Dream Vacation

** I interrupt this quilting blog for a travel post, quilting fun will resume as soon as possible**

I've finally finished working on my photos of my recent trip.  I don't pretend to be a great photo journalist, it's more like, Oh! I should take a photo of this.

I get really caught up in what I'm doing and seeing, but here are some high points of my trip.

We're here!  In Rome wait to go to the ship.

I must say again that the 4 year wait for this one was worth it!
The MS Noordam (we cruised on her 7 years ago in the Caribbean) is a lovely ship.  Our home away from home.

The first sea day they had a tour of the kitchen, one of my favorite things.  This is the Pasta kitchen - look at the size of those pots!

Fruit and vegetable carving - I love the photo food maps that are posted - everything is plated very beautifully.

Our first port; Dubrovnik, Croatia.  We loved it.

We had a wine tasting here after our bike ride at a private winery.

We took a 5 mile bike ride to this Monastery.  It was beautiful.

This is Ancient Olympia.
This cruise became knows as the "Hot Rocks Tour".

The original Olympic stadium - the original.  The kids and I ran it for fun.

Andrew Zorba Dances at lunch

Beautiful Santorini.  This a town called Oia.

It's hard to see, but this is the mule trail.  There are 3 ways to get up and down to the port; cable car (our choice), walking, or riding a mule.

Turkey!  I'm very excited to add Asia to my list of visited continents.  Turkey is beautiful.

We visited Mary's Chapel.  The Virgin Mary lived out her life here on a mountain top in this 3 room home.  The 2 most recent Popes' have visited it.

Ephesus was my favorite place.  The ruins (hot rocks) are incredible.  Cleopatra walked the same marble streets.  It was an incredible place.

My favorite; the library - remarkable!

You know you're not in Jersey when you see this guy...

 A pretty display at the dessert extravaganza.

The Parthanon on the Acropolis (hotest rocks of all)

This temple with the Caryatids is my favorite thing here.  Love those ladies.

Deck 3, Promenade deck was our meet up place in the late afternoon.

Hanna and I loved dressing for the formal nights.  Hooray, she got to wear her graduation dress again.  We look like salt and pepper shakers, lol.

This is a Clock Tower at the Cathedral in Messina, Italy.  It is the largest mechanical perpetual clock in the world - It shows, day, time, year - but also the constellations, the phases of the moon, the biblical year, etc.  It is incredible!

Thanks for visiting and taking the tour.

Whether you have been traveling or enjoy the summer at home, I hope it's been great.  Now I'm ready for fall, how about you?