A Joyful Girl in Copenhagen: Italian Adventures

Part two of my cruise recap was delayed a bit because I spent the week decorating and preparing for our Halloween Party! :) More on that later.

On Day 4 of the cruise we made it to Naples, Italy!

Beautiful view as we got off the ship!

I was so fortunate to get to go to Pompeii with a guided tour and explore the ruins of this 2,000 year old city! Our tour guide was super sweet and kept calling our group "my family" We got to see so many cool areas from a wealthy family's home to the public bath house to the bakery and of course the town square.

Our tour guide! "My family! My family!"

The city center of Pompeii

Inside the bath house

The bakery

Mt. Vesuvius in the background

Pompeii has always been on my list of places to visit ever since reading about it in my high school history books. The idea that people were living their normal lives and everything was frozen in time is fascinating to me. I would LOVE to go back to the area and spend more time exploring it and I would love to explore Mt. Vesuvius with Klaus as well! :)

Linda and me at the city center

A perfect day to explore the ruins of this amazing city!

Actual human remains perfectly preserved under mountains of ash.

The next port we came to was Civitavecchia, Italy! This was the first (and ONLY) day of not so great weather, so I was VERY happy to have a bus tour of the highlights of Rome and then a 2 hour stop in the Vatican City! :) I wish I could have spent DAYS here, as there is sooooo much to see and do that even on the driving tour we weren't able to cover everything in the 9 hour tour! I did enjoy seeing the Vatican City and even found a bobble-head pope for my parents! :)

Circus Maximus

Altare della Patria or "The Wedding Cake Monument"

The Colosseum

St. Peters Square- and the LONG line to get into the basilica!

Me and the Pope! :)

Next up was Lucca, Italy (or more precisely the port of Livorno) This was another incredibly fun day that I got to spend with Linda doing a guided tour. When I was at CCM there was a summer opera program that took students to Lucca, Italy so I had always seen pictures from my friends' trips, but going myself was a whole different experience. Lucca is ADORABLE! It looks just like something you'd see in a movie or on a postcard. We only had about 45 minutes of free time after the walking tour, but I was able to snag some good souvenirs- real Italian leather gloves for me and a belt for Klaus as well as some very yummy chocolates! :)