The Heit Happenings: Tenth Anniverary Trip to EUROPE!!!

This guy and I have been married for (almost) 10 years and we wanted to celebrate in a special way. For our honeymoon we took a cruise in the Bahamas. We wanted to do another cruise for our 10th anniversary, only in a different location. We chose to cross the big pond and cruise in the Mediterranean. Woo!

This is on the plane crossing the Atlantic. We were mid-ocean about the time that the girls were going to bed. We thought of our girls often on our trip. We felt kind of bad leaving them behind, but not bad enough to bring them along. Plus that would be WAY more expensive.

We flew into Rome and took a shuttle from the airport to the cruise ship. We didn't get to see any of Rome, but the countryside looked kind of familiar with the fields and hay bales.

Here is our ship, the Norwegian Epic. Rick is the tiny one on the left. The other guy is just a random dude.

They had handy guides by the elevators on every floor.

Here's a few of the views on the ship. A lovely chandelier.

Below the chandelier, one of the sit-down-type restaurants.

The Bliss lounge

There were two small bowling alleys on board. We didn't bowl, but we did play some shuffleboard and pool and air hockey and some other teen-type games that were available.

I am pretty sure we spent a couple hours in THIS part of the ship every day. There were three slides, including one big tube slide that we dubbed the "Toilet" though I think it's called a hurricane or something less gross the toilet. But it was fun. There were three hot tubs, two long skinny pools, a private no-kids-under-18 pool, and a little kiddy area.

A rock climbing wall

Part of the little kiddy area

These were up in the teen area so we didn't use them, but it's cool that they were there!

The long skinny pools and the sprayers in between. The pools were SO nice after the long hot days in the sun touring the cities. And it wasn't even overly crowded until our second-to-last day, when some people disembarked and a bunch (like 2400 or so) more people boarded. The ship just keeps going in it's circuit and there are two ports where people come on/leave the ship. I'm glad we came on when we did. It was way too crowded for me at the end there.

We didn't spring for a room with a porthole or a deck. An inner stateroom was fine for us.We figured the only time we'd be in our room was to sleep, so why pay for a view? We were right. We didn't spend much time here. The bed took up most of the room, but it was super comfy. I'm standing in the doorway and there is about a 12-18 inches on either side of the bed.

Just to one side of the door was the toilet, in its own teeny little closet area.

Just to the other side of the door was the shower in it's own teeny little closet-ish area. The red curtain is for privacy. Psh. What's that? I don't think I've closed the bathroom door in the last ten years. Ha!

Here is our vanity/sink/towels/minibar/tv area. It fits just nicely between the shower and the bed. Just opposite is a closet that I didn't take a picture of. That left about three square feet of standing space in the room. But it worked! It was super nice and super cozy and quiet. Ahh.

Our view at night. The picture doesn't do it justice. It looked pretty spectacular.

First stop off the boat was an excursion to Pisa/Florence. This is just an apartment building, Italian-style.

Pisa!

Yep, we had to do the usual tourist leaning on the tower/kicking the tower over thing. We are nerds. We know this.

We didn't go up into the tower or into these buildings at all. We only had an hour. But we got our nerdy pictures so it was all good.

Florence! We had more time to spend here so we sat down and ate pizza Italian-style. Outside, of course. I'm new at the whole selfie thing so just bear with me.

There's not much space between the buildings since they are mostly all connected with a narrow street between. There's lots of foot traffic here, though there are places that cars DO drive.

The girls always like to point out the flower trees, so every time we saw one, it made us think of them.

This is a famous bridge that I don't remember the name of. I lost the notebook that I documented everything we did in, so I'm just going by memory right now. It will turn up eventually, but for now you can look at the bridge. We walked across it and took some pictures of the view from there as well.

When my parents came back from Italy, they brought home a little Pinocchio doll for each of the grandkids. I wondered, "Why Pinocchio?" Well. I found out why Pinocchio. He's EVERYWHERE in Florence. There's even an entire SHOP dedicated to Pinocchio. Everywhere that sells souvenirs has varieties of Pinocchios. So I of course, posed AS Pinocchio. Rick didn't want to. I wonder why?

There were lots of statues in the courtyards. Again, I don't remember the names of all the famous buildings, but we visited them! We even went inside some of them. This is where we ate our pizza lunch. The first building to the right of the statue (you can kind of see the sign on the front of the building that showed in our pizza pic) was the restaurant. There was indoor seating, but who wants to eat indoors on a lovely day in Florence? Not us!

Here we are on that fancy-pants bridge I mentioned earlier.

They do the lock thing here too. I thought that was just a Paris thing, but I guess not!

Il Duomo?

I feel like I should remember this.

Checking out a game store.

Found a fun looking Pepsi while shopping for munchies.

Can't visit Italy without getting some form of Gelatto! It was pretty nummy!

The famous Florence skyline. I took this picture with my camera from the bus.

Here is Alba, our tour guide.

Florence and Pisa were a self guided thing, but she is the one that talked to us on the bus and told us what to look for, what we would be looking at, places to go, and she walked us from the bus to our meeting point and back. It was very helpful. And it was fun to listen to her accent.

X made an appearance. The Heit clan will appreciate this.

Some Italian gum and candy we brought home for the kids to try.

Here is some of our on-board entertainment. They had an adult only white night. They wanted you to dress in white (not required, but it was the theme, given the funky black lights) and the employees dressed as white angels and led dances and they had crazy stuff projected on the screen. Underneath that dance floor is the adult-only pool. They cover it up at night and it becomes a stage/dance floor under the stars. There were a few nights where they showed movies on this deck as well.

These guys were pretty funny. They played and sang and made jokes while people laughed and got drunk. They did a good job, except there were at least two people that didn't get drunk. Ha!

And here we have our view of Cannes, France. The ship parked itself way out here in the water and we shuttled on the lifeboats to the shore. That was pretty fun. But the boats were way more seasick worthy than the ship itself.

Me boarding the shuttle boat.

Some famous buildings and beaches.

We took a train tour around the city.

This is a Chris pose from his trip to Japan.

I liked the earphones. You could pick a language and it talked you through the sights and places you were seeing as you passed them. It was very helpful to know what you are looking at. In your own language. (Or Portuguese in Rick's case) It was fun to hear which celebrities stayed where and stuff too.

This is a big poster.

A lovely view from the top of the hill.

It was hot.

More "flower trees!" I actually thought of my mom and our old clematis flowers we had at the house on 8th street when I saw this. These are a little bigger though.

This stairway made me think of my dad. He'd never make it up. Or down. Sorry, Dad. Cannes would not be a great place for you to try walking.

We had to put our hands in the Mediterranean just for fun.

We also put our hands in these molds for fun as well. Angelina Jolie and Sylvester Stallone both have bigger hands than us.

This is the empty marketplace. In the mornings it is filled with booths and people sell their food and edible sea creatures (not FOOD, blech!) It was empty by the time of day we came by.

Lots of shops and stores to choose from.

Bye France!

Hello, Palma de Majorca!

We watched this little boat approach our ship, and then watched a guy climb off of it and onto our ship. I'm pretty sure it was officially ok. But I didn't know they did things like that!

Some of the things we could see from the ship. We ended up walking to the fancy building below. It was a bit of a trek though.

We were tempted to rent one of these electric cars and cruise (cruise!) around the island on our own. But we didn't want to burn through our euros to do so. We also considered a private guided taxi tour that the drivers were begging everybody to do. We decided no on that as well. There was also bus tours. In the end we went for the scenic walk around. It took a lot more time but we still got to see some good stuff.

I happened to wear the right shirt. Too bad we weren't in Brazil.

No danger here. This actually made me a little nervous. I'm a nerd.

We nicknamed all the fancy-pants buildings "High-and-Mighties" since we didn't know what they all were.

As soon as I saw this statue it I burst out laughing because it reminded me so much of my goofy husband. What do you think? Does it do him justice? I love it!

We knew the girls would enjoy looking at this swan family.

There were some baby ducks that we took pictures of too. They oohed and ahhhed just like we thought they would.

They do marine shows here. There was a big aquarium that I kind of wanted to visit but we ran out of time by the time we discovered it. Foot travel is nice but I don't recommend it when you have a certain time to be back on board.

We bought our only toy souvenirs here. The rest was all edible. We bought little sharks that look like dolphins with teeth and could double as a whale with teeth. They were pretty cute. The girls appreciated them except it's hard to convince them that they are actually supposed to be sharks.

The displays here are much more appetizing than in America.

Oh here's the little duckies.

We thought the girls would like these water bottles. If they had been a fancy juicy drink of some sort we would have bought them. But for water, we just took a picture.

Fancy hotels and such

Spongebob was there to dance and greet us (and try to sell us photos with him) as we reboarded the ship. They also provided water or juice and a cleansing towel (real towel) for our hands. I wiped my face but apparently that wasn't what you are supposed to do. (I was sweaty, it was hot!) A lady looked at me with concern and asked if I had sensitive skin when she saw me wipe my face. I was fine. I felt a little silly after that, but oh well. I'm not used to all these luxury accommodations and what you are supposed to do or not do I guess.

Next stop, Barcelona, Spain! This is what we could see from port. Taking the day on foot was not looking like a great option.

So we took a shuttle to the city hub and sprung for a bus tour! It's a good thing too, because Barcelona is pretty huge. We we lucky and got the open seats under the canopy on the top tier of the bus. Shade and seating and English explanations of what you are seeing!

These were hop on and hop off bus tickets. We could get off at any stop, look around, and hop on the next bus or any other bus stop without having to buy another ticket. Good for the entire day! There are buses every five minutes at every stop. They've got this tourist thing down do a science!

I don't remember what all the buildings are.

These reminded us of Elven work. Tolkien fans we are.

I liked the fancy street lights. If I remember right, they are handmade from scrap metal? I could be wrong. Don't quote me.

Rick thought his mother would get a kick out of this. He explained why, but again, I don't remember. What does this remind you of, Grandma?

I can't remember.

Famous soccer stadium.

This is where the 1992 Olympics were held.

You can still see all the flag poles for the different nations flags. We used a restroom in this area and I was surprised at the small size of it. There was four stalls. Four stalls? Right outside the Olympic arena? Yup. I assume there were bigger bathrooms INSIDE the main buildings but still. Four stalls.

Olympic torch.

Here we are at the port in Naples, Italy. We chose to ignore Naples and take an excursion to see the ruins of Pompeii.

We took a bus from the ship to Pompeii. This is the view of the coast along the way. Apparently none of that land was land at the time of Pompeii. It was see. It's amazing how the volcano has changed the landscape over time.

Mount Vesuvius. Yes it's still active, no it isn't on the verge of erupting again. Yet. We learned quite a lot as our tour guide talked to us the whole way and gave us some history of the volcano and the area. I don't remember the majority of it, but it was fascinating at the time.

We made a stop in this place to check out the work done here. These are called cameos. These are sea shells that are carved but NOT painted. The colors come from the shells themselves.

Here's a few we thought the girls would like. They were far too pricey to actually buy, but they are nice to look at. If I were a rich person I would have sprung for one for each of the girls. But we are not rich, so we just admired without touching.

This artisan is making more originals using that picture as a guide.

Again, American displays have nothing on these guys.

Here is our tour guide, Roberta, as we are entering the gates to get to Pompeii. We had earbuds and little radios called whispers so that she could speak into a little microphone and it goes right to our earbuds. No shouting over crowds for these tours. It was awesome. We were on bus 24.

Here is the gate to the city. The bigger ramp is for carts, the ramp on the side that you can't really see was for foot traffic. This used to go basically right into the sea. Not so much anymore.

This is some of the original color of the outer walls. I don't remember why red was significant, but it was.

There being no sewers, the streets were often filled with sewage and water and whatever else. To avoid walking through it to cross the streets, they built these stepstones. The wheels from the carts fit perfectly between them and people didn't get mucky feet. Win win.

The forum. And the volcano.

Those (three) stones sitting upright in the street were kind of like a dead end sign. Foot traffic only from that point.

Someone's home. You can tell from the mosaic on the floor (original) that would be in the entryway.

There's still original paint and painted signs visible in some places.

We got to go into a few places that still had all the walls intact, including a brothel and several different rooms of a bathhouse.

Original marks from cars.

Here's inside one of the brothels. They were big on brothels. There are pictures depicting...yeah...

Inside one of the small rooms. Nice stone bed. But at least there would have been a hay mattress or something on there to make it more comfy.

More original frescos.

This is a sign outside of a business with a picture of the service they provide (I can't remember exactly what this is, so don't ask) and then below that is the equivalent of a street sign, or location sign.

Inside the men's side of the bath house. There's a cold water room a hot water room and a steam room. This would have been the cold water room.

These are lockers but not for clothing and such like we would have. They held oils and stuff like that.

Steam room. This is where the coals were.

Everything is fancy. Even ceilings.

This is the hot water room.

She explained how all that worked, but again. I can't explain it now.

An outdoor "fast food" type food place.

A middle class home. The dog mosaic in the entryway, all original. We couldn't walk on it, as you can see.

The main entry area in that home. The dog mosaic is by that far gate. The middle has an open ceiling and there was a fountain there. You can see doorways into different rooms.

This is the kitchen/cooking area. You can see the stove.

This is the dining room. They didn't eat in the kitchen. They ate sitting all sprawled out on couches, like they always depict in roman movies. They really did that!

High five.

Here is a bakery.

The roundish things are mills. The oven is on the left.

Did you know they are STILL excavating Pompeii? I had no idea. I guess it's pretty huge. This is people working. They've made a cast of a person and are bringing it to the museum to be finished up. Much of the artifacts and items have been removed from the city itself and put into a museum in Naples. We had time to visit the museum after our excursion except the museum isn't open on Tuesdays for whatever reason. Guess which day we were there? Yup. Tuesday. Bummer for us.

They didn't take EVERYTHING out of the city though. There's still lots of interesting things left behind. There's lots of clay pots that have been recovered. There's other casts as well.

Look up any book or article on Pompeii and you'll see this little boy.

You'll also see this grown up and the dog below.

Centurion/Gladiator photo op.

Brazilian tourist that Rick had fun speaking Portuguese with and talking soccer and other stuff.

At port we were admiring some of the other ships. This one looked EXTREMELY familiar. It looked JUST like the ship we went on for our honeymoon in the Bahamas.

Some further research later revealed that this IS, in fact, THE SAME SHIP we were on ten years ago! It's been sold to a smaller company and rechristened as just Sovereign and relocated, but it's the same one!