Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Three Hours of Pain for 15 Minutes of WOW



 
I love fireworks.  I don’t know what it is, but I look forward to every New Years and 4th of July.  Last year, when we were at a “People of Walmart” New Years Eve party and we watched the London fireworks on the BBC and all I could say, “I have to see that show in person next year.”  So as the New Year approached, we decided that we had to find a place to stay so we could really enjoy all the New Year celebrations in downtown London. 
Our "People of Walmart" costumes
 So on New Year’s Eve morning we boarded the train in Ely bound for London.  We expected the city to be crazy with people gearing up for that evening’s parties.  We checked into our hotel and ventured out into the streets looking for something to fill our time.  We didn’t have too many plans since we had an early dinner reservation at a local Italian restaurant so we could be on at Westminster Bridge early in hopes to beat the crowds.  We did some shopping and ended up at Whole Foods for a quick lunch.  We spent a considerable amount of time there.  We pulled up chairs to their wine bar for wine and cheese tasting until we had to head to dinner.  Whoever thought we could have such a great time at a grocery store!
 The Crowds on Westminster Bridge
Dinner was good but nothing to rave about.  The staff was anxious for us to leave so they could close up and head to their own New Year celebrations.  Our plan was to be in the Westminster area around 8pm.  I had read that it starts getting busy around that time, and if you weren’t there by 10pm you would not find a place near the water with a good view.  As we walked out of the tube station, it was literally a sea of people. We were surrounded by hundreds of thousands of people.  We went with the flow and finally ended up by the statue located on the west end of the bridge.  We claimed our small piece of concrete and battled the crowds to hold our position.  I looked at Big Ben as we stop and realized we had over three hours to wait!  I’m glad Andrea loves me because I’m not sure she would have agreed to stand (with nowhere to sit in sight) for three hours for about 15 minutes of entertainment.  The crowd provided great entertainment for our wait.  Some drunk guys decided to climb the statue, eventually the police had them come down, it rained off and on where we shared umbrellas with a couple from Spain and another group of four guys from another country I couldn’t figure out, and the shear drunken mass of humanity that was flowing all around us.  The mood of the crowd was amazing!  People were happy and just having a great time.  The three hours went by quickly.
 Drunk Guys on Statue
As midnight approached, Andrea and I both agreed that we would never do this again.  Our feet hurt, our backs ached, and we didn’t get to enjoy any of the beverages we brought because a trip to the port-o-potty would have meant an easy hour trip to cover 100 yards and possibly get swept away by the sea of partiers to never return.  It was easier to hold it and limit our intake of fluids.  It was surreal to hear the iconic “bong” of Big Ben at midnight as the sky above the Thames erupted in fire and sparks and London Eye illuminated with colors and fireworks flying off it from all directions.  It was the first time they have launched fireworks from Big Ben, and the clock exploded with a ring of color with every bong as it rung in the New Years.  After the impressive 10-15 minute display, all we could say is that we were glad it braved the crowds and made it down, what an amazing night!
The next morning we woke up and made our way down to the parade route.  We expect great things from the parade.  If you remember from our St. Patrick’s Day experience in Dublin, European parades are unique and interesting compared to parades in the US and we expected the same in London.  What a boring parade!  It was about 65-70% American performers, bands, and cheerleaders.  Almost everything else was a float pulled by a lorry (Brit for semi-truck).  Andrea’s favorite display was the Pony club.  We only made it through about half of the parade before we were tired of it.  We spent the rest of the day doing a little shopping but spent a considerable amount of time hanging out in a pub because as soon as we left the parade route, the rain started falling hard.  Overall we had a fantastic time.  We complained and moaned about standing for three hours, but as soon as the fireworks started we quickly forgot about it and really enjoyed ourselves.  
Andrea's Favorite
Another Interesting Group
Feel free to post comments!  We love to hear what you think of our adventures.

Monday, January 2, 2012

Sorry!


I admit it, I’m a bad blogger and I owe you all an apology.  I’m Sorry!  It has been since September 2010, and I last posted and that was for a trip we took in May.  Needless to say I’m a little behind. 

This last year has been a whirlwind for us.  Work was a nightmare!  My squadron was actively involved with the conflict in Libya.  I had the rare opportunity to be part of the team to build-up and establish a new deployed location where we did a majority of our flying in support of Libya.  I deployed there two separate times.  I changed position within our group and became an evaluator pilot.  On top of that, I pushed hard and completed my Masters in Business Administration. 

If you can believe it, Andrea has been just as, if not more busy than me.  This last year she was asked to be the President of a philanthropic association on our base where they do different fundraisers throughout the year to provide scholarships and fill other charitable needs in the local community.  The group also holds monthly socials as well as multiple smaller groups like book clubs.  This is pretty much a full time job for her, but that isn’t all she does.  She is also what is called a “Key Spouse” for my flying squadron.  She is trained to be an advocate for other spouses and to be a conduit of information for the families.  With a majority of the squadron deployed, she was extremely busy helping to keep the flow of information moving. 

Even with all our commitments and duties, we still tried to take advantage of any bit of free time we had.  Since my last blog post, we have traveled all over Europe and the UK.  We took a ski trip to Zermatt Switzerland, went hiking in Wales, did wine tasting in France, strolled the canals of Amsterdam, ate chocolate in Belgium, stood in awe of the Beaches of Normandy, sun bathed in Spain, walked the walls of countless medieval cities, and explored more castles than I even knew existed.   Hopefully I will be a better blogger in the New Year and go back and upload pictures and recap you all on some of the amazing trips and experiences we’ve had in the past 18 months.

Please enjoy my most recent post about our epic journey through Bavaria and our ambitious attempt to visit a ridiculous amount of different Christmas Markets on an eight day road trip.  Enjoy and have an amazing New Year!

I'm Schnitzeled Out!

Christmas is an amazing time to be in Europe.  Everywhere you go is decorated, every town has a festival or themed market, and you get a real genuine Christmas feeling as you stroll the towns or shop the markets.  Germany is especially festive this time of year.  They are known for their Christmas Markets and this year Andrea and I decided to take a road trip the week before Christmas and try to hit as many as we could. 


A German Christmas Market is a unique experience; they fill a town square or along a side street with wooden stalls.  You find a variety of gifts, goods, ornaments, crafts, decorations, clothing and other knickknacks for sale, as well as food, dessert and drink stalls.  Sometimes you will find large beer tents or gardens.  Since neither of us are big shoppers and don’t care for many knickknacks, so we tend to gravitate towards the food and drink stalls.  The standard Christmas Market fare is a lot of sausages, chip (fries), meat on a stick and other food that is easy to eat by hand.  In the drink stalls you will find coffee, hot chocolate, beer, specialty drinks and Gluhwein or as the Brits call it mulled wine.  Gluhwein seems to fuel the markets because about every 3rd stall sells or specializes in it, and everybody is drinking it.  It is a spiced wine, usually red, but not always, that is served warm sometimes with an extra shot of brandy or rum.  It is really delicious and believe me, we had our fare share!  One interesting thing is that usually each market has their own mug that they use to serve the wine.  They charge a deposit on your first cup and when you leave you turn it back in.  If you like the mug, you can keep it for a nice souvenir.   


Our Collection of Gluhwein Mugs

Our initial trip planning was very optimistic, we had a list of about eight cities we wanted to hit and multiple stops in between.  After we put it down on paper, we realized we were overshooting a bit and nailed down five cities.  Our itinerary was Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Munich, Salzburg (Austria), Nuremburg and Aachen.  We planned short stops in Brussels to spend the night only and Ramstein to visit our friends Kyle and Kristina as well.  It was a pretty ambitious trip with a lot of driving but we were ready for it.

The Route




Our trip started on Thursday the 15th. Our original plan was to leave the area after I finished work, and try to catch a late ferry to Dunkirk where we would spend the night. Luckily I was able to leave a bit early, had phenomenal traffic and road conditions, and as a result we were able to catch a very early ferry. This allowed us to press on and make it all the way to Brussels, Belgium. We literally only spent the night at a hotel just off the freeway and hit the road running in the morning. We wanted to get to Rothenburg early because we had heard that it was a very cute, quintessential German market town with some good shopping. We were on the road early for the 5 ½ hr drive and we pulled into town around 2pm. Rothenburg is a medieval town that has a wall surrounding the outer perimeter of the city. The inner part is mostly a pedestrian zone with no cars and is filled with shops, cafes, old building, houses, and of course the Christmas Market. We spent the afternoon looking through some of the shops, pursuing the market and having some Gluhwein. For those of you from the North West, it felt like the city Leavenworth was modeled after. Most shops were filled with Christmas decorations, nutcrackers, Christmas pyramids, and glockenspiels. As we were making our way to dinner, it started to snow and it really began to feel like Christmas. We had a fantastic dinner of schnitzel and fun conversation with the owner of the restaurant. As we left the restaurant, the weather had turned worse and most of the market stalls had closed up for the night, so we enjoyed another mug of Gluhwein and decided to make our way back to the hotel.

Wine Tasting in Rothenburg


On the way back we ran into a wine bar recommended by Rick Steves.  We decided to go in, get out of the snow awhile, and do a tasting of German wine.  Neither of us really prefers German wine, but our selections were pretty good.  The next day we were up early to try to get a little more local shopping in before we had to leave for our next destination.  We were told that if we wanted to do some shopping this was the town to do it in.  Buy our things here and then spend the rest of the time just browsing and enjoying the markets.  In Europe there is a famous Christmas store called Kath Wohlfahrt that specializes in decorations, especially nutcrackers and other traditional German Christmas decorations, that is based out of Rothenburg. We wanted to find a Christmas pyramid and nutcracker and couldn’t think of a better place to find them. Well we found that there were about seven different Kath Wohlfahrt stores and we weren’t without a lot of choices. After we made our purchases we had a lunch of sausages, German thin crust pizza, and a potato dish that is like a hashbrown and made our way towards Munich.

One of Munich's Many Christmas Markets


Munich is about a 3 ½ hr drive from Rothenburg, and it was actively snowing the whole way. One of my favorite things about driving in Germany is that most sections of their freeways (better known as the autobahn) are unregulated for speed. You will routinely find people cruising in excess of 100 mph and it isn’t a big deal. It is very nerve-racking when visibility is down, snowing, and people are passing you or coming up on your bumper at those speeds. Regardless, we made it to Munich safe and in pretty good time. We decided to stay in a hotel on the outskirts of the city because they have an emission control zone in the inner-city, and we didn’t want to take the extra time to get our vehicle inspected. Luckily we found a nice hotel about 20 yards from a subway stop. We were less than a 10 minutes ride from the Marienplatz, Munich’s central square. The subway was very convenient since we were spending 3 nights in Munich and had Markets mapped out all over the city.


Selection of German Pasta at the International Festival

We started our first day by hitting the Marienplatz.  As we walked out of the subway, we were surrounded by hundreds of stalls and a ton of people.  Our first stop was for Gluhwein of course!  We found something interesting about the Munich markets; each stall had their own unique mug, if not multiple mugs.  I chose the boot looking mug and continued on to browse the Market.  This was by far the biggest market we had been in, and it was a little overwhelming.  We shared a sausage for lunch and set out to explore more of the town.  Online, it said that Munich has more than 20 different Christmas Markets and I believe them.  As we walked through the town, it seemed like on almost every other block there was another Market, each with their own theme, food and Gluhwein stands.  We found a Pink themed market in the gay district, a medieval market, a market that specialized in nativity scene figures and our favorite an international winter festival.  The international festival had all sorts of food, drinks and interesting stalls.

Beers at Hofbrauhause 

The two days in Munich went by in a blur. We hit about seven different market places, ate all different kinds of food, and looked at more stalls then I care to remember. We spent a few hours at the Hofbrauhause listening to oompah music and enjoying a liter of beer, walked through their version of central garden, which had a Christmas Market in the center, and did some shopping. We tried a new dessert, where they take strips of dough, roll it over a rolling pin looking thing and bake it. After it comes out, they cover it in melted butter and sprinkle cinnamon and sugar all over it. It you wait a minute, the sugar melts, hardens and becomes crunchy…delicious! Overall Munich was amazing! The snow was falling in big flakes, people were in a festive mood and we had a blast.

Salzburg Market


On our third day in Munich we took the train into Salzburg, Austria. It was about a 2 hr train ride and a few minute walk into the town. Salzburg is only a few miles into Austria, so it feels a lot like Germany. They had a very nice market. Their stalls had the nicest quality Christmas decorations, but their food was lacking. We shared a pretzel, toured the fortress on the top of the hill, and had a pretty good lunch of goulash and schnitzel. We spent a little time in an Austrian beer hall to warm up and get out of the snow, and toured around the city. The city is very picturesque. The Sound of Music was based in the area around Salzburg. We ended the day with a meal of fantastic Austrian food and took the train back to Munich. We pulled into the Munich train station around 9pm and made the decision to go back to the international winter festival. The day earlier we had seen people drinking drinks that were on fire, needless to say we were intrigued and wanted one. How could we leave Munich and not say we had the “flaming drink” as we called it. The drink is basically Gluhwein with a strong liquor pour on top, lit on fire. They also put a sugar cube type thing on the rim of the glass and soak it in the booze and light it on fire as well. It was really cool to stand there in the snow, with a flaming mug of Gluhwein in the middle of Munich. A perfect evening.

Salzburg Fortess

The next day we checked out of our hotel and made proceeded towards Nuremburg. On the way we stopped off at the Dachau concentration camp. Dachau was a very interesting and humbling experience. It is just amazing to imagine the thousands of people held there, and their dire living situations. It is an amazing experience I would recommend anybody to see.


Merry Christmas!

Our next stop on our whirlwind tour was Nuremburg. Nuremburg is another medieval town that had market stalls in their main square and all through the main part of the city. We quickly checked into our hotel and went out to explore the city. Our first stop was to try the famous Nuremburg sausages. These things are everywhere. They are like your traditional bratwurst, except small (about the size of a Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage) and usually come three to a bun. They were really good, but after so much German and market food, this was going to be our last sausage for a while. We walked around for a while and decided we were about “marketed” out for a while so we decided to proceed back to the hotel to rest our feet and relax before we had dinner. On the way to the hotel we founds a local brewery and decided to pop in for a pint. Boy am I glad we stop here, the beer was phenomenal! I start with just a glass of their seasonal Christmas brew but then saw that they offered sampler trays so I had to order one. The sampler consisted of a lager, dunkel, amber, weisbeer and to top it off a small glass of their apple brandy. All the beers were good, but the brandy I could do without.


Beer Tasting

After leaving the brewery, we decided it was time for dinner. We were on a mission to find something other than German or market food. We had seen a Mexican restaurant earlier in the day and decided to give it a go. Dinner tasted great and was exactly what we needed. We finished out the night, exploring a little more of the town enjoying the lightly falling snow. Little did we know that you shouldn’t eat Mexican food in Germany! We were woken up by a surprise late evening, both Andrea and I were sicker than dogs! I couldn’t believe it, we both had food poisoning. Nothing is worse than being in a hotel and sick. We asked for a late checkout and decided to forego the decision to walk the town in the morning and stayed in bed until we had to leave.

Luckily our next destination was Ramstein to visit with our friends Kyle and Kristina. We rolled into Ramstein around 4pm and pretty much plopped ourselves down on their couch and didn’t really move much. We felt horrible that we were being such party poopers and not fun house guests but it gave us a lot of time to chat and catch up. After an amazing night’s sleep, we started to feel human again and went onto base with Kristina to do some shopping on base. Ramstein is huge, and has amazing facilities, restaurants, and shopping compared to Mildenhall so we wanted to take advantage. After a tasty soup lunch from Macaroni Grill we were on our way to our final stop on the trip.



Aachen At Night



Aachen is another German town known for their market; mostly because it is the closest to England and gets a lot of international travelers. The Market is spread throughout their entire downtown area, concentrated around the base of their cathedral. We debated if we should even go in to the market or just curl up in bed. As the day progressed, we were starting to feel the effects of our German Mexican food and had no desire to walk the streets and smell sausages and gluhwein. We decided to suck it up and proceeded into the market square. What a cool Market! The layout was very cool, the market stalls were unique and beside the International festival, had the best looking food. Unfortunately all we could eat were french fries and a small thing of vegetarian noodles. We stayed out as long as we could and made our way back to the hotel. Another early night, but a great night a sleep and we woke up feeling a lot better. We had breakfast in the hotel and ventured out to find the Chocolate Company we had seen the night before to have coffee and load up on the hot chocolate spoons that Andrea loves for making hot chocolate at home.

As we sat enjoying our coffee, we decided it was time to pack it in and head home. Germany had done us in and we were ready to get home. I was a little sad as we left Germany and said goodbye to the autobahn. Traffic was light and the roads were clear. As we neared the ferry terminal we started to get excited because it looked that we might have the chance to catch an earlier ferry than we planned. As we pulled up to the ticket window we saw the ferry pulling out so we had to wait. Either way it gave us time to read a little and to talk about our trip. Overall we both agreed it was a great trip. The food poisoning tried its best to take us out, but we still were able to see everything we wanted to and got to enjoy all the markets on our list. Germany really help get us in the Christmas spirit which is good because we were only going to have Christmas eve to get ready for our Christmas. We had to wrap all our presents which arrived in the mail while we were gone, shop for our Christmas day dinner party, finish decorating, and recover from that dang Mexican food. We made it though and had an amazing Christmas and enjoyed a fantastic meal and evening with friends. We are really lucky to be stationed here in England and be able to take advantage of all the opportunities that so near. We hope you all had a great Christmas and have an amazing New Year.
Our Purchases from Rothenburg





Sunday, September 26, 2010

And Then We Got Gelato

The Norwegian Gem

Andrea and I celebrated our first year anniversary and we wanted to do it in style. We decided instead of getting each other gifts we would book a cruise to Greece. With the challenges of my job we weren’t able to go on the actual date, but we were able to go a couple of weeks later. We are glad we did! Since we went in June, the weather was perfect. The temps really didn’t reach much higher than mid 80’s and since we walked all over the place we didn’t get too hot or exhausted from being out in the sun all day. The cruise started in Venice then traveled to five ports of call; Split Croatia, Corfu, Santorini, Mykonos, and Iraklion. The benefit of the itinerary we chose was that there was only one full day at sea. We liked this because we figured it gave us the most bang for our buck and visited the most cities for our week long vacation. 
Andrea at Rialto Bridge

We followed Andrea’s tradition of booking extremely early travel, and got up at an ungodly hour of 3am to drive to the airport. Luckily Stansted airport is less than an hour away, but anything at 3am is brutal. But by 7am we were off on another adventure! First stop Venice. We had planned to arrive a day early to enjoy the city and get rested for the cruise. We booked a hotel close to the ferry terminal, but still close enough to city center to walk. Since we arrived early we dropped our bags with the front desk and went out to explore the city. This was my first trip to Venice, and I loved it. The Canals, historic buildings, and architecture, everything was amazing. Our first stop for the day was St. Mark’s Square followed by Rialto Bridge. Those were the only must sees and we spent the rest of the day touring around. Andrea was very excited to find the same place that she had found on her last visit that served drinking chocolate, basically a very thick, delicious hot chocolate drink. Since it was pretty hot out we enjoyed the air-conditioning while we drank our drinking chocolate. I was really excited to find a good pizza by the slice place for lunch. For dinner we ate at a restaurant that had a patio right on the canal, and enjoyed our wine and pasta. We were having such a great time we decided to go for a walk and find gelato (Italian ice cream) before turning in. Our short walk turned into something else. We missed the bridge crossing the canal that we needed to take to get back to our hotel and ended up having to loop all the way around the city to get back! I’m not saying we were lost, but we definitely took the long way home. We got to see so much of the city and had some ideas of places we wanted to return to if we had time before we headed back home. There are not any motor vehicles within the city of Venice, so everybody moves by foot or boat. That means all the taxis and busses are boats kind of weird to us, but added to the charm of the city.
Waiting to Board

The next day we got up refreshed after our long day before and got a breakfast of delicious baked goods and some very tasty coffee. We grabbed our things and proceeded to the cruise ship. Luckily our hotel staff told us about a new tram that runs from the bus station to the docks. Most people were arriving by, water taxi, or bus. I think the average price was 50 Euro while our tram cost us about two Euros a person. We dropped off our bags and went to the check-in area. We had to wait to board the ship, and even once on the ship we had to wait a couple of hours to gain access to our room and our luggage. After our number was called and we were allowed to get on the boat and we climbed on board ready for fun. Since we had to wait for our room we bellied up to the bar in the main lounge. We couldn’t resist the temptation of our traditional “celebratory” drink, mimosas made with cranberry juice. We enjoyed our drinks and took in the main lounge of the boat. The decoration was amazing! There were vibrant colors and interesting pieces of art everywhere.
The Traditional Canberry Mimosa

After finishing off our drinks we decided to take advantage of the downtime and explore the ship. The ship was huge! There were about nine different bars and lounges, seven restaurants, and a lot of other rooms for activities. To name a few activities: there was bowling, movies, a theater, gym, pool, outdoor running track, climbing wall, tennis courts, spa, shopping and a casino. I started to get a little disappointed that we only had one day at sea, because there was so much to enjoy on the boat and we weren’t going to have too much time to do it all.
Waterfall at Krka Nation Forest

Our first port of call was Split, Croatia. Andrea and I had no clue about this city. Luckily Andrea’s friend Ava had been there before and gave us some good tips on what to see. Based off her recommendation we decided to book an excursion to the Krka National Park. The park is known for their waterfalls and beauty. We were ready for a long day of hiking. When we arrived we took off to hike the whole trail around the falls. We were told to plan for at least an hour and a half and that it is kind of hard. What a joke! We finished in about 30 minutes and ended up going around it twice. The hike was very easy, but the scenery was extremely beautiful. We took a lot of pictures and enjoyed getting out and being in the sun. After the bus ride back to the city, we had a little time to explore. The city was really cool. The marina area had a lot of neat little cafes and bars. We explored around a little, found some gelato, and returned to the boat for the evening.

Fortress in Corfu

The next day the boat pulled into the city of Corfu, Greece. Corfu is a town of two fortresses. We left the ship thinking that we would walk into the city and if we got too tired we would taxi it back. As we walked in, we passed the first fortress. We followed some signs thinking we would be able to tour the site. Unfortunately, a building complex that is hundreds of years old is still being used as an active naval base. As we explored further into the city we were engulfed by the town market. The city was pretty large and had stores everywhere. We poked around a lot of them but didn’t buy anything until I found gelato! Eventually the market area ended and we came upon the other fortress. This one we could tour. We went in, explored the buildings of the citadel and castle and finally decided that it was time for our late lunch. We passed a lot of places that had our mouths watering from the smell of garlic, onions, and roasted meats. We decided on a place with seating next to the park. I ordered a veal dish with a garlic sauce and Andrea had a pork gyro. The food was outstanding as well was the bottle of local wine. We ended the day by wandering back through the shops and getting more gelato. We eventually made it back to the boat, hot, tired, and ready for a dip in the pool before attending our much anticipated martini tasting.
Santorini


The next evening we pulled in to Santorini. Since we didn’t arrive until the evening we got the day to enjoy the pool and the facilities of the boat. Santorini is an amazing city. It is what you think of when you hear Greece. White washed buildings on the cliff side with colorful roofs and doors. When you arrive by boat, you have a couple of ways to get up on the cliff; climbing a steep path, ride a donkey, or cable car. We contemplated the donkey ride but decided that the cable car was the best decision. We had met a couple at our martini tasting the day prior and had talked about splitting a cab to a local winery. After getting to the top of the cliff we grabbed a cab and went to a winery for wine tasting. The wine was very good as well was the olives, cheeses, and breads we snacked on. The cab returned to take us to dinner. We had no idea where we wanted to go so I asked the driver to take us someplace good for seafood and to take some pictures. As he drove on, we got farther and farther away from the city and onto some very curvy, steep, and narrow streets. Finally we pulled into the most beautiful setting I’ve ever seen. He took us to a place with about five restaurants at the base of the cliff; looking west out over the water. We were all speechless! We grabbed a table for dinner and settled in to enjoy the sunset out over the ocean. The fish was extremely fresh and everything was delicious. It was a perfect evening. The taxi picked us back up and we had a little time to enjoy the town of Santorini. I searched unsuccessfully for gelato but had a lot of fun looking through the shops and enjoying the view as it got dark. That evening, after we were back on the boat, we talked with some people about what we did and the lady was extremely jealous. Apparently Sunset Taverna, the place we ate dinner, was on Samantha Brown’s show Passport to Europe on the Travel Channel. It was the only thing she wanted to see when in Greece and didn’t make it down there.
Paradise Beach

After a short sailing while we were asleep we moored in Mykonos. What a cool looking city. All the buildings are white washed with very narrow winding alleyways and streets. It was a very confusing city to walk around because the roads seemed to loop around every which way without any visible landmarks. Apparently it was designed this way to confuse pirates and make it hard for them to plunder the city. We arrived very early and most of the shops were closed. So we decided to grab a quick breakfast and then continue on our one and only objective for the day, the beach. We had heard great things about the Paradise Beach, and we wanted to spend a day relaxing on the sand and drinking tasty beverages. Unfortunately the weather did not want to cooperate. We battled the wind and the rain as we search for a local bus that would drive us across the island to the beach. We were not to be deterred by the weather and boarded our bus for the beach! We finally arrived at the beach and the weather was the exact opposite of what it was on the other side of the island. The sun was out and it was beautiful. We walked into the walled off beach and we laughed at some of the paintings on the wall. The paintings were of nude people walking along the beach. Apparently on this beach you can go full nude if you choose. As we stepped on the beach we were greeted by a 50ish year old, overweight man frolicking around the beach in nothing other than what he was born in. Awesome! We were in for a spectacle. We walked farther down the beach to an area of bars and restaurants that had beach chairs for rent. We grabbed some chairs and took a sigh of relief because apparently the “free spirits” tended to hangout (and I mean hangout) at the far end of the beach. We had a great day enjoying the sun, some tasty beverages, and just relaxing. We finally packed up our gear and headed back into town to find a late lunch. We walked the streets a little looking for some gyros. The smell of garlic and onions filled our nostrils and we knew we found our spot. We both had amazing chicken gyros with chips and salad. We browsed the shops a little, I had gelato, and Andrea had a crepe, met the local pelican Petros, and finally made our way back to the ship.
Iraklion Marina

By this point we were pretty exhausted and ready for a little break. We had one more city to visit and then we had our day at sea. The final city was Iraklion. The boat pulled into port very early. We only had a half day, and we wanted to take advantage of it. We left the ship as early as we could, ready to venture out and find some local culture. As we started walking through the town we noticed most things were closed, since it was so early. We figured if we walked along the ocean front, we would eventually find something. Well, we kind of found something, but it was basically a local mall. We got Starbucks, pulled out the map and tried to decide on a plan of attack. We saw a monument that looked promising and was kind of close to us so we decided to head that way. We were kind of in the bad part of town so we had to dodge traffic, animals, and a lot of rough looking people as we made our way to the monument. Not the scenic tour of the city we were looking for. Finally, we made it to the monument! It consisted of two grave stones, not well kept, for a famous writer that died in 1957 and his wife that died in 2004. What a waste of time! We were basically done at that point and were ready to write off Iraklion. Fortunately, we decided to take a different route back and what a difference. We ended up walking to the local market area and had a great time going through the shops. We found some gelato, fresh baklava, and really enjoyed ourselves doing some people watching, seeing what the local merchants had to offer, and exploring a fortress out on the seawall. We had to make it an early day since the boat was leave just after noon. We ventured back preparing for our day at sea.
Achellies (yes I named him), He Followed Us Around Iraklion

Overall we loved our experience on the boat. We had an estate room with a balcony that looked out over the ocean. We loved to sit out there, read, and enjoy the fresh morning air after waking up. The room we pretty small but it had everything we needed. A very comfortable bed, a small seating area, and a full bathroom that was bigger than we expected. We didn’t spend much time in our room because there was always so much to do on board.
Our Estate Room

As I mentioned earlier, probably our favorite thing on board was the martini tastings. Finding interesting martinis and cocktails is pretty hard in the UK and we really wanted to take advantage of our time on board to enjoy some tasty drinks while we had the opportunity. Luckily the cruise offered a couple different martini tastings where one of their master bartenders mixed four different types of martinis for us to try. We got smaller portion of the drinks than you would have if you had ordered it from the bar, but it was still enough to make it worth our money. It was pretty interesting because each day it was a different theme and we got to try a large variety of drinks while learning the history of each drink. Besides the excellent martinis we created a martini club with some of the other couples we met during the first event. It was a lot of fun! There was only supposed to be three tasting during the cruise, but we were able to convenience our favorite bartender, Lindsey, to do a fourth. After tasting 16 different martinis and learning how to make them, Andrea and I are ready to mix up some tasty concoctions when you all come and visit.
The Pool Deck

Another favorite of ours was the pool. The boat had a huge pool deck with two different pools, a few water slides, four Jacuzzis, multiple bars, a buffet and tapas station, and poolside blackjack! We tried to spend as much of our free time out by the pool as we could. It was a lot of fun! They offered different activities all day as well as special lunches and dinners grilled on the pool deck. I realized that you had to be careful when ordering a drink from the bar. The night prior I had sangria with my meal. It was a large glass and it cost around $6 so I figured I would order it again. This time they brought out a Super Big Gulp sized pitcher full of Sangria. To my surprise, it was $30. I’m glad it was very tasty or I would have been upset about my expensive drink! Unfortunately we didn’t have as much time as we liked out by the pool, but there was so much more to do on the boat. 
Yummmmmm!

An interesting thing about the Norwegian Cruise Line was that they offered a lot of different options for food. There were the standard dining rooms and buffets that you find on other cruise ships, but they also had other places to eat for a small fee. We dined at the Mexican, Asian Fusion with Sushi, and the Japanese Steakhouse restaurants. These places offered a good alternative to the standard cruise fare and were a nice treat.
Enjoying an On Deck Party by the Pool

While on the boat we also took in a show in the theater. They had two performers from Cirque du Soleil that did a 45 minute performance that was really good. I spent a little time (and money) in the casino. Andrea took advantage of our day at sea and enjoyed a morning in the spa. She got a body wrap with a massage. She looked relaxed and radiant when she met me by the pool after her treatment. The boat also had an art gallery, bowling alley, Wii sports, and a ton of other things to do. We didn’t take it all in, but we tried.
Venice From the Boat

After our long day at sea, we woke up to us pulling into port in Venice. It was sad, to open the drapes and see the dock off our balcony. We knew our cruise was over! We packed up and headed off the ship and back into Venice. We booked a late flight so we could get one more day in Venice.
Glass Blowing

We dropped our bags off at a checked luggage place at the bus station and proceeded on our way. Our goal for the day was to go to Murano Island. Murano is famous for their glass blowing and we wanted to watch some glass objects being made. We walked through Venice, stopping for some gelato along the way and caught the water taxi to the island. We went into a couple of studios where they were actively blowing glass. How fascinating! To sit there and watch somebody take a glob of molten glass on the end of a long rod and turn it into an object like a horse or a vase is very impressive. Murano glass is known for the colors and a specific style, but it was interesting to browse through the different shops and see how each studio differs for the other. We bought a few souvenirs, enjoyed some lunch with some local wine and preceded back into Venice. I had one more thing I had to do before we left.
The Result

I needed to hit my favorite gelato place one more time. I couldn’t get enough of the cookies gelato and I wanted to enjoy it one last time before we headed home. With our stomachs full of tasty gelato, we headed back to the bus station to catch our bus back to the airport and for our two hour flight home.
Enjoying Gelato

We cannot wait to take another cruise! What a great way to explore a lot of different cities and areas. We aren’t sure where we will go next, but we are looking at a cruise that goes through the Baltic Sea and hits St Petersburg Russia, or a western Mediterranean cruise through Italy, the French Riviera, and Spain. Whatever we chose, we can’t wait to go.
Venetian Canal
From Rialto Bridge
Enjoying My Slice of Pizza
Krka National Forest
Andrea Really Liked the Frogs
Fortress in Corfu
Pork Gyro in Corfu
The Donkey Ride to Santorini
Wine Tasting
Our Beautiful View from Sunset Taverna
Look How Excited She is For Her Fish
Now This is What I Call Fresh
Sunset Taverna at Night
Petros The Pelican
Our Ship
Chicken Gyros in Mykonos
Mykonos
The Amazing Monument in Iraklion