the back.

Finally we are on our way and we pick up The Crew – Susie, Janet, and Susie’s friend and only non-Sheldon, Tom (poor guy).

So Ahmed asks me – “Where are we going?” Besides the thought of “I figured there was some kind of standard itinerary” that passed through my mind, it was obvious that no one in the back seat could hear him. Along with the weird seat configuration, I guess I kind of expected a tour guide to be equipped to make sure everybody in the van could hear him.

Oh it was obvious that English was not Ahmed’s first language, which is ok, but it was far from fluent (hours later I found out that English is Ahmed’s 4th language, which is pretty impressive, but….)

Anyway, Susie wanted to see the Trevi Fountain first, so off we went.

And then it started to rain. But that didn’t stop us, course. And nothing stops the Trevi Fountain:

Next stop was the Spanish Steps. Ahmed parked at the top, which meant to really see everything we had to walk all the way down and then all the way back up. I stayed up on top, sitting under an overhang on my portable seat with my umbrella in the pouring rain.

Tom came up before the others and he came to keep me company. We both noticed a man walking back and forth in the rain, with seemingly no place to be. Out of nowhere, he started talking to me – in Italian – so I had no idea what he was saying.

And suddenly he said: “Eh-lah-vey-tor! Eh-lah-vey-tor! Few steps! Go down!”, as he gesticulated towards the Metro stop that I just noticed.

So we went down one flight of steps (instead of a zillion steps), found the elevator and walked out to the street at the bottom of the Spanish Steps. Here’s our group photo proving we were all there:

Back in the van, Ahmed told me we were next headed to a panoramic viewing spot. And then I shouted this info to the back of the van. I was beginning to notice a pattern – Ahmed told me something and then I relayed the info to the back of the van. The system worked, but just a little odd.

Anyway, this was the view of Rome from the Villa de la Borgese:

We are looking down on Piazza Popolo and at the horizon is St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. This sums up Ahmed’s explanation.

Our next stop was the Coliseum. It was pouring again, so I stayed in the car, since we had taken the tour just the day before. This time, Andy was able to get this great shot of the exterior:

At this point Ahmed had stopped asking us where we wanted to go, and took us to Piazza Navono. Again, a spot that Andy and I had already visited up close just the day before, but he still managed to find something we hadn’t seen before – this weird fountain:

Starting to run out of time, we did a “drive by” of the Vatican, though it was more of a “crawl by” with all the traffic. Literally, Ahmed pointed out that this side of the street was Italy and that over there was the Vatican, its own sovereign nation. But there was a purpose to going this particular route – Ahmed brought us to a fabulous gelato place for our last Roman gelato.

Arrivaderci Roma!

Though we still had an hour drive to the port, whereupon Ahmed told me his life story in his not great English, which he realized was not great, hoped he was getting better, but it was his fourth language after his native language from Bangladesh, Hindi, and Italian. He pointed out the restaurant where he had his first job in Italy as a dishwasher, and worked his way up, took language classes, until finally he was able to get his driver’s license. And now he drives.

Really give the guy tons of credit, but he’s got a ways to go before he’s a real tour guide (as opposed to just a driver).

But he tried really hard to please us, and that’s really what counted in the end.

He dropped us off at the ship, and back he went to Rome.

And now the real adventure begins!

The check in was eerily empty. Literally hardly anybody else there but us. Perhaps because it was after 2:00 p.m.? We sent our carry on bags through the security scan – my big metal hair clip confused the security guys for a few minutes until I pulled it out of my bag and showed them. This made them very happy.

Susie snagged The Last Map of the ship. Very odd, and annoying, because we had no idea where anything was.

We had an hour before our suitcases would be delivered to our staterooms, so we went to lunch at the buffet.

We then figure out the wifi situation after a visit with the IT guy.

When we got to our room, my suitcase had showed up. The room itself is fine – just like pretty much any other cruise ship stateroom.

After dinner, we came back to the room to find our fist towel animal:

Tomorrow: our first real day of cruising – The Sheldons In Florence

Game of thrones dilemma

When we checked into the hotel yesterday, we were given instructions on how to order breakfast. The ordering process appeared to be stating what time we wanted it delivered to our door. The breakfast itself would be an “Italian Breakfast”, with no definition of what that actually might mean (as opposed to a “continental breakfast”).

Turns out it means: A LOT OF FOOD.

Pastries, rolls, Nutella, a bunch of other spreads, cheese, fruit, yogurt, biscuits, and stuff I’m forgetting. Literally could not finish it all.

And then we were off on our first adventure of the day – a Segway tour! It’s become sort of a tradition when we travel – if the city we’re visiting has Segway tours, we do it. This tour was very short- only an hour. Which is about as long as I can stand it. It was perfect.

We were the only two people in the group, so we had a private tour. We could stop any time we wanted to. Our guide, Sergio, was very understanding of my total inability to stop and get off a Segway. This is a known problem. I finally figured out why last summer when we were in Berlin. It’s because, duh, I’m a child sized adult. As in, I’m short. Stepping off a Segway without killing yourself and/or destroying the Segway requires long enough legs and arms to be able to step off while holding onto the handles. My little T-Rex arms just don’t do the the trick. The guide has to hold the thing still so I can step off.

Anyway, besides that challenge, riding a Segway in Rome – on narrow, non-stop cobble stone streets is really hard. It’s harder to steer, turn, stop, everything, plus the constant pounding of the stones. Good thing it was only for an hour.

We stopped at Piazza Navona:

We saw stumbling stones – mini-Holocaust reminders of people who were deported from Rome and sent to their deaths:

Our second stop was the Pantheon. Here’s a panoramic shot of the inside:

After the Segway tour, we headed to the Jewish quarter to visit the Jewish museum inside the Great Synagogue of Rome. This was the entrance gate to the Jewish quarter:

The museum consists of 6 rooms describing Jewish life in Italy, which apparently goes back a couple of thousand years. Who knew?

Italian Jews are not Sephardi (Portuguese/Spanish), nor are they Ashkenazi (Eastern European). They are Italian, though their customs more closely resemble Sephardi than Ashkenazi.

On the same floor as the museum was a little Sephardi synagogue:

We waited for the 1:15 tour to be able to go up to the main sanctuary:

It was lunch time by then – we went to a kosher restaurant down the street from the Great Synagogue. I had a kosher seafood risotto (seafood = salmon) and Andy had ravioli with grouper and zucchini.

After lunch we decided to walk over to the Colloseum – in theory only a mile away, but between the segway tour and all the walking on cobblestones, it took over an hour to get there. Andy was able to buy a “Gladiator” tour for 5:30.

I was able to take a bathroom break before the final stretch to the Coliseum. There’s always at least one bathroom story on every trip. And here is the first one:

This was the first bathroom I had to pay for. I’d lucked out until now. But it was worth the money, because the bathroom guy washed the floor between each person! Oh boy!

A bunch of us stood in line for 2 single bathrooms. One marked Men, the other Women, though they were identical as far as I could see. Naturally, more women than men in the line.

A young guy comes up and breaks in the line – the bathroom guy just let him take the next turn when the men’s bathroom was empty. OMG. All I know is if this happened in NY, there’d be blood on the floor.

And when it was my turn, I discovered that my 1 euro got me a toilet with no seat on it. This not uncommon in Europe, and boy is it ever annoying.

BUT – The Colosseum is amazing. I think it’s my favorite Rome thing. In this photo we were standing at the arena level.

The tour lasted a little over an hour. The tour guide extolled all the things the Romans had invented, NOT THE GREEKS. Of course.

It was time to head back to the hotel and figure out what we were doing for dinner. Andy’s sisters, Susie and Janet had arrived in the morning and had spent the day roaming around Rome on the hop-on-hop-off bus. I leave it to them to tell their own adventure stories.

Now our crew is complete – Andy, me, Janet, Susie and her friend, Tom. We had dinner together to kick off our cruise that starts tomorrow.

It’s been a very, very long day.

LOOK OUT EUROPE: THE SHELDONS ARE COMING

Tomorrow: our 3 hour tour of Rome and then we board our ship.

It’s hard to differentiate between Day 0 and Day 1, because Day 0 actually never seems to end. We get in the car at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday and show up at a hotel in Rome some extended period of non-sleeping time later.

The flight was easy; there just was no sleep to be had. I did watch the two “Ant Man” movies, which filled in a couple of gaps for “Avengers Endgame”.

I had fully anticipated having to stand in some atrocious 90 minute line to get through passport control once we landed at the Rome airport. Visions of last year’s experience in Prague kept popping up. Amazingly enough, passport control was automated for a bunch of countries, including the US. Super easy, super fast.

And our luggage didn’t take long to surface.

We walked off the plant at 10:50 a.m., and we were in the arranged-for pick up car at 11:30. I don’t recall ever exiting any airport that quickly, ever.

The driver drops us off in front of a nondescript door labeled “Caesar House”. We were looking for “Colosseo In”. The driver told us (several times) that the hotel was “inside”. So we went inside. The entrance looked like this:

Major lock system on this door. Serious security.

At the end of the hall and up 3 steps, we did see a door with a guy sitting at a desk. He told us to go up to the 2nd floor.

Cute little retro-fitted elevator.

The second floor had two doors. We announced ourselves at the “Caesar House” door and we were buzzed in. Apparently we were in the right place – it just didn’t look like it.

And of course we were way too early. We stashed the big bags and made our way back down the gauntlet, toddled down the street to a recommended restauran and had lunch. We ended up having a great conversation with an American woman sitting at the next table.

By 2:30 we were both beyond tired. The hotel staff (seemingly consisting two people), took pity upon us and checked us into our room. We were escorted up to the 5th floor – which we eventually figured out was the entirety of the Colosseo In.

The room is beautiful, as is the rest of the floor. There is a terrace with tables and chair s (and ash trays), where we could sit and enjoy the view. This is a hint:

Tomorrow I’m going to try to take a panoramic shot, because there was more landmarks off to the right.

After listening to all the instructions for all the layers of security (key to the street entrance), keypad code to get into the 5th floor, card keys for the room) and how to put our order in for breakfast (basically what time did we want it to show up), we passed out for a couple of hours.

It was the usual struggle to get up and get moving, but we knew we had to. I took a shower and noticed I had managed to leave behind something from my bathroom bag. Fortunately there was a little grocery store (?) a couple of blocks away and I was able to replace it and also we bought some fruit.

And then to dinner. The first restaurant we tried required reservations (I think we knew that, but jet-lagged addled brains didn’t remember). We ended up at some random place; the waiter did a great sales job – I ordered the turbot that he recommended that was just fantastic. And also a bit more expensive than the sea bass I had originally wanted to order.

And of course, everything was accompanied by the typical eau-du-cigarette-smoke. There were two guys at the next table who were virtually chain smoking the entire time. Yum.

Of course, the “if in Italy, then gelato” rule was in effect. A perfect ending to the day: dark chocolate gelato.

One thing I love about Rome is how random old things pop out of nowhere. While waiting for Andy to scout out the restaurant situation for dinner, I looked up and saw this at the end of the street:

No idea what that is, but it’s obviously old.

Tomorrow the adventure continues. We have a one hour Segway tour – don’t remember what we’re seeing considering it’s only an hour, but it’ll be interesting. After that the current plan is to visit the Jewish Museum inside the Great Synagogue of Rome. Hopefully that plan will hold.

Until tomorrow!