In this, the eternal winter, which is finally starting to thaw (I think…I hope!), it is necessary for the soul to think about warmer, sunnier times. So I present to you some highlights of a time that was exceedingly sunny and exceedingly warm…our honeymoon in the Mediterranean, nearly two summers ago. I also realized I have never disclosed the pictures to the public, because they were on my dad’s camera mostly, so here we are!
Tom surprised me with the whole honeymoon. We went on a cruise that took us through the Mediterranean, stopping first in Venezia:
Weary but happy travelers
The green dome is Santa Lucia’s
St. Mark’s
A beautiful sunset gondola ride
Bridge of Sighs
Cruisin’
Our ship, the Holland America, with Tom for some perspective
The next day we sailed to Dubrovnik, on the gorgeous Croatian coast:
The water was absolutely amazing. We snorkeled at the beach and saw so much underwater life!
View from the boat
Ancient cloister in the city
Next up were three Greek islands, the first of which, Corfu, was the most well-preserved ancient little village:
Old fort in the background, and more beautiful water
Winding streets
Argostoli, mostly a beach town:
We pretty much hung out here all day…
And we saw these enormous sea turtles near the dock on our way in!
Last of the Greek islands was the famous Santorini:
Perched on the top of the caldera…shall we take donkeys or a cable car up??
Catania, Sicily:
Ancient amphitheater, still used today
Inside a beautiful, but sadly defunct church. That red rope was the line we couldn’t go past.
Just a few of the tasty sights at an open air fish market we stumbled upon…
Sea urchins!
We also hired a car to drive us up Mt. Aetna…said car had no AC and the very windy roads were a little ick, but beautiful views awaited!
Craters!
Then Naples, where we spent a half day in Pompeii, but were too tired and sweaty to tour Naples at all…
My intrepid explorer/Roman Empire expert
The next day, possibly our very favorite, was none other than Rome. Little did we imagine we’d be there just one year later!!
We found a marker for the exact center of St. Peter’s
And then as Tom stood on it, a very eager group of tourists saw it too, and began to swarm him
Enjoying a leisurely lunch on a side street somewhere
On the Bridge over the Tiber, with Castel St. Angelo in the background
Our next stop was the port “close” to Florence, meaning two hours away… so we opted for a closer day trip to Pisa, which neither of us had visited.
Thar she be- you’re welcome for not taking any obnoxiously posed pics
Killing time in a cafe. Tom takes stealthy photos of me in a heap of exhaustion (heat, early pregnancy symptoms…)
And our final destination was a day in Barcelona. We had a great tour of the city and then spent a few hours wandering around before taking a quick flight to Madrid overnight, and heading back home the next morning.
Gothic cathedral in the city
A view of Barca from the top of Mt. Juic
Inside Sagrada Familia, Guadi’s masterpiece!!
Oh and of course, there was a bit of this while onboard the ship:
Fancy, delicious dinners
High tea on our little verandah looking over the ocean
And plenty of sunshine lying out on the many decks of the ship. It was such a lovely and easy way to travel to several countries at once and see so many beautiful sights, without having to pack and unpack more than once. We highly recommend cruising in that part of the world, though if you could ever do it in the fall or spring, you might have more energy to make it through the day trips without being scorched to death. But that heat sounds really, really great right about now…
PS- I chose the best pictures (in my opinion), but if you want to see them all, you can go to the photo site here.
For Want of Wonder 