The Food on our cruise

We have to admit it . . . we area all "foodies." We are just so spoiled with all the great food we get to eat on a regular basis at home and in Santa Barbara restaurants, etc. Given how good the food was, it was a darned good thing that the ship has a gym where we could at least attempt to burn off some of the calories we were consuming!

The Fitness Center on the Riviera -- we worked out most mornings.

There are a total of SEVEN restaurants on board. There are four specialty themed restaurants where you are required to have a reservation. Those were . . .

Jacques -- a beautiful french restaurant named for Jacques Pepin. We ate here on our first night.

Polo Grill - this is a steak house similar to Lucky's or Sly's in Santa Barbara. We ate here on the 3rd night.

Toscana -- this is an elegant Italian restaurant. We ate here on our 4th night.

Red Ginger -- this is an Asian themed restaurant and we ate there on our final night. This was probably the kids' favorite restaurant.

The Grand Dining Room -- this is a huge room and the food was nearly as good here as the specialty restaurants. We ate here twice.

The Terrace Cafe -- this is a more casual dining area that includes a beautiful outside terrace at the back of the boat with great views. It is all buffet.

Waves Grill -- this was a more casual spot with outside seating only. We ate breakfast here many times and a few lunches. This is similar to the cafe at the Coral Casino.

Room service is included at no extra charge and the kids availed themselves of a few snacks and maybe one meal by the room service.

Here are some of those notorious "Food Photos"

Barcelona!

On Thursday morning, we arrived in Barcelona. For this city, we all went ashore to do a tour. It is a very beautiful city and quite large . . . a little too large for a 2 hour bus tour to do it justice. I was struck by how big the downtown area is. After the tour we hung out down by the waterfront, which reminded all of us of Cabrillo Boulevard in Santa Barbara. Unlike Santa Barbara, however, Barcelona is a 'Global City' and the largest city on the Mediterranean.

We all wished we could have spent more time in this city, but with a 3 hour tour, we had to get back to the boat.

Next Stop, Palma, Mallorca

Wednesday morning we arrived in Palma, Mallorca. Now this is a GORGEOUS city! It reminded us of Santa Barbara. This was day 4 of our cruise and we let Austin stay on the ship as he has been taking an online class in statistics and needed to finish his homework. Bryce and Trey came with us to the island for the tour. Our first stop on the tour was Bellver Castle, which sits atop a hill overlooking the coast and the city. It is the only round castle in Spain.

This is an aerial view of Bellver Castle

They have concerts in this interior part of the castle

Gorgeous view from the top of the castle looking toward Palma and the Bay

This is a view from the castle and you can see our cruise ship docked in port in the distance

A Trip to Els Calderers

After touring the castle, we headed down to the city on the bus and got a feel for the sites. Then we headed inland, away from the coast, to see a Manor House in the countryside. The manor house is called "Els Calderers" and was built in 1285 near the town of Saint Joan.

This is the front gate and looks like it could be in Santa Barbara!

This video does a great job of showing all of the aspects of this beautiful manor house:

At the end of our tour of Els Calderers we sampled some of the local sausage and some nuts that had been grown on the property. More on that in my next post . . .

Visiting Caligiari, Sardinia

Our next port after the Amalfi Coast was Cagiliari, the capital of Sardinia. We arrived there on Tuesday morning. For this port, the boat actually docked, which meant we didn't have to take a small boat into port. We had signed up for a basic tour of the city.

Cagliari is a city of about 150,000 people, We learned that Sardinia has been populated by humans since ancient times. Sardinia is an "Autonomous Region" of Italy, which is not unlike a State within the U.S. Sardinia is a popular tourist destination for Europeans as it has some great beaches. The main beach in Cagliaria is called Poetto and we had a chance to see it from our bus tour.

One of the more interesting aspects of the tour was seeing Pink Flamingos. These flamingos spend their summers in Sardinia feasting on the tiny shrimp in the salt marshes. We learned that they become pink because of their diet of pink shrimp.

This is a view of the city looking up from the coast

Here you can see some of the Pink Flamingos with their heads in the water searching for shrimp

We drove around the city on a tour bus with our tour guide and looked at a few of the ancient churches up in the hills above the city. One aspect of Cagiliari that we didn't like was the presence of aggressive pan-handlers in the downtown area. Some of these are referred to as "Gypsies." As we walked down the street we were often accosted by these people asking for handouts or trying to sell us useless trinkets!

One other surprising thing we learned about Cagliari and Sardinia in general is that they have their own language. All of the inhabitants speak Italian AND Sardinian and our guide joked that they love to speak Sardinian and confuse the Italian visitors.

We didn't have enough time on our tour to have lunch in Cagliari -- and this was fine with us as the food on the ship is so good!

Amalfi and Positano

Our first night on the cruise ship was great. As I mentioned before, I couldn't even feel the ship moving as we went to sleep on Sunday night. When we woke up on Monday morning, we could see the beautiful Amalfi coast outside . . . absolutely gorgeous!

We went to the gym in the morning and then had a quick breakfast and then went ashore. In this port, we had to ride in a small boat to go ashore -- they call it "tendering."

Though we came ashore at Amalfi, we took another boat to Positano where we had about a one hour tour.

You can see the 'tender' boat behind Susan.

This is taken from the other boat we took from Amalfi to Positano

Positano is just stunningly beautiful. It is built right on the space between a steep mountain and the shore of the Mediterranean. We learned that John Steinbeck lived there for a while. And also that Keith Richards and Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones wrote the song 'Midnight Rambler' while staying nearby -- not sure how they were inspired to write a song like that in such a beautiful place.

We looked at several shops and settled in for a great "Ice Tea Peach Slush" that really took the edge off on a pretty hot day.

After our tour, we headed back to the ship and caught up with the kids for a late lunch. That night we had dinner in the main dining room and it was fantastic.

Heading to Citivecchia and getting on board our cruise ship . . .

On Sunday morning we departed Rome and headed for the port of Civitavecchia, where our Oceania Cruise ship was in port waiting for us. This was the first time that any of us had been on a cruise ship, so we really didn't know what to expect. We had been told that this particular ship, The Riviera, could handle 1,200 passengers and 800 crew. We checked out our two State Rooms (one for us and one for the 3 boys) and we were impressed. Though the rooms are small, they make incredibly efficient use of space.

Here's a shot of our room . . .

Though we got on board the ship at around 1 pm, the ship didn't leave port until around 7 pm. Prior to departing we had to take part in a safety drill -- which is quite a feat with 800 passengers!

The first thing that surprised me about the cruise as we got underway was the fact that we could barely feel the ship moving! We were on our way to our first port, Amalfi. We had a reservation at the French restaurant on board, so we headed to Jacques' around 7. This was just the two of us as the boys took advantage of the Terrace grill where there was a great buffet. They sat us with two other couples, which was great. This restaurant is named for Jacques Pepin . . .

. . . the famous French chef who had a hit TV show in the States. The food was great. We headed off to bed (and the ship was just cruising along) and when we woke up the next morning, we were in Amalfi!

Last Full Day in Rome - St. Peter's Basilica and The Coliseum

On our final day in Rome, we decided to do a big afternoon walk that covered a big portion of the city. From our Airbnb apartment near Piazza Navona we walked all the way to The Vatican and visited St. Peter's Square. When we were in Rome back in 2010 we did the whole Vatican tour, so this time we just wanted to get a feel for it and avoid the big crowds on a tour. It was a hot, sunny day and since it was Saturday, there were people everywhere. Here are a few shots from our visit to the big square:

We then headed to the other side of the city to see the Coliseum. This was quite a long walk on a pretty hot day. At the end of the day we checked the fitness app on my phone and determined that we walked approximately NINE MILES for the entire day and evening! Here's a link to the map of our big walk on Strava (a fitness app that Palmer uses):

Jackson Family Big Walk in Rome

With the Coliseum, this was another site that we toured extensively on our last trip to Rome a few years back, so we decided just to walk around . . .

After the Coliseum it was time for a late lunch in a street side cafe on our way back to Piazza Navona. We have been getting plenty to eat on this trip!

Visiting the Pamphilj Museum and seeing old friends in Rome

On Friday afternoon we visited an interesting Museum in downtown Rome called the 'Palazzio Doria Pamphilj.' This is a great museum and easy to navigate. It's an incredible collection of paintings, furniture and statues dating back to the 16th century. This was yet another case where the self guided tour is great -- we were issued hand-held audio tour guides at the beginning and you could punch in the numbers that corresponded to the various exhibits. This is one of the only Palazzos in private ownership in Rome.

These two images give a flavor of the splendor of this Palazzo . . .

Friday Evening

You have to hand it to Facebook. After we checked into Rome, I noticed that an old friend of mine was also in Rome. We messaged on Facebook and set up a dinner in Piazzo Navona with our kids included. This was a nice break from the family only meals as our boys enjoyed chatting with my friend's two daughters.

Getting Acclimated in Rome

We left Los Angeles on Tuesday morning, June 14th and arrived in Rome on Wednesday morning around 11:00 AM Italy time. We had a very smooth trip, which we really appreciate as we know how busy the summer travel season is. Instead of going directly from LAX to Rome, we split up the flights and did the first leg to Chicago, had a one hour layover, and then the second leg from Chicago to Rome. Since there were no real delays, this worked out well.

We caught a limo ride from the airport to our Airbnb apartment in the heart of Rome near Piazza Navona. Our apartment is basic, but certainly adequate. It's a two bedroom, two bath with a small living room. We knew it would be best if we tried to push through the jet lag and stay up until a normal bed time. But, as usual, it was tough to stay awake after our late lunch. All of us ended up going to sleep at about 4 pm and pretty much slept all the way through to the next morning.

Day one in Rome was just about getting acclimated -- no major planned activities. We just grabbed breakfast and walked around. We started out in a beautiful outdoor marketplace called Campo Di Fiori. We ate breakfast at a great spot right on the square called Obica. Though this restaurant is a chain, it is excellent. Susan and I remembered eating a late lunch there last time we were in Rome and it was some of the best Mozzarella we had ever had. It's amazing what jet lag can do to your appetite. The kids were absolutely starving and it was only 8:30 am.

Here's the crew in front of the Pantheon after our post-breakfast stroll.  It's quite warm in Rome right now -- about 75 to 80 degrees and mostly sunny with a little bit of humidity.

Pictured here above is Piazza Navona, which is right near where our apartment is located. It's a very large public square with some amazing sculptures and an intricate fountain in the middle. Along the edges there are at least 10 or 12 different restaurants. As you walk past these restaurants, sometimes the aggressive seating hosts try to pull you in. We have learned that if a restaurant needs to literally pull customers in, it's probably not too good!

Day Two - Friday, June 17th

Today is our second full day in Rome. We decided to go ahead and get up early since we were still jet lagged and wide awake at 5 am. Today, Susan and I went on a 'power walk' around the heart of Rome. We headed toward the Colosseum and The Forum and snapped a few photos. One of the most distinctive and dramatic features of the area is the 'Alta De La Patria.' This huge monument dominates the skyline and, we are told, was completed in 1925 as a monument to Victor Immanuel, the first King of a unified Italy.

Rome can be a bit hard to navigate as it's not set up as a grid. The streets run every which way and often diagonally. We tried using the map features of our phones to guide us, but we didn't learn until after a few hours that you need to have it set to walking vs. driving to get the right kind of directions . . . duh! So our planned 1 hour walk turned into a 2 hour walk this morning!