February Cruise Adventures

Our ship, the Norwegian Jade.

 

  We got to Rome a day early and went to Trevi fountain, the Spanish Steps, and the coliseum.

Throwing my coins into Trevi Fountain!  I really want to go back to Rome.  :)

At the bottom of the Spanish Steps.

The coliseum at night.

 

We stayed at the Hotel Barocco, which was very nice and located on a busy piazza. There were fresh flowers on our bed and a lovely fruit basket awaiting us.  There was a great little restaurant across from the hotel, Enoteca Barberini Ristorante Wine Bar, where we ate the best gnocchi we have ever had with a good bottle of Prosecco!  The next morning the hotel served one of the best breakfasts we have ever had (included in the price). 

We took the train to the port the next day, got our luggage checked in, got our photos taken, set up our onboard account and were ready to board the ship when............the in-take manager comes over to us and tells us that Greece will not accept our official passports because we needed a Schengen visa (which we didn't have).  She said that unless we have our regular tourist passports, which Greece would accept without the visa in it, we could not board the ship.  Keep in mind that we entered Italy (which is a Schengen visa country) with our official passport with no issues.  We did not have our regular passports because our visas to enter Turkey and our visas to return to Algeria were in our official passports (lesson learned...travel with both sets of passports!).

Kirk is so mad I think his head is going to spin around, I am trying to keep him from choking someone and figure out what we are going to do.  They had to pull our luggage off the ship.  We schlepped our suitcases back to the train station to catch the train back to Rome.  I called our embassy and got in touch with someone at the US embassy in Rome.  We went back to the Hotel Barocco, which unfortunately was booked for the night.  They called several other hotels in the area and finally on the third call found one for us.  It was just around the corner and they were kind enough to help us get our bags over there.  We got online and booked one way flights to Athens to catch the ship 3 days after we were supposed to originally board.

We had to get emergency tourist passports (at $110 each) the next morning at the embassy.    While we were there, we met another young couple, Brandon & Christina, who were having the same passport issues.  He is active duty military and was traveling on his red official passport and Norwegian wouldn't accept that either.  We bonded over the passport adventure and decided to team up.  This was Valentine's Day, by the way, which we were supposed to be enjoying on board the ship.  We had a reservation at the French restaurant on board the ship and we were supposed to enjoy a bottle of wine and a special cake in our stateroom.....all of which we missed!  We instead were on our own little version of "The Amazing Race", trying to catch the ship in Athens!  LOL

We all got our passports and went back to our hotel so Brandon & Christina could get online and book flights to Athens.  We also had to book 2 nights in a hotel in Athens while we waited for the ship to arrive in port.  We ate our Valentine's lunch at the Hard Rock Café, which is across from the embassy in Rome and then jumped on the train, schlepping all our luggage, to the airport.

Hard Rock Roma

We had 2 days in Athens so we did some sight seeing and made the best of it. We toured the Acropolis, Zeus' temple and used the Hop On/Hop Off bus to see as much of the city as we could.

Parthenon

 

Temple of Zeus

We did a lot of walking around Athens and found a small Greek restaurant off the beaten path where we had some authentic Greek food.  I had a lamb gyro which was excellent.  Kirk had mousaka (similar to shepherd's pie).  At the end of the meal, our server brought us complimentary shots of Ouzo.  I am not a big Ouzo fan (it tastes like black licorice) but we didn't want to be rude so we shouted out "Opa" and drank the Ouzo!  On Saturday morning, we schlepped all our bags one more time onto the Metro, which took us to the port of Piraeus, where we FINALLY boarded the ship!

Christina and I at the Hard Rock Café in Athens.

Once we boarded the ship, I had to rearrange our dinner reservations at the specialty restaurants, which thankfully they did with no issues.  I was so glad to just get on board, unpack and relax.  We enjoyed all the shows, the game shows in the lounge, the art auctions and lots of good food & drink.   Brandon and Christina hung out with us "old folks"!  In fact, several times, people assumed they were our kids! 

We docked in Izmir Turkey, where we visited Ephesus and the House of the Virgin Mary.  It was amazing to see this biblical, historical city still quite in tact. 

House of the Virgin Mary, where Mary lived with St. John after the death and resurrection of Jesus. John preached in this region of Turkey.

 

Part of the city of Ephesus...the book of Ephesians in the bible was written by St. Paul to the people who lived here.  It was really amazing to think Paul and John and other prominent biblical characters walked these same cobble stone streets.

 

 

After Izmir, we docked in Istanbul where we spent 2 days.  We saw the Blue Mosque, the Sofia Haggia and visited the Grand Bazaar.  The Grand Bazaar is HUGE.  It is like a giant labyrinth, very easy to get lost.  We were overwhelmed by the sights, smells and experiences.  Kirk bought some shirts and I bought 3 beautiful pashminas. 

The Blue Mosque

 

The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul.

 

I have to be honest that I wasn't as impressed with Istanbul as I was expecting.  I think it is because it seemed very similar to Algiers and we were on vacation to get away from Algiers!  There were so many mosques, shwarma restaurants, hooka bars that I thought I was still in North Africa.  We kept hearing the calls to prayer and just felt like it was more of the same as Algiers.

As we were walking back to the port, we saw this motorcycle accident.  The truck stopped at the red light, the motorcycle did not.  Thankfully, both people on the bike were safe and they managed to get the bike out from under the truck without too much effort.

 

The Asian side of Istanbul. 

The city is separated by the Bosphore River: one side is in Europe, the other is in Asia.

 

The view of the Port at Naples from our balcony.

 

Our next port was Naples, Italy where we spent the day exploring the ancient city of Pompeii.  I can't explain how amazing this place is.  We could have spent days there.  It is so well preserved and you could almost sense the people who lived and died there.  There were actually bodies that you could see that were preserved by the lava from Mt. Vesuvius.  It was raining this day but we endured the rain and enjoyed our exploration.

One of the murals uncovered at Pompeii.

 

Mosaic tile floor at Pompeii.

 

Pompeii

 

Pompeii

 

 

We walked around Naples after exploring Pompeii and found a pizzeria on a side street which served one of the best pizzas I have ever had!  Naples is the birthplace of the pizza. YUMMO!

We docked in Rome on Saturday morning and didn't have a flight out until 10pm.  We left our bags at the Hotel Barocco (they graciously put them in storage for us) and we walked around the city.  It was pouring rain and cold.  We went to see the Vatican (just the outside in St. Peter's Square...the line to go into the basilica was 4-1/2 hours long). 

St. Peter's Square, Vatican

 

Another view from St. Peter's Square, Vatican

 

We arrived home to Algiers at midnight.  We went to work the next day and by lunch time, I was feeling really awful.  I caught some nasty virus and ended up staying home sick all week.   I was in bed the first two days with fever, headache and couldn't eat anything.  The good thing about it is I lost 7 lbs while I couldn't eat!  I only gained 5 on the cruise!  Not a healthy way to lose my cruise weight but it worked.  LOL

Time to start planning our next R&R, another cruise perhaps to the Greek Islands?!   Only if we bring both sets of passports!  LOL