Western Mediterranean Cruise: Marseille, France

      Our seventh, and last full day on the cruise, was spent in Marseille, France. Marseille is the second largest city in France and one of the most visited. I didn't have much planned for us to do in Marseille. I wanted to at least see one church, buy some soap, and mostly walk around and explore the city. The weather couldn't have been more perfect. It was breezy and never felt too hot.

   Early morning picture before we reached Marseille.

Western Mediterranean Cruise: Day at Sea and Valencia, Spain

Our fifth day was spent at sea. We had breakfast delivered to our room and all enjoyed eating on the balcony. 

 Our breakfast.

Western Mediterranean Cruise: Valletta, Malta and Gozo

   Get ready for a ton of pictures because this was our favorite stop on the cruise! 

   We spent our fourth day of our cruise in beautiful Malta. Out of all the places Aaron and I have visited since living in Europe, it's tied with Santorini, Greece as one of our favorites. I was sad when we had to leave, but was so happy we got to see such a beautiful place. 

 We woke up to this beautiful sunrise.

Westerm Mediterranean Cruise: Palermo, Sicily

We woke up to a really pretty view of Sicily on our third morning. We have never been to Sicily, so we were excited to finally get off the ship after having a relaxing two days on it. 

 Checking out the city.

Western Mediterranean Cruise: Civitavecchia, Italy

    Our second day on the ship stopped in Civitavecchia. Civitavecchia is located about an hour away form Rome, and since we have already been there we made the decision to stay on the ship for the day. We wanted this cruise to be a little more relaxed than last summers, so this made for a great start.

 View from the ship.

Western Mediterranean Cruise: Embarkation From Genova, Italy

    On the morning of July 23 we left our apartment in La Spezia and drove an hour to Genova. I had planned for us to walk around downtown and see some of the sights, but it was raining when we arrived. So our second plan was to go to the aquarium. When we parked our car and were shuttled to the ship with all our luggage they told us we could check in early. We thought okay sure, let's get rid of our bags and then maybe we could go to the aquarium after. Well we didn't get our cruise card right away and were told we would get it when our room was ready at 1, so that threw our plan to visit the aquarium out the window. Since we were on the boat by 10:45, it was almost empty! We were able to walk around, eat lunch, and go swimming without hardly running into anybody.

 First peek at our home for the next 7 nights.

Eastern Mediterranean Cruise: Disembarkation In Venice

    Unfortunately it was time for our cruise to come to an end on Sunday June 28th. We had to be out of our room by 8, but weren't able to get off the ship until 10:20, so we stayed in our room until the last minute. We were able to see us port in Venice and get a few pictures.

Eastern Mediterranean Cruise: Kotor, Montenegro

    Our last place to visit before our cruise came to an end was Kotor, Montenegro. I did a little research on it before we left, but decided we would just explore on our own. There was no need to pay for another excursion and we had a wonderful time doing things at our own pace.

 We could see Kotor from our room early in the morning.

Eastern Mediterranean Cruise: Corfu, Greece

       I was so excited about today because it was going to be a beach day! Yay. We had only had one so far on the cruise, so another one was calling my name. We went to the excursion office and ended up getting tickets for one that included a couple hours at the beach and a couple hours in the city. It was perfect because we could do it all.

     We got ready and had a big breakfast in the buffet dining room. Then we came back to our room and waited to meet with our excursion group {which wasn't until 12:45}.

 He was writing and saying all his friends names.

Eastern Mediterranean Cruise: Piraeus {Athens}, Greece

    {Piraeus is where the port is located, but it's very close to Athens}

      We Aaron and I woke up early today because we had to meet with our excursion group at 8. Aaron was able to workout and get ready all in the time it took me to get ready and our bag packed for the day. Connor must have been exhausted because he was the first to go to sleep last night and the last to wake up this morning.

   All sprawled out.

Eastern Mediterranean Cruise: Santorini, Greece

{This, by far is going to be my favorite post because it was my favorite place to visit}

    Today was the day I was most excited about for our trip. When I would think of Greece, yes I would think about the important historical sites, but I couldn't wait to go to Santorini.  Those beautiful white buildings with blue domes where calling my name! 

     We had an excursion planned for today, so we had to make sure to be up in time to meet with our group at 8am. As I was getting ready, I started to see the island with a church on top. We were arriving and Santorini was in sight.

Eastern Mediterranean Cruise: Katakolon, Greece

    Aaron woke up extra early on our third day so he could workout {he made me look bad because I didn't workout once}. Connor and I decided to sleep in and then have Aaron bring us breakfast to the room. It was really nice eating it on our balcony and seeing different island on our way to Katakolon.

Island of Cephalonia that we saw when we woke up.

Eastern Mediterranean Cruise: Bari, Italy

    We slept so well our first night on the boat. We hardly felt the boat rock and we woke up to the sound of the waves since we slept with the balcony door open. It was great! Connor even woke up in a really good mood. We got dressed and then went to eat breakfast at the buffet. They had just about every breakfast food you could imagine.  After breakfast, Aaron and Connor went swimming. We weren't planning on swimming in the morning, but since we weren't scheduled to arrive in Bari until noon, Aaron thought it would be fun. Since I was already dressed for the day, I took pictures and relaxed.

Eastern Mediterranean Cruise: Embarkation From Venice

     I can't believe that after months of planning and looking forward to our family vacation, it's already come and gone! We had a blast on our 7 night cruise through the Mediterranean and I can't wait to share our experiences. I took tons of pictures, so I will do a post for each day like I do for all our vacation trips. 

     On our first day {6/21- Father's Day}, our friend dropped us off at the port in Venice at about 11am. Our check in time wasn't until 1, but we wanted to be there extra early since we had no idea where to go or what to expect. We dropped our luggage off first, and then went to check in. They gave us a priority boarding ticket since we had a small child with us {Thank you Connor!}. We showed our paperwork and passports, took our id pictures, and then went through security. We were done with everything and walking on the ship about 25 minutes after starting the check in process. It was fairly simple and we were so lucky to not have to wait in any long lines.

Our ship! Since we were so close to the ship, I couldn't get a picture of the entire boat.