Italy

Another day on the ocean and we arrived in Livorno to catch a bus to Pisa.  To be honest Pisa is pretty much just the tower, so don't make more than a day of it if you plan to visit Italy.   We spent two hours, which was more than enough to look at it from as many angles as you can imagine.

The next day we arrived in Civitavecchia, the port for Rome, no worries if you can't pronounce either can I.  This was the one port that we bought an excursion for and we're glad we did.  The drive from the port to Rome is over an hour.  We were dropped off at the Colosseum, where we met the guide who lead us to Trevi fountain.  After about 30 minutes of free time we went to a restaurant and had pasta.  Then we were driven back to the ship.

A couple more nights on the ship and we finally made it to Venice, also known as the on foot portion of our trip.  Cruise ships are an interesting way to travel, I enjoyed all of the included food and some of the entertainment was fun, but I like trains and planes more.   

This also started the only wearing heavy coats and freezing weather portion of our trip as well, which is evident in the snow on the roofs in the first picture from Venice.  We had a whole day to spend in Venice, because instead of booking a hotel we decided to take a night train to Vienna.  That might seem like a smart idea, but it isn't especially since the Venice train station is outside so it was freezing cold.  The bed's also tiny and not a very comfortable way to sleep.

Well enough of me, here's the pictures.

PISA

ROME

VENICE

Up Next Vienna and more snow.

Spain

I'm back in the United Stated and am finally getting toward the end of going through my pictures from Europe.  I've decided to finish them based on countries and will upload them in the order I visited each place.

First a little about our trip, as most of you know Nickie and I got to europe by boat so we were fortunate enough to port in Spain.  This was awesome because we weren't going to visit Spain if we had flown to Europe.

It took us nine days at sea to cross the Atlantic and we've never been so happy to see land and so sick of water.  The ocean is vast and beautiful with an emphasis on vast, while the beautiful part wears thin after about five days.  We stuffed ourselves with Garden burgers and pretty bad pizza during the day and ate pretty well later in the day when we dined in the formal dining room.  The on board entertainment was your garden variety off the strip style cheesy, but it was fun in a kitschy kind of way.

We finally docked in Malaga and got our first taste of Europe, which included a visit to a the Picasso Museum, he grew up in Malaga.  The exhibit was pretty thorough  running from his early years as a formal style painter to the point where he started to create his own style and well into his cubism years.

After the museum we walked around downtown Malaga and decided to hike up the fortified wall, which about half way up I kind of regretted until we got to the top and could see the entire city and into the bull fighting ring.  After 30 minutes of rest and picture taking we made our way back to the ship to relax and get ready for dinner, it was Valentine's Day and I figured I should smell nice at dinner for Nickie.

After another sea day we docked in Barcelona and explored La Ramblas, a cathedral and found a couple really cool punk and metal themed shops.  Then we heard a loud commotion a few blocks away and if there's one thing you do as a photographer it's go toward the loud noise.  What we happened upon was a large protest of the Spanish government entertaining the idea of decreasing funding for public education.  There were costumes and probably close to 1000 plus people out in the streets in a peaceful demonstration.

Well enough of my babbling on here is what you are here for anyways, the pictures.

MALAGA

BARCELONA

Coming Next Italy!