Family & Florence Cruise

Hey Everyone!

On our next to last cruise (aka the last full cruise before the repositioning cruise), my step sister & her husband visited. Their names are Michele & Jay.

The itinerary was the same as it has been for the last two weeks. We visited Malta on Tuesday. In Malta, we walked to Freedom Square and from there we walked to get coffee...of course! Then we decided to see the Palace. The Palace was very interesting. Lots of painted/frescoed ceilings and walls. Malta had lots of crusaders buried there so there were tons of family crests and portraits of knights. One of my favorite rooms was a room of tapestries of wildlife in South America. There were no photos allowed so I can’t show you but they were amazing and very well preserved.

After the palace, we decided to head to St. John’s Co-Cathedral . The outside was so very plain. The inside was AMAZING. The floor was made of hundreds of tombs of crusader knights. The ceiling was gold and painted and brilliant. There was a nave for each of the countries that were involved in the crusade. The naves were full of statuary, tombs, frescoes, paintings and more tombstones. The Cathedral also had two Carravaggio’s - The Beheading of St. John the Baptist and St. Jerome. They were both great. Bonus items were the illuminated chorale texts and the flemish tapestries. Really it was a great thing to see.

On Naples day, we set off for Herculaneum/Ercolano. Ercolano was destroyed in the explosion of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD but unlike Pompeii it was preserved under a layer of lava. The lava moved slowly and because it was somewhat “cooled” when it reached Ercolano lots of wood, fabric and paper was preserved. The site is not very big so it was easy to do it in a few hours. We saw lots of great mosaics, some masks and statuary. The site was practically empty which was also great. We got an audioguide and that gave us some additional info. Most of the people in Ercolano knew that the explosion had occurred so they fled to the beach where they thought they should be safe. And they were...until the giant flood of lava occurred. Yeah. Bad news.

Michele & Jay took tours in Rome & Florence. On Rome day we woke up to find out that there was a huge storm hanging over Italy. There was heavy rain, hail and at least 5 water funnels spotted on the ocean. A water funnel is basically a tornado pre-land. Needless to say, we didn’t go anywhere. Michele & Jay did get to go on the tour. Oddly, we ran into their tour in Florence by the Duomo. It was funny.

So we went to Florence as a cast. We got there pretty early. We took a quick break and then headed of to the Duomo. The Duomo was amazing. The outside is very intricate with the different colors of marble to create geometric patterns. It’s also covered with lots of statues. Across from the Duomo is the Bapistry. The Bapistry has these amazing doors that are covered in bronze (originally gold) and the door has 12 panels (?) on it. Michele told me that each panel represents one of the major stories from the Bible. I don’t know if you’ve heard of the Bible but the Italians love that thing!

While we were at the Duomo, Deanna encouraged us to climb the Cuppola. The Cuppola was designed by Bruneschelli - there were no visible supports - they’re all built inside. I can’t explain it but it’s amazing. It’s painted with frescoes of the progression from hell to heaven. The depiction of hell is horrific and very imaginative. Heaven is heaven - lovely, calm and beatific. Hell is crazy, gross, violent and awful. I have pictures.

The climb up was 486 steps. I got some great photos going up and from the top it was breath taking. We took lots of photos. Surprisingly the climb down was also 486 steps.

After that we went to the Academia to see Michelangelo’s David. November is a great month to travel. Usually there’s a long line to get in and you need to reserve a time slot with hundreds of people to crowd around David for the alloted 15 minutes.

We just walked right in and stayed as long as we wanted in a nearly empty hall.

David is spectacular as is the whole beautiful city of Florence.

The final day of the cruise, we just hung around and enjoyed Villefranche. We went to a local market in the town center and bought some jewelry, we ate some chocolate croissants, drank some cappuccinos, bought some postcards and drank some wine.

Now we’re off on our final Euro ports and then the crossing!

~Jen