We flew into Barcelona. We started out on Weds, July 2nd, arriving 24 hours later on Thurs the 3rd. Unfortunately our luggage didn’t arrive with us. We didn’t see our bags again until late Friday night. We toured the city tho and had a great time with our entire group. We visited the Gaudi museum, the Sagrada Family Temple and the Olympic stadium. We absolutely loved the city and would like to return there someday.

Sat. morning we boarded the cruise ship. Since it was basically the same as the ship from 2 years ago, it was pretty easy to find our way around. This trip differed from the last in that we were to spend very little time on board. We’d get up at 5:30 am, be on a tour bus by about 7, tour for 8-10 hours, be back on board in time to shower and get ready to go to the bar before dinner (you have to do what you have to do, right?). Dinner was between 9:15 and 11:30. Once we were through with the piano bar after dinner, we’d roll into bed between 1-2 and get up the do it all over the next day. And we thought we were too old for this!

Villefranche, France was our 1st stop. We traveled to Cannes and Nice. We passed by the hospital Angelina Jolie would deliver her twins in. It was Sun and she’d give birth later that week on Friday. We visited St. Paul, a village up in the mountains. Our time here was way to short.

The next day it was onto Florence where we toured the city and saw the most amazing architecture. We saw the replica of David but the other statutes were original. We made a stop in Ponte Vecchio, where I had to buy some Florence gold. It’s so hard to capture in words what we saw…but it only got better as the next day was Rome.

Seeing the Coliseum was a wow, but being in Vatican City was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. The Sistine Chapel and St. Peter Cathedral – I can’t even describe how it felt to be there in the midst of all the glory. My pictures only capture a small part of the experience.

The following day was Naples. Here our group parted ways as we had all chosen different excursions. Luke went with Don, Carol, Steph and Megan and hiked up Mt. Vesuvius. We chose to visit Sorrento along the Amalfi coast. We all visited Pompeii. Once again, how do you amply describe these wonders?

The last port, was Palermo. By this time we chose to cancel our beach tour. Instead we all ventured out on foot into the city. Lani did some street shopping but the best part was having a real Italian gelato.

The last day was a sea day. We could only wonder how we’d pass the time…yeah, right! The day flew by what with catching up on ship’s buffet, playing bingo, and entering a slot tournament. Don and I made it into the last round. I ended up placing 3rd – right out of the money. Oh well, my tournament t-shirt will have to do.

It was a long flight home, but we managed to get bumped to 1st class from Atlanta to LAX. Jet lag followed us for days beyond the flight, but still we got back into everyday life very quick. After all, we have Tim and Elyse getting married on Nov 8th…but also we had some other big news: Nick and Ash are making us grandparents in Feb! Of course after these big events you know we’ll start planning our next adventure for 2010.