Home at last!

Hello all!

Am home from my travels to Italy and Greece and had a wonderful time! The first 7 days were spent on the cruise and the second were in Rome and Venice. I'll try and post info on the excursions and also pictures with commentaries!

We left on Sunday, September 5th in the afternoon. The plane ride to Rome was a bit over 9 hours. My dh and I went with 2 of our neighbors and had such a blast. I slept on the plane, read a bit on my kindle, (great idea) and they served us 2 small meals. We got into Rome on Monday morning around 8 or so. The time difference is 7 hours so we were a bit dazed. Had some amazing cappuccino in the airport! Off to a great start! Sat and watched the people until we had to meet with our transport to the cruise ship. So many cars, noise and a mix of languages! Sensory overload! The ride was about 40 minutes to the port of Civitavecchia. We boarded the Costa Allegra Cruise Ship and found our cabin. Quickly unpacked so we could explore the ship. The Allegra is one of the smaller ships in the Costa line but worked well for me! Our dinner seating was at 7:00 p.m. Happy hour was from 10:00 a.m.-12:00 noon then again from 4:00 p.m. until 6:00 p.m. We managed to be around for most of those! We had a wonderful waitress by the name of Elvira. She is from the Philippines and has a 4 month old son. She sends her money back home. Her husband works a different cruise ship within the Costa line. At our dinner table we sat with 3 ladies from New York who were affiliated with NYPD and NYFD and also an Italian couple who spoke no english! We thought they might want to move to a different table but they told our waiter they liked sitting with us. It was fun learning to figure out what they were trying to tell us! The even invited us to their house which is an hour away from Naples! They would make us dinner and everything! If we had had more time that would have been a great experience. I was able to figure out some of the italian because if you break the word down they all come from Greek or Roman words just like English.

Such fun!