The next morning, we walked down one of the main streets in Barcelona (we didn't get out of the house until after 10:00am) and they were just setting up the booths for the market that day. Everything in Barcelona seemed to be running later than in Austria. We decided to go on the "Hop on, Hop off" bus tour. We toured around town, stopping at some of the architectural and cultural highlights. We made sure to buy our castanets and our hand painted fans. We rode a cog rail train up a mountain to the top of the world (where they have an amusement park) and we took in the view of the city. We travelled through the city all day. By evening we were exhausted. We stopped for some paella. We realized that it was pretty late, but the city was still hustling and bustling. We discovered that the Spanish people like to stay out late. We were getting ready for bed, and everyone else was just starting their night.
The next day we got up late and packed our bags. We strolled along the main street, pulling our luggage. We worked our way down to the dock, and found our cruise ship! Once on board, we were able to grab some lunch and spend some time relaxing by the pool. We explored the ship and found our rooms. We spent the first two days of the cruise on board, enjoying all the ship life and all the food, food, food!! The shows on board were pretty good. Dyllan and Deagan entered a talent show and did some jump roping which got them medals. Dan won a piece of art at the art auction and Dyllan won a pair of gold and diamond earrings from the jewelry shop. We learned how to make several napkin folds to make table settings extra special. I managed to only perfect the airplane, but everyone else learned how to make a fan, double fan, star, rat, shoe, rose, carnation, candle, duck, boat, binoculars, and the pope's hat. We made Venetian masks, Dane took a class in magic card tricks and can now dazzle us all. Dane also won a key chain for getting 4th place in the Mario Kart Wii competition.
Dan made sushi with the sushi chefs on board and even shared his class projects with the family. Luckily, he made some vegetarian ones with soy wrappers, so Dakota and I could still eat some. I think that Deagan ate some of the raw fish ones, and Dane and Dyllan ate most of the California rolls. We watched some movies, played mini golf, ordered room service and learned the thriller dance (sort of--if you can count "shoulder nothin' nothin' shoulder, shoulder" along with "huh", and "hop" as dance moves). Mostly, we ate and ate and ate. I think we all perfected the swirl on top of the soft serve ice cream cones--look out DQ employees, you've got some competition!
Our first port of call was Kotor, Montenegro. We had been stuck on board for 2 days and were ready to get off and see some stuff. We took a boat ride out to a little island in the bay that had a church on it. We got to explore the tiny island.
Next we got to kayak through the bay. Dan had Deagan and Dayon in his kayak. I had Dane with me, and Dakota had Dyllan with her. We paddled and used muscles that we didn't even knew existed (especially after sitting on the boat for 2 days). We stopped at a little beach along the way. We swam in the bay. We even got to "sky dive" off the cliffs--except that our cliff was only 7-8 meters high and we didn't dive, we jumped. I have done a bridge jump or two on the Colorado river, but this rock was a little higher. There was a definite eternity that passed by after you jumped and until you hit the water. It was a fun little adrenalin rush. We even got our guide, who had never done it, to jump off the rock. I was skeptical that the guide had never gone before, but sure enough, he made a phone call to his friend to ask if there were any specific instructions he needed to know before he jumped and to make sure he was jumping from the right rock. I gave him my instructions as well--"Don't hit the rocks". Armed with the best of advice, of course, we made him go first. If he lived through it, then maybe we would give it a try. I have to say, it took the guide a long time to gather the courage to jump--almost as long as it took Dakota. After having done it though, I thought that it might be a little far for the kids to jump, so we found a smaller rock for them. They still had a great time. We kayaked for awhile. The kids wanted to keep going (I think because they weren't doing much of the paddling) to a cave on the other side of the bay.
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| Lost his 2nd tooth |
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| Still can sleep anywhere |
History says that the queen ran to this cave to escape the Roman legions. Once the Romans had conquered her army, the Queen found that all hope was lost and she finally jumped from the cave into the bay and drown. So that the enemy did not get her treasures, they dumped all of the royal treasures and money into the bay after her. During certain tides, it is rumored that there are coins and other treasures that wash up on the shores. The kids really wanted to do some treasure hunting, but it was too far to go. All the adults were complaining that we were doing all the paddling and the kids had all dropped out and were getting "free rides"--however, every picture that we have of Dakota proves that Dyllan was paddling and Dakota was resting! We headed back, and the guide and his girlfriend were nice enough to let us go climbing.
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| Dan |
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| Deagan |
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| Dyllan |
They had a climbing wall set up on the back of their apartment. Each of the kids got to try climbing their wall. After that, we were dry and ready for our bike ride. Unfortunately, Deagan has forgotten how to ride a bike. (I know that they say you never forget how to ride a bike, but after not riding for almost 2 years, Deagan has forgotten.) Luckily, they had a scooter that Deagan could ride. We rode for about 5km back into town. We explored the downtown area and loved it. It is a walled city with a ton of charm. Dan enjoyed eating fresh mussels and calamari. Before we knew it, it was time to head back to the ship.
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| Dakota |
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| Allynn |
The next day, we pulled into the port of Venice. The port is actually a long (about an hour) walk to St. Mark's square. We walked and meandered along the streets of Venice. I had heard that Venice was dirty, gross, and smelly. We found it to be the opposite. They have redone all the sewer lines and the canals are clean, with fish and other sea life living in them. I thought it was a very fun, cool place to see and was the highlight of my trip. We tried to ride on a gondola, but we had 7 people in our group and the rule was only 6 allowed. Since we didn't want to leave anyone behind, we opted to just walk. We really enjoyed seeing all the little shops and cafes. After walking around for a few hours, we reluctantly headed back to the boat. I had an allergic reaction to something and found that I had swollen legs with hives all over them. Dakota had a couple of welts as well, but not as bad. We took some medicine, and hoped for the best. The next day, my legs were much better, and we were able to tour around some more. We took a boat excursion to the island of Murano and saw a glass blowing demonstration. They said it took 10 years of study to learn how to become a glass master. I don't know why you would study that long to work in that heat! It was really cool to see all the glass though. We then went to the island of Burano and saw a lace making demonstration. Our regret from that excursion is that we didn't have enough time to explore the islands. We only had about 15-30 minutes at each place to look around. It was really cool to see all the colorful buildings of Burano.
After that, Dakota and the kids headed back to the boat, while Dan and I stayed in downtown Venice to take a photography tour. We had a great time trying to get some good pictures. Our guide took us to some fun places to get some good architectural photos. Dan and I had a great time playing around with the cameras. I think Dan kind of caught a little bit of the photo bug. We both had fun trying out stuff at all the places we visited.
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| Yes, the tower really leans that much |
We said goodbye to Venice and headed for our next stop: Split, Croatia. We didn't have anything planned for this stop, which ended up being a good thing. We were tendered here and the waves were rough enough that it took us 2 hours to get off the boat and into Split. We wandered around this city as well. We climbed the bell tower, which was pretty scary with the kids. The stairs were not very protected and I could just imagine Deagan going crazy trying to be the first one to the top and slipping and falling to his death. It didn't happen, though, and we made it up and back down safely. We couldn't take the baby in his stroller, so Dan went up after we returned. The view was really cool. We also rubbed the toe of a famous statue (this is claimed to bring good luck). However, we couldn't find the statue. We looked everywhere. Finally, we ended up asking a tourist information booth where to find the statue. The statue was being renovated and was completely boarded up (thus, we couldn't find it), but they did cut out a piece of the boarding to allow the toe to show. We were all able to rub the toe, hopefully bringing us very good luck x 7 (as we had a very lucky number of people in our family). We found an ice cream shop that sold pralines (just cream filled chocolates). We searched for the beach, but didn't find it before we were all tired of walking. I learned later that we walked the wrong direction to get to the beach. Back to the boat we went.
Our next port was Salerno, Italy. We decided to take a tour to Pompeii. We took the guided tour and thought it was really neat. We have seen a lot of ruins in the past year and a half, and Pompeii was probably the best preserved. Our guide was really informative and helped us to picture what life would have been like. The paintings and murals on the walls were incredible. The town would have been beautiful. They had all kinds of "innovations" including fast food shops, an elaborate rain water collection, storage, and filtering system in houses, and ornate decorating, but sewer systems and indoor plumbing was not a priority, as the sewer ran down the streets and they even built raised stepping stone crosswalks so that people could cross the street without getting their feet dirty. It had to be stepping stones so that there were spaces that carriages and horses still run down the street.
After Pompeii, we hiked to the top of Mount Vesuvius. We were able to stare at the crater of the sleeping volcano. It was a pretty steep hike, especially for Dan, who had the baby on his back and puke down his leg from Deagan who got car sick at the base of the mountain trail. But, it was Deagan's favorite part of the cruise because we actually got to go to, see, and climb on a real-life volcano where Scooby Doo and the gang had visited and solved a mystery. After feasting on a delicious lunch of pasta and pizza, we then headed to Herculean. This was the other city destroyed by Vesuvius. This one was destroyed in a different way (400 degree C heat wave flashed through the city as opposed to the ash and poisonous gasses from Pompeii). This city looked a lot like Pompeii, but the preservation was different. There were still wood pieces left intact (although charred). They were able to see more of what construction was like back then. That day was very hot and we were tired from all our walking and hiking. We were grateful to be dropped off back at the boat.
Next up: Civitavecchia, Italy. We had already been to Rome, last year, so we decided to forgo the 100 plus Euros per person to take the train into Rome and see the sights. We took a taxi to Sant Augustino Beach. We rented some lounge chairs and an umbrella. The beach was a beautiful sandy beach that kids could walk out 100s of feet before it became too deep. It was a perfect day relaxing in the sun, sand, and water. The winter tacos (ice cream treats) didn't hurt either. Our taxi driver got in a hurry and picked us up an hour early, putting an end to our bliss. But, we quickly packed up and headed back to the boat.
On to La Spezia, Italy. In this northern part of the country, we decided to go to the Cinque Terre region. This was Dan's favorite place on the trip and we would like to take another trip back here. These cliff side towns are so colorful and fun. They have trails so that you can hike to them and explore. When the waves are not so rough, you can swim, snorkel, and boat around to them. We passed a guy with two grocery bags full of fresh seafood, headed up to his restaurant. We could see the whole octopus complete with legs sticking out of the top of the bag. Dan's mouth started watering the minute he saw it. We opted not to stop for seafood, as he is the only one who wanted to eat it. It was his biggest regret of the trip. We took a ton of pictures of these towns--they are so neat! We missed going to Pisa for the leaning tower and Florence for the David, but it was well worth it! I would do it again tomorrow if I could. I picked up a postcard with a pesto recipe on it. After we got home, we tried it and loved it. I was going to send some unnamed person the postcard, but have opted to keep it, after trying it. If you think you were that person, you are free to contact me to get the recipe. We got ice cream on the way home and then back to the boat.
That night on the boat we had an unfortunate surprise. We heard, "this is your captain speaking, . . . we will be experiencing a wind storm causing waves 9-12 feet. Be prepared and try to stay off the open decks." Everyone seemed to be handling it very well, until the baby puked in his bed. We called for new sheets and had to go through the whole sanitation process, including a call from the nurse, who actually asked me if "this is usual behavior for Danyon at this time of day". We were able to finally get him to sleep and he didn't puke again until the next morning through the rough waves. The last stop on the boat was Toulon, France. This was supposed to be a beach day, but the weather was not cooperating. We still had sunshine, but we also had high winds. Being at the coast would only have sand blasted us, so we just stayed in town and went to the outdoor market. The kids picked up some toys, and Dakota picked up a new French beau. It was a lazy day to finish up the cruise. That night, it was Dakota's turn to get sick from the waves, which were much worse than the previous night. I felt a little uneasy, but managed to keep my medicine down and didn't have any trouble. We had managed to buy more medicine for all the kids, including Danyon, in France, so they didn't have any trouble and Danyon was fine. I think if Dakota could have kept her medicine down, she would have been okay too. Luckily, since Dan grew up in the ocean front community of Spring Coulee, he was unphased by the whole thing.
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| Deagan found a witches broom. |
We might have been done with the cruise, but we were not about to let our vacation die just yet. We arrived in Barcelona, and we trekked our luggage across town to a baggage storage facility. We asked the guy there for a good beach recommendation. He pointed to one on the map and said that it was the touristy beach. He pointed to another and said it was a nicer, more local beach.
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Had we seen this sign sooner,
we might have avoided the
situation! |
It was a no brainer for us, we took a couple of taxis to the local beach. We get to the end of the boardwalk and take a look at the vast expanse of sand and sea in front of us. Then we take a closer look to find the perfect spot to claim for the day. Then we took even a closer look at all the people. We realized that they were not wearing ANYTHING! We can now say that we have "run with the bulls" in Barcelona! Since we felt a bit over dressed for that beach, we decided to walk a little ways further up the coast. The next beach was much more comfortable for us. I would still say that 80 percent of the women were topless, but at least, everyone had bottoms on! Another exciting way to finish off our summer vacation. We stopped for our last meal on vacation and thoroughly enjoyed it. It kept us from getting too sun burned, too. Our flight that evening was delayed an hour. It normally wouldn't be a problem, but we were all tired and very sandy since we had no towels and had only the showers at the beach to clean up with. I asked the kids if going to the beach was worth all the chaffing and not getting home until 1:00am. I got a resounding "YES"! So, I guess it was a pretty fantastic, successful vacation. And I must give credit where credit is due, the best line from the whole vacation comes from our waiter who summed it all up when he said, "But seriously . . ."
The traveling VonBakers were at it again!! We headed down to Barcelona, Spain. After arriving at the airport and gathering all our luggage, we taxied to the downtown area. It was after 9:00pm when we arrived, and we were in stand still commuter traffic. The taxis dropped us off at our apartment and we felt very vulnerable and worried as we were among tons of people on a very narrow backstreet and a drunk guy was demanding money from us because he picked up something the baby dropped. But, we managed to make it up to the apartment with all our belongings and children. Everyone was hungry and luckily, we were not in Austria. There was a grocery store right next door, open until 10:00pm. Dan and I headed over and bought some frozen pizzas and other dinner type stuff. We ate our dinner and poured over the map to discover what we wanted to do the next day. 
