Cruise!

Ciao tutti!
Ok so I know I have been bad and not updated this in a while. BUT my mom and I just finished our cruise and it was fabulous!!! We started the cruise on Saturday and then Sunday we arrived in Split, Croatia. Unfortunately we didn’t have a very good map and no tour so we walked around Split but didn’t really know what we were seeing, which was disappointing. But we did walk around Diocletian’s palace, which is this big market-like place with shops and things like that, which was cool.
Monday we arrived in Corfu, Greece. Corfu was my favorite place on the cruise. We took a shuttle into town and then walked around the old fort that the Venetians had built in around the 1500s (I think). It was a gorgeous hot day and the water there was crystal clear blue. After that we walked around the town, which was filled with cool little side streets with shops and vendors. We saw some gorgeous churches and even a Synagogue. We also stepped our feet in the Ionian Sea, which was the clearest water I have ever seen. Corfu is also the greenest Island of Greece, so it was perfectly picturesque. I loved it.
Ok so then Tuesday we went to Athens. There we took a tour that took us to the Acropolis and the Parthenon. It was truly amazing, a wonder of the world. Unfortunately our guide talked FOREVER so we only had 45 min to walk around the acropolis and be back down the hill in time for the bus to leave ☹ It really didn’t give us enough time to stand and appreciate where we were. Oh well, then we went and stopped by the Olympic stadium in Athens, which was cool. But by that time we were so tired we then just went back to the boat and slept till dinner.
Wednesday was Mykonos. We had signed up for a trip to the beach that morning (the Aegean), but unfortunately that was the one overcast and cold day!!! What rotten luck! But we went in the cold water, and can now say we swam in the Aegean. We went back to town, which is filled with gorgeous white houses with blue lining, one of the typical pictures when you think of Greece. We had traditional Greek food at a local restaurant and shopped a little, but since we went to the beach earlier we didn’t have time to really explore the town before we had to get back to our boat. Also, since it was overcast, the whole town looked more grey then white. If the day had been like it was in Corfu, I think I would have liked it more.
Thursday we saw the ancient site of Olympia. That was cool. We took a shuttle there, but didn’t get a guided tour so it gave us a chance to really explore it on our own which was nice. We read the little signs and mom remembered some stuff she had read in her guidebook (which she conveniently left at home). But then we rand into some friends from our table at dinner who had taken a tour so they gave us some snapshots of the interesting stuff their tour guide gave them, so we lucked out there. We saw where they light the Olympic torch before every Olympic games. And also the ancient stadium and even ran a little bit of the way there. Haha. Then we saw the archeological museum, which has some cool ancient Greek mythological statues, which I loved. Finally we just found some shady grass and ate some Baklava and enjoyed our final time in Greece.
Friday was just a day at sea, so I packed my large suitcase while mom relaxed and tanned by the side of the pool. ☺ For our first cruise it was really fun. Mom and I played mini golf one day (she won of course) and we read by the pool some other afternoons. We saw some of the shows, there was a Beatles group and then some singers and dancers one night. Mom’s favorite was this Motown group who was really good, but I didn’t know many of the songs which mom thought was a travesty. Oh and there was also a magician the last night, who was really good. One really nice thing about our cruise was that our table was really fun. Really fun talkative people, some of which were my age, which was great. ☺ And of course the food was amazing. We had 2 teenage boys at our table and by the end of the cruise our waiter just brought them basically the whole menu, so we always had tons of different foods at our table.
The cruise came into Venice early Saturday morning, and mom and I dragged our suitcases up a bunch of stairs to the train station to leave them there while we went and explored Venice. I loved Venice. I have wanted to see Venice ever since I was little and it was just as cool and mysterious as I expected it to be. We got lost for a bit before we found St. Marcs square and then toured the Doge’s palace, which was cool. Then we sat and had a coffee and cornetto in the square watching people feed the birds with the Basilica in the background. It was quite a lovely experience. The line was too long to see the Basilica, but honestly I had seen enough churches in Italy to last me a lifetime. Then we took a Vaporetto (the local water taxi system) to a small park and then found a nice restaurant where I had one last pizza in Italy. It was a fun place and the owner even came out and sang a couple of silly Italian songs while we ate. A good find. Then we went and got lost a bit more in Venice before we got our bags and took a bus to the airport. Our flight was a bit rocky but mom (who doesn’t do well on planes) did really well! We got into London late last night. Our hotel is in the Victoria area.
Today we got up and went to St. Paul’s Cathedral for the Sung Eucharist service. It was cool to go to church in such a gorgeous setting. The Cathedral is really magnificent, much prettier I thought then San Paulo church in Rome were St. Paul is actually buried. Then we ate lunch and went on a hop on hop off tour. Being Sunday nothing much is open after 6, so now we are just relaxing in our hotel room planning what we are going to do the next two days. We are loving London! I do miss Italy and my host family a lot (I can tell my Italian is slipping badly), but London is such an amazingly beautiful city, it’s hard to be sad about anything. Alright, if you are still reading this I applaud you and check facebook for all my pictures of Greece, and I will try to upload some London ones tomorrow or the next day.
Arrivederci!
~Alyson~
☺