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What an exciting cruise! Our first scheduled port, Monaco, was closed due to severe weather conditions. The captain consequently decided to hit all of the ports in reverse order. This was a blessing because we had amazing weather the entire week. After roughly six hours at sea, our ship received a mayday call from a small boat that lost engine power. Through the entire night we shielded this boat from the dangerously large swells and strong winds until the coast guard finally arrived.

Our first stop was Messina Italy. Like most of the ports in Italy, you have to travel a bit before there is anything worth seeing. We ended up taking a cab to a beautiful town called Taormina (where The God Father was filmed). We met a very nice French couple who anchored their sailboat near the beach we were looking over. They excitedly pointed to Mt Etna, Europe’s largest volcano, in the distance and showed us pictures of the eruption they witnessed the preceding night. Before departing, we stopped in a local Sicilian café to enjoy the recommended Cannoli pastry – amazing!

When we arrived to Naples, we jumped onto a Jet boat for an hour journey to the beautiful Island of Capri. This ended up being quite the adventure; the swells were as tall as our boat and about a third of the passengers were sea sick. The unfortunate crew was scrambling to handout puke bags and paper towels while trying to keep their balance on the rocky boat.

After strolling through the narrow streets and a wonderful Italian lunch, we headed to the famous ruins of Pompeii. The historic eruption of Mt Vesuvius took the lives of around 2000 people and buried the Roman city under 20 feet of ash. With the ash mostly removed over the last 200 years, details of everyday life have been revealed (including R-rated art in the brothel as seen in our pictures). From the complex water systems to the reflection stones in the streets, we were both completely stunned at how brilliant people were 2000 years ago.

We of course made a stop in Rome where we explored St. Peters Square. The magnitude of the Vatican and the superb detail by Artists like Bernini and Michelangelo are unexplainable. Somehow we managed to find time to visit the Coliseum which has enticed me to watch Gladiator for the fourth time. At the end of this crazy day we were able to enjoy a perfect lasagna dinner with a super nice couple from London who we continued to meet up with throughout our trip.

When we arrived to Livorno we felt obligated to see the tower of Pisa. Neither of us was completely enthused considering that we’ve already seen so many cathedrals at this point. To our surprise, this excursion ended up being one of our favorites. Departing Pisa, we took the bus to a famous winery in Tuscany. After the owner explained why Italian wine is so much better than French wine, we were presented with an array of cheeses, variations of salami, olives (Kendra somehow likes these) and of course a great selection of wines. We made a lot of friends on that trip!

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