Due to recent threats against Americans in Tunisia, our stop in Tunis was replaced by a stop in Cagliari, Sardinia. We didn’t really know what to do in Cagliari, so we asked TripAdvisor. The #1 rated attraction is the Elephant Tower, which is a very old castle-like gate that used to be part of the city wall back when Cagliari was under the protection of Pisa. Presumably, the tower was given its name because of the statues of elephants that protrude from its facade. We walked up the hill to the tower, took some pictures, neglected to pay 4 Euro each to climb steps to the top, and then walked back down the hill. On the way back to the ship, we took a detour along a busy shopping street where we bought a cone topped with plentiful (but not particularly delicious) sorbetto. I don’t think either of us are planning a return trip to Sardinia.

Holland America is working hard to prevent its passengers from spreading communicable stomach viruses.  In every common area and when embarking the ship, there is a Purell hand sanitizer dispenser or a crew member to dispense hand sanitizer.  In addition, for the first 48 hours of the cruise, self-service at the buffet is suspended.  There is still food (thank goodness), but a member of the crew has to serve it to you.

In Barcelona, we started our day with a walk down Las Ramblas, a major pedestrian thoroughfare. This is the only port for which we have any guidance from Rick Steves, so we were prepared to see the sights. After a nice stroll up and down Las Ramblas, we took the metro to the Church of the Sacred Family, which has been under construction for over 100 years. After a tour through Europe, I thought I had seen every type of cathedral there was to see. I was wrong. The Sacred Family is amazing to look at with its detailed “cake in the rain” facades, spiraling columns, and gorgeous interior. Despite the high admission price, this church is definitely worth a visit for anyone in Barcelona.

After the church, we headed back to Las Ramblas to eat at a nice mini-sandwich place recommended by Rick Steves.  The sandwiches (1.95 Euro each) were small, but delicious.  I wish I could remember the name of the place so I could recommend it to others.

When I think of Monte Carlo, I think of James Bond playing Baccarat in the casino.  For today’s outing, we walked up the hill to the casino, but unfortunately, it wasn’t open to business yet  (but still charged tourists 10 Euro to enter).  We walked around some more, discovering a convenient elevator that takes passengers up the hill from the harbor to the casino (which we sadly only discovered for the downward journey).  The harbor seemed quite nice, so we walked around it admiring the fishing boats, yachts, and super yachts.  Eventually, we made our way outside of Monte Carlo’s famous aquarium.  Then it started raining, so we decided to head back to the boat.

The first stop on our cruise is Livorno, Italy. As far as we can tell, there is nothing interesting to do in Livorno, so we opted to take the train to nearby Pisa. Sadly, as we discovered, there’s also very little to do in Pisa. We walked to the leaning tower and nearby cathedral, looked at them for a while, and then headed back to the train station since it started raining.

In Pisa, we were (almost) swindled twice. At the train station, a pickpocket opened Valerie’s backpack, but quick action from Valerie prevented our jackets from being stolen. At the supermarket near Pisa’s main square, the cashier tried to pass a 50 Euro cent coin off as a 2 Euro coin. Sadly, due to my slow reaction time, he got away with it. For anyone headed to Pisa, be sure to watch your bags and check your change!

Today we boarded the ms Noordam, Holland America’s newest addition to their Vista-class fleet of ships. Our 21-day cruise is actually a concatenation of a 7-day Mediterranean cruise and a 14-day Transatlantic cruise (both departing from Civitavecchia). After boarding, we learned that the planned stop in Tunis has been cancelled due to a travel warning from the US State Department. Instead, we’ll be going to Sardinia. Alas, I will not be able to check off Africa from my list of visited continents.

In an effort to stave off weight gain due to the endless supply of food on the ship, we’ve decided to always take the stairs (rather than the elevator) when we are headed to a higher deck. In addition, we visited the gym and hopefully will use it during some of the sea days. However, I predict we’ll visit the buffet far more often than the gym on this voyage.

For our last day in Rome, we headed to the Colosseum, Forum, and Palatine Hill. The Colosseum, as its name suggests, is quite large and truly an engineering marvel. Since we had purchased a Roma Pass earlier, we were able to skip the long ticket buying lines and walk right into the ruins. Next, we walked around the ruins of the Forum and the Hill for a while before eating an early dinner near Capitoline Hill.

One thing that annoys me about Rome is the large number of unofficial “tour guides” who solicit you to join their tour by promising that you can skip the long lines at major sights. While the line to enter St. Peter’s was quite long, it only took about 20 minutes to traverse, despite the warnings of “2 hour waits” by the guides. Once inside the sights, we overheard some of the tours given by the guides and it seems like most the guides are pretty terrible.

It’s 1 BC! Tomorrow is the start of our transatlantic cruise from Rome to Ft. Lauderdale. Valerie laments that phase 1 of the honeymoon passed by so quickly. I’m very excited to move to the relaxing and fattening phase 2.

For our first day in Rome, we visited Vatican City. The Vatican is closed to tourism on Sundays, so today was pretty much our only opportunity to visit the Holy See. In the afternoon, we braved the rain to visit St. Peter’s Basilica. Unlike other cathedrals, which try to look big and impressive, we learned that St. Peter’s actually was designed to appear smaller than it is (which is ginormous). After the rain turned into a mere sprinkle, we walked to the Vatican Museum (also huge) where we spent about 3 hours, including at least half an hour in the Sistine Chapel.

In the late evening, we took a Rick Steves walking tour of Rome from the Pantheon to the Spanish Steps. We stopped along the way for various delicious treats including a coffee slushie, gelato, and sorbetto. Finally, we headed back to the hotel, tired and having accrued about 25,000 steps on the FitBit.

As a side note, once the cruise starts, updates to this blog are probably going to become very scarce. The cruise line charges exorbitant fees for accessing the Internet from the ship and I’m probably too cheap to pay for it.

Siena is a fairly small city and we were able to visit most of the major sights in one day.  We started by heading to the very impressive Siena Cathedral, which is huge for a city as small as Siena.  After visiting the cathedral-related sights, we walked to Il Campo (the main square) where we picked up food and strolled for a while before heading back to the hotel.  We took a taxi back to the train station and then headed for Rome, our last stop on the self-guided portion of our honeymoon.

Today, Valerie and I took an all-day wine tour of the Chianti Classico region of Italy.  We visited two wineries and two local towns where learned a whole lot about Chianti and also drank a lot of Chianti Classico.  Our tour was led by the very knowledgeable Franco who seemed to know everyone in every town.  I don’t really remember a whole lot of the tour after the first few bottles of wine, but it is definitely a worthwhile experience for those who enjoy Chianti or Brunello or want to learn about the operations of small-scale wine producers in the Chianti region.