Day 5 - Katakolon, Greece

The fifth day of our trip we visited the port of Katakolon, Greece and Ancient Olympia.This was a house out in the country side between the port and Olympia. Being the wife of a builder I was interested in how they built their houses. Nothing was built from wood. They were all cement houses with stucko everywhere we went. I guess we won't be moving to Greece anytime soon.

We visited the site of the Ancient Olympic. Olympia was a place where people gathered for sporting events and religious worship. It was used from the 10th century BC to 426 AD.

There were ruins or temples and gymnasiums where the participants of events could practice and condition.

This is the ruins of a bath house.

This is where the olympic torch is lit and starts it trip around the world every Olympic year.

Here are the ruins of a temple to Zeus' mother.
This was the coolest part of Olympia the Stadium. The word Stadium is actually a term of measurement. It was so many steps o Hercules. This is the spot where the ancient olympics took place.
We thought that since we were here we should tryout for the olympics. As you can guess we weren't even close. Though I almost got Nicolle to run the whole length of the stadium to get a good picture.

After our visit to Olympia we went to a Best Western Hotel where we had some Greek snacks. I don't know if you can tell in this picture but one of the snacks was octopus tentacles. I had told myself before the trip that I was going to do things out of my comfort zone and try new things. octopus was a little to far for me though.

Julie on the other hand had no problem trying it. I think "It is rubbery" was her response. EW!
While we were enjoying our snack we were entertained by some Zorba dancers. They did some really cool things.
We all joined in with the dancers. I like to dance and I can two step and waltz but I was not so successful at Zorba dancing. I just can't wiggle my hips. We had a great time and burned off some of the thousands of calories we had been consuming on the ship. This was a fun and cultural experience.

After all that fun we headed back to the ship and did our laundry (Oh what fun!).

More Pics to come.

Day 4 - Corfu, Greece

Our next stop was Corfu which is a beautiful island on the west side of Greece.Corfu was a beautiful place. It had a lot of flowers and hills covered with green trees.
There are about 70,000 olive tress on Corfu and is the main source of income on the island.

Here is a picture of the old fort that was the townI(can't remember the name) and then the more modern city built around it.

We rode on a bus around the island and the roads were so skinny. They looked like one way street and they were very curvy. We had to have very good bus drivers. I thought they were one way until cars started passing us coming the other direction. It got really tricky when there were cars parked on one or both sides of the street also.
The first place we visited was a palace built by Elizabeth, Empress of Austia. It was called the Achillon Palace because of the statue of Achilles that was in the court yard. The palace was full of carvings and statues from greek mythology. The above picture was a court yard that had statues of the 12 muses.
Elizabeth, Empress of Austria

The Statue of the dying Achilles that the palace was named for. Hopefully you all know this story.
After the Empress died a king of Germany bought the palace and he put this statue of Achilles on the palace grounds. Originally his helmet was gold plated so the king could see it shining in the sun and he aproached Corfu from the sea.
The view of Corfu from the palace.
This is a picture of a little island called mouse island. It has a little church on it that is really popular to get married in.

The next place we went was a private villa to have lunch. This is a picture on the villa.
A funny thing happened while we were arriving at the villa and hopefully Nicolle won't care if I tell the story. As we walked in there was a table with drinks sitting on it. One was a orangy color and the other was clear. Nicolle crabbed the clear one thinking it was water and took a gulp of it. She started spitting it out in the bushes. I started laughing. of course it was not water but Ozo a alcholic drink from Greece. Leave it up to Nicolle for comic relief.
This is the beautiful place we got to enjoy lunch in.
This is what we ate. It was about 20 different greek specialties. I tried a little of everything even the fried squid. I did it so Rodney would be proud of me.

This was out hostess. She was very nice.
This is a picture of olives on the tree. They are about 1 month away from being ripe.

Our day in Corfu was wonderful. It was a beautiful place that I would love to go back to and spend more time.

More pics to come.

Day 3 - Dubrovnik, Croatia

This picture is a little out of order but I can't figure out how to fix it without redoing my entire post. Anyway this was one of my favorite places we found while exploring Dubrovnik. I saw a sign and wondered what is was for, of course it was not in English (very frustrating). I found this little jewlery shop that was in a garden it was so pretty. I have never shopped in such a cool atmosphere. Notice the no picture sign? Just for the record Nicolle took this picture.

Dubrovnik was a beautiful port town in Croatia. We went to a place called Old Town which was a fortified city built in the 13th century to protect the people from invasions from the sea. Here is a picture of the wall surounding the city. It is 20 feet thick is some places.

Here is a view looking up from the waters edge.

You might think that this place was just for tourists but most of the old buildings looked like they were apartment building. We took a turn off the beaten path and climbed and climbed stairs and we saw apartments where people were living in the old city.

This is a view looking down one of the little streets or sidewalks. I call them street because one we saw had boards over the stairs so they could drive a little tractor down it.
This old town had some beautiful buildings.
This is a view of the town outside the fort. Cement and stucko buildings with red tile roofs everywhere.

We were looking for a restaurant that I had read about on the internet that had cliff divers. When we asked for directions we were directed here. We went through a door in the fort wall and came out to this. It was these steep steps going down the cliff and it was a little cafe that served drinks just hangin there on the cliff. It was so neat.

This is a view looking up at the cafe.
This is a view of the ocean from the cafe. It was a beautiful sunny day. We didn't have very many of those on this trip.
We climbed all the way down the step and made it to the water edge. 3 days of the trip and this was the first chance we got to touch the Mediterranean sea. We took off our shoes and enjoyed the moment. It was a great day.

Day at Sea- Day 2

The second day of our trip was spent at sea. We woke up at 7:00 am to see the Stromboli Volcano. This is an active Volcano. You can see smoke coming out of the top.

We were surprised to see a village at the bottom of the Island. This picture shows one of two villages on the Stromboli Island. About 50 people live in this village. There aren't any roads that cross the volcano so the only was to get from on village to the other is by boat.

What do you think people do for a living that live on an active volcano?

As we were passing through the Straights on Messina which is the water between Italy and Sicily we looked over the railing and saw this boat zooming along the side of our ship. They were the coast guard for Italy and someone from there boat had got on our ship for something. After a minute he stepped off the ship onto their little boat without a life jacket and then they sped away.

When we leaned over to take a picture of the boat this nice Italian man waved to us.
We went to a cooking demonstation and tried to learn how to make some fancy pasta dishes. I am a more hands on learner so no I won't me makeing anybody any pasta.

It was a formal night in the dining room so this is us all decked out in our fancy dresses. The sea was really ruff this night and as we were walking to dinner in our heels we were having a hard time walking down the hall straight. I started getting really seasick and did not really enjoy the formal dinning experience. The raw beef thing I ordered for my appetizer might have had a little to do with it also.
These pictures were mostly taken for Rodney, which if you know him you know he is a total food person. He would have appreciated this dinner more than I did.
A beautiful sunset from the deck of the ship. A great way to end a relaxing day at sea. (I am not sure this sunset pictures was taken this actual day but every night at sea the sunset was beautiful)

Greek Isle Cruise- Day 1 Flying to Rome and boarding the ship

After being home for two weeks I am finally caught up enough to get some pictures posted.Nicolle and Julie enjoying a Cinabon while waiting to get on the plane in Salt Lake City. This was the begining of a 14 hours trip to Rome Italy.

Nicolle was able to sleep on the plane after taking a sleeping pill. I didn't take one and this picture is the evidence that I was not able to sleep on the plane. I read 3/4 of Twlight instead.

When we arrived in Italy we had to get in line to show our passports. There were a million people it looks like a herd of cattle and we were all merging into a line with one person looking at passports. We stood in line for a little over and hour. Still the first day of vacation so we are still smiling despite the situation.

Our home for the nest 10 days the MSNoordam.
Me on the back deck of the ship overlooking our departing port Civitavecchia, Italy

The first thing you do once everyone is on the ship is have an emergency drill. Don't we look great in our lifevests.

We found the shuffle board games as we were exploring the ship. We didn't actually play a game. We ment to latter in the trip but never found time.

We also found this chess board on the ship Julie and I played the first game was a draw. We basically took every piece from each other except the king and one other. We started over and I won. All that practice with Jack paid off.

We took a tour of the kitchen and meet the head chiefs.
The kitchen staff was amazing. This guy was making flowers out of vegetables. The food was really good on the ship. I did though find some things I couln't eat. Anyone that knows me well that will not surprise.

Dick Nourse the retired anchor man from KSL and his wife were with the group from Salt Lake that we were traveling with. They were very nice. If you are from Utah you will recongnize him.

More pictures to come.