Hello everyone! Well we are finally in December. Time is sure going by way too fast. I have been wanting to write this blog post for a while now, but time has gotten away on me. So here I am writing about our trip from way back from the end of September to the beginning of October. We have been trying to think about where we wanted to go on a cruise to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary this year probably since the beginning of this year. Matthew and I had been looking at a few different options for cruises for a couple of months. It was my in-laws that had pointed out how much I really wanted to go to Italy for such a long time now. That’s where it got us thinking about doing a Mediterranean cruise. We left from Vancouver on September 22 in the morning and arrived in Athens Greece the next day September 23 mid morning. It was great because once we had landed and picked up our luggage from baggage claim all we had to do was look for someone who was with Princess Cruises. We waited with other people who were also going on the cruise ship as well. Once they had enough of us who were going on the cruise, they took us outside to where there was different buses for all the cruise ships. It was a 30 minute bus ride to get to the cruise terminal. Once we got there we just had to hand over our baggage to a staff member and then head over to where the check in was. We had to wait for a little bit before we could check in because they had so many other people doing the same thing. It was nice once we got onto the ship and found our room. Our luggage was already there waiting for us which was nice. Let the vacation begin
Our First stop on our trip was Santorini, Greece. We were both excited to spend the day exploring Santorini. We didn’t book any excursions for this stop because my in-laws had told us that we wouldn’t have any problems navigating that place. They had been there years ago and said that they went for lunch and just walked around the island. So for us that day we got up early had a big breakfast and made sure we were all ready to go for our day in Santorini. We took a water shuttle to the island. Then once we made it to the island we stood in line for the cable car. Once we got up to the top of the island. It was everything that I thought it would be and more. We spent the morning walking around and doing some exploring. I was in complete awe walking around just taking every moment in that I could. All of the buildings were absolutely stunning. That’s one thing that I really love about Europe is the architecture. There’s so much rich history about all of the architecture and it’s all very different in each place that you explore in Europe. We saw a couple stray cats walking around. I so badly wanted to touch them and they made me miss my two cats at home. We also went for lunch at this restaurant called Parea Tavern. I highly recommend going there if you want to have traditional Greek food. We had order a bunch of different things to try because we were both excited to try real authentic greek food. I had the best calamari that I have ever had in my life and I’m not joking. It was so fresh and there wasn’t a lot of batter on it. We were both so full after that amazing meal. Then we headed back over to where the cable car line up was so that we could head back down the island. Overall we loved our day in Santorini. Here are a few of our pictures from our time in Santorini
Our next stop was Kotor, Montenegro. Now this place we both had no idea what we would be in for. We did a walking tour for this place and we had a great tour guide that was very knowledgeable. Our tour guide took us all around the different squares that they have. We even got to take a tour inside the Kotor Cathedral. There was so much history that they had on display to look at and also read. They have a spot in the square where you can go and see tons of cats walking around. I was also surprised to see lots of dogs walking around with their owners. Now unfortunately I wasn’t feeling 100% that day. I had started feeling like I had a sore throat the day before when we were in Santorini. So once our tour was finished I really couldn’t stay much longer. Even though we both absolutely loved our time in Montenegro. We both even said that we want to go back there some day and get to spend some more time there. Here are some pictures from our time in Kotor.
Our next stop was Sicily, Italy. It was our first stop in Italy. We did a guided tour up to Taormina. We took a bus from the cruise terminal with our tour guide. As we were siting on the bus our tour guide was telling us some of the history about Taormina. As we were on the bus we got to see where some of the places were where The God Father was filmed on our way to Taormina. The drive took us about an hour to get up there and back. Once we got to Taormina, we all got off of the bus in the underground parking lot and headed out to where the elevators and stairs cases were. Once we got up the top of Taormina we had a couple of minutes to look out at the view across the ocean. Then once our whole group was together, we started our walking tour. We started walking through the small town area where there was mostly shops and hotels. We walked into the main square area where they have two different churches. They were both absolutely beautiful on the outside. The names of these two churches are Duomo Di Taormina and Chiesa Di San Giuseppe. Also right in the middle of that part of the square was a beautiful fountain and it’s called the Fontana Di Piazza Duomo. Another great thing that we got the see was the Teatro Antico Di Taormina Amphitheater. We got to take a tour inside this incredible Amphitheater that they still use to this day for all kinds of different events. The view was absolutely spectacular. You can see the whole town of Taormina from the top of the amphitheater. Then once we finished our tour in the amphitheater then we had some free time to walk around the town. We had a cannoli to share and we even got our own gelato. We did go inside some of the shops to just look around but we ended up going back to where that beautiful fountain was. I really wanted to get a better look. Then we headed back slowly to our meeting spot to find our tour guide and waited for everyone else. So that we could head back down to the parking lot back onto the bus and headed back to the cruise terminal. Here are some of our pictures from Taormina.
Our next stop in Italy was Naples. We were both excited because for this stop was our food tasting tour. This was something that Matthew really wanted to do. So we met our tour guide once we got off of the ship. This tour was an other walking tour. We walked by the castle of Naples and it’s called Castel Nuovo. It also has another name that they call it more often the Maschio Angioino. Then we walked over to the public shopping area called the Galleria Umberto I. I was blown away by how gorgeous the shopping centre was. The ceilings were absolutely breath taking with all of the glass windows. Our next stop was our first stop for the food tasting. We went to this to this place called Cafe Teatro Di San Carlo. We got to try espresso coffee and sfogliatella. The sfogliatella is also called a lobster tail it’s a small pastry that is shaped like a shell and has a sweet custard filling in the middle. It was delicious. Now the espresso was very strong. You definitely don’t need a lot of it. One small cup of the espresso was good enough for me. Our next stop for our tasting tour was where we got to have Mozzarella cheese with tomatoes and Margherita pizza. Everything was so fresh and delicious. I couldn’t believe how big the pizza was. Everyone got their own pizza that was huge. Thin crust pizza and the pieces were also huge. One slice of pizza was the equivalent to having two slices of pizza back home. Our tour guide taught us how to eat the pizza like a local. Our last stop on our tasting tour was gelato at this place called the Gay Odin Maestri Del Cioccolato. The gelato was also absolutely amazing as well. That was our final stop on the tasting tour. We were able to walk around for a little bit as we were making our way back to the cruise ship. We managed to find a local place where we bought a bottle of white wine that was locally made there in Naples. Overall we had a wonderful day in Naples. Here are some of our pictures from that day.
Well that was only the first half of our trip. I figured that I would break this up into two different blog posts because there’s so much I want to share and I don’t want to do it all in one blog post. I hope that you enjoyed getting to read this. Stay tuned I will have the next part up soon.
~Crystal~
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