Tuesday May 2nd sea day

Sea days are going by even quicker as we get close to the end of the trip.  People are starting to talk about packing and the next trip. Good bye dinners are on the way 

Monday May 1st Cartagena Spain

Sail into the port was very cool as there is a very tight corner to be made to get in the natural harbor.  The tour was a bus ride out to la Manga to see the beautiful coves, lighthouse and little beaches.

then back on the road to Cartagena to see the museum and old roman theater

A nice time roaming around after the tour with tapas and 🍺 

Sunday April 30 - Barcelona

We love Barcelona!  It is a city we have been in a couple of times and look forward to going back to.  We have seen many of the must do sites so we chose to spend the day with good friends doing the hop on hop off bus.  The bus tried to pull away with half the group until we started yelling and making a camotion from inside and they let us on to join Daryl, Susan, Carl and Christina.   

After the hoho bus we walked around got some tapas and the walked back through the gothic quarter.  

April 29 sat Sea day

The sea days go by so quickly with wildlife watch and exercise it is much needed to recover from the port day activities and do laundry 😭

Friday April 28 - Monaco

Late arrival in to Monaco around 10 am.   So we were able to get off to a slower start to the day.    The days tour was a bus ride over to Nice & Eze.  

Tour though the flower and veg Market then time on our own to get lunch 

Then off to Eze

Thursday April 27 - civitavecia

This is the port for Rome.  Having spent extended time here and having done the other tours in the area we decided to take it easy.

I went out and explored the town

There was a nice market area 

And a couple interesting churches

I walked about 5 miles 

Wednesday, April 26th- Naples

Today was a long tour. We took a bus ride down to Sorrento and then back to Pompeii from Naples.  The bus ride down into Sorrento was absolutely gorgeous along the coast traffic backed up quite a bit getting into the town but it was a beautiful drive.  Once we got into town we had a little tour of the area and then we had some free time before lunch.

 lunch was a typical restaurant style lunch for Viking. The lunch was very mediocre. The pasta was nice but the chicken they served was sort of nasty.

Followed up by a little lemon cake.

With all of the wonderful looking restaurants in the area it was rather disappointing.

After lunch we got back on the bus and drove over to Pompeii. We spent about 2 hours walking around Pompeii as our guide. Explained the history of the site and how the people actually died. 

The original fast food counter

Tuesday, April 25th - Messina

The tour today is to the ancient city of Tindari.  The bus ride over to the other side of Sicily was beautiful and we arrived on a bank holiday for the day of independence.    The was a festival at the church of the black Madonna.

The tour also included a stop at the ancient Roman era ruins containing some really nice mosaic floors in the baths.

There were a bunch of little shops selling candied nuts and marzipan.

Ride back to Messina and then a walk around before getting on the ship.  Due to the holiday most shops and restaurants were closed.  I missed the opening times of the basilica as well