Post Cards from...: if this had worked...

the issues were many and I finally gave up on the idea of the blog. the main thing was that I had it set up to send either e-mail from the i-pad, or pic messages from my phone which would post to the blog.

well the phone wasn't "smart" enough and the ship's e-mail server never could get reconciled with the i-pad and after the former NASA computer whiz couldn't get it working I gave up.

but if it had worked it may have been something like this:

Agosto 1 - 2, 2012
But I don't want to go to Detroit...
or Paris either for that matter, but that's where we went. About 1/2 way to the airport we gat an automated message that our flight from CLT to JFK has been delayed @ 2 hours. Since we only had an hour and 20 min lay-over that wasn't good news. As we pull into longterm parking another message. The flight is now 2 1/2 hours late. Long story short; we are "protected" on a flight from Charlotte to Detroit to Paris to Barcelona, and instead of arriving at 9:40am with a leisurely 7 hours to catch the boat via a prearranged transfer shuttle, we now are scheduled to arrive at 2:35pm which is 35 minutes after the shuttle service ends and leaves us 2 hours to get to the ship, if there are no further delays...which there were.
The plane from Paris to Barcelona was @ 40 minutes late, landing at 3:15. The ship was to sail at 5:00pm but embarkation was to end at 4:00. Luckily we had no checked bags, hussled off the plane, caught a taxi and got to the ship around 3:45.
I the short amount of time left before the ship sailed, we got our bags to the stateroom, found Mike and family, and broke my (brand new) glasses...

***************************************************************************

Agosto 3

Marseilles, Les Baux De Provence

Former captial of Provence now a quiet little mountain top village with @ 20 full itme residents and a lot of pictures of Grace Kelly since at some point this was part of the realm of the Prince of Monaco, and they made a movie in part here.

Pretty neat little place, and they drive cars on those roads!!

the village isn't that visible from below as it blends with the mountain so well, that was part of the defence

they actually drive cars on these streets

***********************************************************************

Agosto 4

Florence (Firenze)

Many places in Florence prohibited photographs and/or videos.

Piazza de Signoria

************

Santa Maria del Fiore (il Duomo)

Il Duomo

the bell tower

*****************************

Ponte Vecchio

**********************************

The Accademia:

pictures were not permitted inside Galleria dell' Accademia, but Mike and I made arrangements to meet David out back for a photo op : )

*****************************************************************

Agosto 5

Roma

Piazza San Pietro and Basilica San Pietro in Vaticano was a real highlight for Kathy. Beyond that I don't have the words.

in St. Peter's Square, the Basilica in the background.

the Pieta

***********************

Trevi Fountain

this just started out as a way to get some water into the city...

then they got all carried away. the water is coming from 24 km away.

you know the words...sing along

*******************************************************************

Arch of Constantine

Colosseo
the old ruins were very interesting...but frankly they weren't in great shape.

************************************************

Agosto 6

Naples, Vesuvius, Pompeii

the sun beginning to rise over Mt. Vesuvius as we arrive at the port of Naples

Me at the top of Mt. Vesuvius with 2 red-headed Kathys.

Pompeii was destroyed by Vesuvius in 79 a.d. the advancements they had made were incredible.

******************************************************************

Agosto 8

Dubrovnik, Croatia

We really had no idea what to expect here, and had trouble deciding what to do. We wound up just taking a cab to "The Old Town" and walking the city walls and the streets. What a pleasant surprize.

walking the city wall

a view of the "Old Town" from the wall.

this shot was from our table at lunch in Old Town. Croatia is the only place we visited that wasn't part of the EU. So they didn't take Euros (well, some places did but they weren't supposed to). Lunch cost about 80 Kuna, that's about 13 USD.

**********************************************************************

Agosto 9 - 10

Venice

When you consider that Venice is built on poles that were stuck into the muck about 700 years ago I don't know whether the fact that it is sinking is nearly as amazing as the fact that it hasn't sunk already.

Of course we rode a gondola in Venice. Our gondoleer lost his gondoleer hat at the first bridge we went under, wouldn't sing, and talked only sparingly (when he wasn't on his phone.) SHEESH!

lookin' for shade anywhere! Italia e molto caldo in agosto!!!

along the Canal Grande

in la Piazza San Marco (the Basilica in the backgrond)

*********************************************************

Agosto 12

Messina, Sicily

Remembering the fate of the Costa Concordia I will note that from the vantage point of the ship there is very little space between Sicily and the "toe of the boot"

the boxy little light house is on Sicily, the hills across the water are not.

The Greek Theater in Taormino with a view of the bay.

a rather poor shot of Mt Etna.

from Messina, which was the port where the boat docked to Taormina, which was the town we visited was @ 25 miles and we must have gone thru at least 30 tunnels to get there, in the photo below you can see spans of bridges that seem to disappear into the mountain-sides...tunnels.