March 2. Boarding the Cruise

We had a low-key day. We got up and had hotel breakfast and then made our way back to the airport for the bus transfer to the cruise ship. It took about an hour to get to the Civitavecchia cruise port. 

It took less than 10 minutes to check in and we were quickly aboard having welcome champagne. 

Our ship is the MSC World Europa, currently in 10th place for the largest cruise ships in the world. I've never been on an MSC cruise. This ship was basically picked because the other major cruise lines are only here in the summer. 

It's always a process, (and a relief,) unpacking our suitcases for the week. When we were done with that task we headed out to explore the ship and barhop. We also went to the evening show. A fantastic British singer sang the hits of woman icons - Adele, Cher, Tina Turner, Whitney Houston. Then we headed to dinner and had funny servers who I think were as entertained by us as we were with them. Then more drinks, then bed.

Good first impressions of the ship so far. It's also amazing that it seems like most of the people working speak five different languages. This is a very international crowd. 

 

March 3. Sicily, Italy

Today our cruise wasn't scheduled to get into port in Sicily until noon. We slept in and had breakfast delivery scheduled to our room. We watched from our balcony as the picturesque coastline came into view and we docked. 

We docked in Messina, Sicily's third largest city, population of 200,000.(Palermo is first with a million people.)

 

 

I scheduled us on an all day small group tour through Viator to Castelmola and Taormina. They were about an hour away from Messina, but provided more history and what you imagine of Italian seaside cities. Messina was wiped out by two tsunamis in 1908 caused by an earthquake under the water in the straight between the mainland and Messina.

Our guide, Mariarita was an over the top personality who was a delight. On our hour ride she told us history, random factoids, and gave us classic almond cookies. I was expecting them to be hard, but they were soft and tasty.

 

Also as we were driving we could see Mt. Etna in the distance among the clouds. That was a cool sight. It fogged up later in the day so we couldn't see it from our stops unfortunately.

After some driving back and forth up the mountainside we made it to our first stop, Castelmola. It is a small village (population about 1,100) that hovered high over the mountainside and seascape below. Mariarita walked us around the main square and told us it was built in 1078 by the Normans. She told some funny stories... that the flowerpots are all heads because a man was romancing a Sicilian woman and ... the next morning the man told her he had to go back to his wife... so she cut off his head and put it in the garden. She also showed us the "Penis Bar" where everyone was getting shots of the almond wine in penis shot glasses and you keep the glass... It was a small town, but had beautiful streets and alleyways.

 

 

 

We then made our way down the mountainside to Taormina, originally a Greek settlement from 4 B.C. It is so very interesting seeing places that are so, so old but are now so fancy... the Four Seasons from the second season of White Lotus was filmed here. We got the Sicily specialties arancino rice ball specialties and traditional cannoli. 

 

 

 

 

We got back on the ship late, after 7pm. Since it was Taco Tuesday, we headed to the Taco restaurant onboard. It was all you can eat and they brought so much delicious food... We had then to stop after they brought nachos, five different kinds of tacos, two different burritos, three different quesadillas... plus chips and guac... they said we still had two types of enchiladas... we couldn't eat them! A great end to a great day!

 

 

 

 

March 1. Eiffel Tower and Travel Day.

We were out of the hotel at 8:20 to catch the Metro to get us over to the Eiffel Tower. We had a tour booked for right when they opened. It is very different from the last time I was here with the brothers about 12 years ago… The area under and around the Eiffel Tower is all enclosed now. You can’t just walk under it anymore. You have to pass through security to get into the area. It doesn’t cost anything for that part. 

We met our tour guide Frederick and the rest of our group, which ended up being 12 people total. It was quite the mix… the three of us, a single lady from Germany, a single guy from the Netherlands, and a group of two families from India with two young children. We were on the first elevator to the top of the tower which was awesome. We got lots of pics with no one else in our way and then it slowly got busier and busier as more elevators arrived. Frederick said there are two sides of the tower… “the windy side, and the good side”. We definitely found that to be true… Especially on a 50 degree day.

We spent time at the very top, 906 feet in the sky, but the best parts were the second and third third levels, 187 and 377 feet. From lower, all of Paris was in front of us. It was a great end to our time in Paris to see all the places we went from the Eiffel Tower view.

 

From the Eiffel Tower we took our last Metro ride back to the hotel We checked out and headed to the airport for our flight to Rome. They had a decent cold meal for the two hour flight. We got our shuttle to the airport hotel no problem and ended the day (as we often do) at the hotel bar looking forward to boarding the cruise ship and unpacking our suitcases tomorrow!

 

 

February 28. Paris Free Time Day.

We slept in a little after two late nights. We went and got Starbucks next door to our hotel while we looked over and discussed what we wanted to do for the day. I was disappointed there is no Strawberry Acai Refreshers on the menu here! I had to settle for Mixed Berry… not as good.

For our first adventure, we decided to go to the Orsay Museum. It has French Art from 1848 - 1914 (start of World War I). Manet, Monet, Renoir, Degas, Van Gogh, and many other big names. The setting for the museum was very unique and awesome… an old train station that was built for the 1900 World’s Fair. It was a big, open, airy beautiful space. It was interesting to see what artists were painting over that period, and how they painted it, changed. First they were in kind of fantasyland… painting fanciful things and rich people despite the industrial revolution changing everything. Then the paintings became more realistic and, in some cases, brutal. Painting things as they are instead of the way they wanted them to be. The paintings of the water lilies and Van Gogh’s self portraits were the most memorable to me. They also had some paintings that were just massive and very impressive. I also liked the exhibit and models on the Opera house and its opulence in front of state as well as the hidden parts in the massive back and under stage areas. 

 

 

From the Orsay, we decided to head back to the Montmartre area. Kory said it was his favorite part of Paris. We started at a tiny café and had a cocktail and Croque Madame… Basically a fancy ham and cheese sandwich with an egg on it. Then we retraced our steps from the previous day. Penny wanted to look in some of the shops we passed, and we wanted to look at all the artists in the square. Most of them were doing variations of caricatures, but there was some art sprinkled in too. After walking around there for a bit we took the Metro back to our hotel.

 

 

There were so many options for places to eat around our hotel and the Republique Square area. We chose one that looked good, Mon Coco. We ate on a nice heated patio area and had good drinks and great food for our last dinner. Kory’s ordered one of the specialty drinks, and it was crazy… and had a ton of cream.

We headed back to the hotel and turned in “early” at about 10:30 since we had to pack and had a relatively early morning coming up.