After Venice we had a seven day cruise scheduled. Ports of call in Split, Croatia; Naples, Rome, Florence, Provence France and a final stop in Barcelona.

I've never cruised before so this was a new experience . My concerns about a jammed-packed-Norwalk Virus journey were largely unfounded. While the ship did feel crowded at times, it was not a huge problem. I did take every opportunity to use the Purrell lotion offered at multiple locations around the ship. For the most part it was a smooth voyage. There were two days when you had to hold onto the rails while walking around the ship. Not enough for any motion sickness to bother me.

In Split, Croatia we took a long hike up to the top of the hill overlooking the harbor. While there we visited a small zoo. Alice enjoyed visiting the llama and donkey. She has a thing for beasts of burden. Explains why she puts up with me, I'm often her beast of burden!

At the Naples stop we took a side trip to Pompeii and Sorrento by train. At the train station we meet Wendy and Mark from Berkley, Michigan. They were also cruising on the same ship. We spent part of that day with them and later met them for a drink on the ship . It's a small world when a quarter-way-around-the-world you run into people who live just 10 miles from your home location. We hope to see them again when we return to Detroit.

At the Rome stop we didn't take a side trip to Rome. Since we've already spent 4 day in Rome a few weeks before, and Rome was not one of my most favorite stops, we took an excursion offered by the ship to the Bracciano Lake Region for a wine-tasting.

We missed Florence because of rough seas. They ship could not dock and we moved on towards France. Provence France found us taking another ship sponsored trip to Aix-de-Provence a picturesque small city with a very-French like market. Nice town, cold day, there was snow in the air as the bus returned to the ship.

The last stop on the cruise was Barcelona, beautiful and vibrant Barcelona. More on this great city in my next blog post.

All-in-all the cruise experience was OK. The food on the ship was just OK. We expected that we were going to save a lot of money cruising Italy rather than driving or taking trains and buses and staying in apartment or hotels. In the end, we about broke even. Bottom line, Italy is expensive, no matter how you get around. Spain is a much better deal.....