Euro2012 – Day Nine – Dubrovnik

 

Another early morning on the Breeze; we arrive at 7 am and leave at 4 pm…get in to town and get your stuff done!

Can not…CAN NOT…complain about the views as we’ve come in to port.

Again, we were probably in the first twenty to get off the boat.  Grab a taxi and head over to Old Town…

Should have clipped these people out of my Pano!

We are early; you can’t buy tickets to walk the walls until 8 am; we arrive at 7:30.  We hit the ATM to pick up Kuna (Croatia is not part of the EU) and then wander around Old Town a bit…

Cpher is doing ok.  Not great, but OK.  No breakfast this morning and he’s suffering a little bit with the walking and the heat (yeah, it’s hot.  Again!)

Looking up one of the alleys in Old Town…

The obligatory church shot.

Up on the walls now; the plan is to do about half of the walk before it gets too hot….

Dubrovnik Pano #2

Dubrovnik Pano #3

It’s hard to smile when you are looking into the sun; but if he stood in the shade in the arrow turret you can’t see him!  Note the Holland Euro2012 bag…I was carrying that by the end of the trip.

Matthew + Cannons = good

See that beach off in the distance?….that’s where we end the day.

Do you know what Dubrovnik must not have?  Mice.  Because there are cats everywhere!  There are six in this photo alone!

Dubrovnik Pano #4

Fric and Frac got a kick out of this cat, hanging out in the shade of the wall….

Finished the wall, walked up to the station and then on the cable car to the top…

Dubrovnik Pano #5

Dubrovnik Pano #6….it’s the other direction though….

Went back down and then walked to the beach.  They are not into any kind of fun here!

Beach was good; we are spoiled by the Gulf Coast white sands….this is all rocky and quite painful.  Not much of a shore before the topography drops off and you can’t stand.  Boys want to, repeatedly, swim out to the markers.

The bridge.  Always a sucker for a good bridge.

Departure from Dubrovnik.  We did accomplish one goal here that has eluded us all trip…we picked up a reuseable grocery bag.  Not a lot of detail or anything overtly unique about it, except that the writing is in Croatian.

Get back to the ship; have lunch, and then go and to 80’s Name that Tune and 80’s Trivia.  We’ve previously documented how we own that 80’s Name That Tune and twenty questions and twenty correct answers later, another Ship on a Stick is ours…..

Didn’t fare so well in 80’s trivia…only twelve out of twenty.

For the Dream, I know I posted a picture of the artwork in the stairwells…..penguins playing soccer.  Nothing so loud here; most pictures are of saltwater sea life..

Euro2012 – Day Eight – Sea Day #1

 

After four ports in a row; this day was a necessity….relax, chill out, check out the ship.  Rinse, lather, repeat.

Looking aft towards Guy’s Burger Joint……Typically, we hang out on Deck 10 and 11 on the starboard side of the ship.  Got some blogging done today but just wasn’t as into it as I could have been….

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Looking out at the Lido ‘center’…they are having some sort of competition today involving men strutting like models and women lathering them with sunscreen….saw the hairiest guy I’ve ever seen do this, he looked like a bear and I felt sorry for the women….

Matthew rocking his Napoli jersey out on the cove balcony….

The highlight for Matthew; the soccer competition up in the SkyDeck on Deck 12.  The plan was supposed to be soccer drills, but, they had so many people want to do it they just went to 6v6 games.  Matthew certainly held his own here even against the adults….a few fired big shots in on him (he stayed back on defense) and he blocked them.  His team went undefeated….

Went with Cpher to show,this time it was Motown.  Got a better picture of the high-def screens in the background this time.  The groups on the screen there actually started singing and dancing a little later…

Been slacking on taking these pictures…..heading to Dubrovnik

Euro2012 – Day Seven – Amalfi Coast

 

The problems with big long vacations like this one is that, from a blogging perspective, it is awfully hard to stay current with each day’s events.  I was good up through Marseilles, but fell hopelessly behind once we hit Italy.  I’m blogging about Day Seven today; it’s actually Day Eleven.

The Amalfi Coast in the distance, about 6 am.

Two boys at breakfast in the dining room.  Post cruise I’ll have to do a post on Hard Rock T-shirts; Cpher is gathering quite a collection of them recently (Chicago, Barcelona, Rome, Venice)

The Blush Dining Room early in the morning…

Today’s journey begins in Pompeii….we hired a private driver and as always were one of the first ones of the ship.  Met Mario (more on Mario later!) and left Salerno for Pompeii

We were able to get the boys to listen to the Rick Steves audio guide; worked out pretty well here, the boys were pretty interested in the ruins and the audio tour.

Mount Vesuvius in the background here….

I may be repetitious but it is awfully nice to get to places like Pompeii before the big tour busses arrive.  It was hard to get shots without a lot of people but by the time we left there were at least twice the number of people here than when we started…..the line for tickets was at least four times as long…

One of the casts of the bodies in the ruins….

This is described as a the remains of a ‘fast-food’ shop…the marble counter top in front…

Fric and Frac in the arch for the aquaduct…..

A courtyard in one of the houses…

Matthew looking both way before crossing the roads….the one step there is what people used to cross the road when they flooded the streets to clean them…

The bakery……

Last shot of the ruins through the trees near the exit; Mt. Vesuvius in the background.  It was still achingly hot today….

Mario, who also works as a race car driver (and I will post some links to youtube videos when I get back to the land of internet) took us over to Sorrento next.  This picture is looking out at the Bay of Naples.

Mario makes me wonder what exactly were the arrangements that  Suzanne put in place here….Suzanne expressed some disappointment that the guide in Florence wasn’t this cute Italian guy and well, Mario, Mario is just about everything Suzanne could have asked for.  He’s in his 20’s, he’s oh so cute, he drives race cars, Suzanne said he had the best hair and oh, he must have said “Mamma Mia” about 40 times….

Coming along the peninsula toward Sorrento

Sorrento…

 

We spent an hour in Sorrento…in hindsight, we should have spent longer here.  The original plan was to eat a restaurant along the coast with great views, but, being rushed like we were here we cancelled that reservation so that we could spend more time at our final stop, Positano. 

Always like wandering around the neighborhoods and wandering into these randomly beautiful moments…

A fruit/vegetable stand as we left Sorrento and headed towards Positano…yes, those are lemons; some huge giant variety that are mostly used for decoration.

The first of the pictures along the Amalfi Coast….

The Pano from Amalfi

No waves = really clear water

Limestone = very steep cliffs

Houses as we came into Positano…

We parked in Positano and walked down to the beach….the flowers were simply amazing…

Looking back up from the beach…

The awning over the restaurant where we had pizza…

And, the last shot from Positano as we were walking back up the hill to the van.

Souvenirs:  Really haven’t bought a lot of stuff prior to this stop but made up for it here.  Matthew got a soccer jersey and soccer t-shirt (Napoli, Sorrento).  Mom and Dad got enough limoncello to last us quite a while and a nice bowl and vase from a ceramic shop in Positano.  The real hit were the lemon/orange hard candy balls…..we certainly did not purchase enough of them. 

Health:  Matthew back to normal….Cpher complains of stomach pains as we walk up the hill from Positano.  Asks us to pull over on the way back to Salerno and throws up….we have to pull over again closer to Salerno so that he can do it again.  Happily (and unlike his brother, who when he ‘lost it’ didn’t get to a toilet or trash can and left us quite a mess) Cpher confined his puke to a bag and out of the car, so, it wasn’t that big of a deal…..

Breeze:  Not much going on here tonight; Cpher really sick and throws up quite a bit though the evening.  A norovirus that is running through the ship?  not sure…Cpher really has it worse than Matthew though.