The Trevi Fountain in Rome.
Joyce throwing a coin into the Trevi fountain. The legend says if you throw a coin in, you will return to Rome. I did this in 2001 so it must be true.
The Spanish steps. It seems like a place that people like to hang out at.
Top of the Spanish steps.
The big dome on the left is St. Peters Basilica in the Vatican.
The Coliseum of Rome. I tried taking this same picture at night in 2001 with a film camera. I received a black photo. This one turned out much better.
Why not take two pictures?
Inside the coliseum. I was bummed they took out the catwalk that ran through the center of it.
Since it was culture week in Italy, entrance into the coliseum was free!
These are the ruins next to the Coliseum.
This was one of those pictures that looked better in person than on camera.
More ruins.
Lotsa ruins.
The Pantheon
Inside the Pantheon. There is a big hole in the center of the roof.
Proof that I was there.
A long hallway in the Vatican museum. Too bad my camera takes blurry photos when the lighting conditions aren't ideal. Clear enough to look clear on the little display of my camera, but blurry enough to make the picture look sucky.
Outside St. Peters in the Vatican.
Inside St. Peters church.
The two fingers up means "all powerful". Is the pope all powerful like this statue claims? I think not.
The Holy Door. This door is opened every 25 years or so to celebrate the Year of Jubilee. You can walk through it only during that time. All other times, you must use the door right next to it.
St. Peters is the largest church in the world.
Once again, this would have been a great picture if the lighting (or my camera) was better.
The Swiss Guard guards the pope.
Us in front of St. Peters.
And here we started our cruise from Civitivecchia, Italy (about an hour train ride from Rome). The first sunset on the cruise.
Our arrival in Monte Carlo, Monaco.
Monaco is really small. So small, that I think this picture is actually of Italy, not Monaco.
Above is the site of Old Monaco where the palace is.
This is the Oceanography museum. Pretty sweet, eh?
Here's another shot of the museum.
This is the cathedral in Monaco. We weren't able to enter cuz we opted to wear shorts today.
Guarding the palace.
Joyce is a mean shooter. You better watch out.
Probably the most amazing thing I discovered in Monaco was the public defibrillator. Is this for real? Unfortunately this tourist could not reach the the defibrillator in time.
This sign was at the entrance to the exotic gardens. Unfortunately, you can't enter the gardens naked.
This is the view of the exotic gardens. That high ground in the distance is Old Monaco.
Monaco is on some pretty steep terrain. They don't have alot of room so they have to use all the available space I guess.
The exotic garden displayed different types of cactus from all over the world.
There is also a cool cave entrance at the exotic gardens. They call it a "grotto". It descended 80 meters from the entrance.
The famous Monte Carlo casino. Monte Carlo is also famous for the Monte Carlo Grand Prix which would occur a week later.
I read you can see some nice cars in front of the casino. Bummer there was only one. At least it was a Ferrari. My brother says the Mercedes in the background is pretty nice too.
This is the other side of the casino. The prince of Monaco built the casino in the 1800s cuz he was short of cash. It paid off pretty good.
I saw this guy filming his own rap video in front of the casino. I took some spy shots of him.
More casino.
This is one of the little streets in Old Monaco.
We also checked out the oceanography museum.
Jellyfish are such a strange creation.
An early diving suit.
That's our ship.
A view of the harbor of Monte Carlo.
This is Florence. An hour train ride from our port in Livorno, Italy.
The Duomo of Florence.
Another Duomo shot. We didn't have time to go into this one since we had to get back to our ship by 6pm. We saw Michelangelo's David and some other stuff but no pictures allowed of those.
The leaning tower of Pisa. We stopped at Pisa on the way back.
The tower actually began leaning as soon as construction began.
Everyone takes a picture of themselves holding up the leaning tower. I did this in 2001. I thought this time it would be more fun to take pictures of other people doing it.
This is the view of Naples from the trail on the infamous Mt. Vesuvius, the volcano that destroyed the ancient city of Pompeii. The volcano is still active.
These mountains are the outer rim of the volcano ages ago. We were climbing the new rim where I took this picture.
Another view of Naples.
Proof I was here.
Inside the volcano.
See the steam? Cool.
Proof that I was here.
The ancient city of Pompeii. Pompeii was destroyed in 79AD.
This is an ancient food court. Food is cooked in all those holes in the counter.
A coliseum in Pompeii.
An amphitheater in Pompeii.
Outskirts of Pompeii.
We saw this wandering outside of Pompeii. It seemed like a good photo op.
Pompeii is amazingly preserved.
The view of Mt. Vesuvius from our ship.
This guy couldn't take our picture very well.
So we tried with someone else, much better.
The Italian sunset.
Santorini, Greece. When most people see pictures of Greece, they see this place. Most of Greece actually doesn't look like this.
Santorini is on the rim of an extinct volcano caldera.
That's our ship!
I wonder how they keep the houses so white? My guess is they paint often. We saw a few people painting during the trip.
Santorini has a black sand beach just like Hawaii.
You can take a donkey ride up the steps from the port or a cable car. Both cost 4 Euros. We took the cable car up and walked down at the end of the day. Walking is free! Lots of donkey poop on the path unfortunately.
We are now in the ancient city of Ephesus in Turkey. This is the view from the city.
A bunch of sarcophagi.
The road to Ephesus. The Apostle Paul actually walked these streets!
The amphitheater in Ephesus which is still used today.
The Library of Celsus in Ephesus.
The public toilet in Ephesus (the ancient one, not the current one).
This is like the main road in Ephesus I assume. I assume that because there really wasn't any other road in the city.
This is from a temple. See the carving of Medusa?
Another view of the main road. Ephesus was actually a port city, but the port silted up around the 3rd century AD. Now the coast is really far away, like a 20 minute drive.
Some ancient text etched into the city. You seminarians get to work and let me know what it says.
The current public restroom in Ephesus. No, we did not experience the magic.
This is the public transportation we took from our port city, Kusadasi, to Ephesus and back. It's like an oversized van. We're sitting in the back row.
This is the port city of Kusadasi, Turkey.
There was some old fort off the pier so we checked it out.
The water is so blue.
Our arrival in Mykolos, Greece. Mykolos is another one of the Greek Isles.
The water was very clear. This Greek man told me these were the best fish, so I took a picture of them.
Some windmills.
The view of Mykolos.
We were trying to find this place called "The Three Wells" and could never find them. Instead we probably walked about 7 miles and saw way more of the island than we wanted to. At least we got some cool pics out of it. I also found Coke for 1 Euro so not a total loss.
This is an old church built on top of 4 other old churches. Weird.
Pink pelicans.
Can you imagine if people could scratch their backs like this?
Athens, behold the Acropolis!!!
The view of Athens from the Acropolis.
The Parthenon.
Me and the Parthenon.
This is a Temple of Zeus. We went down there later.
More Athens.
I took alot of pictures at the Acropolis. I couldn't help it. How many cartoons featured the Acropolis? Exactly. How could I not?
Another view of the Acropolis. It's Acropolistastic!
This was actually a two or three story building. The holes are where wooden beams held the other floors. A sign pointed us here saying it was Socrates' prison, but then reading the sign there said it was only speculation. Hmm.
Yep, the Acropolis again.
At the Temple of Zeus.
It's quite big.
Hadrian's Arch.
Now we're in Olympia where the first Olympics took place.
Racing on the Olympic track.
Joyce should feel honored to be here at the Olympics. Women were not allowed to watch the Olympics and if they did, they were punished by death.
Another shot of the stadium.
This is the Temple of Zeus which housed a 12 meter statue of Zeus, considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
The last column standing is a replica.
It's big.
The temple didn't have much left. It was quite toppled.
This is where the statue of Zeus was crafted. This building was the most preserved out of all we saw at Olympia.
Inside the previously mentioned building.
These pillars aren't as big.
You may not find this photo impressive, but we actually did this on timer. Now are you impressed? Not bad for 10 seconds.
Here's a better shot of our ship.
This is the New Venetian fortress in Corfu, Greece which is still pretty old. We didn't visit this one though, we saw the Old Fortress instead.
The city of Corfu is much more European in style than the rest of Greece probably cuz it was occupied by everybody at some point.
The Esplanade in Corfu. That's the Old Venetian Fortress in the background.
In the Old Fortress.
Corfulicious.
A lighthouse at the top of the fortress.
A gazebo in the Esplanade and the Old Fortress.
Venice, Italy, but maybe you already guessed that. This was the last stop for our cruise.
The Grand Canal
The flash can do weird things. I assure you we were really there and not in front of a phony backdrop.
Hee hee.
Another part of the Grand Canal.
St. Mark's square in Venice.
St. Mark's church.
The clock tower. This was covered in scaffolding last time I was here in 2001.
More people probably recognize these guys from the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas.
The view from the Campanile (bell tower).
Below is the palace of the Doge.
St. Mark's square. Lots of pigeons.
I think we wandered into where the locals live in Venice. No tourists here or anyone for that matter.
The End
