Sunday, August 19, 2018

Lukey and Anna's parents go to Croatia

We walked from the cruise port to Old Town, Dubrovnik.  It was a lovely walk.  

Parts of Game of Thrones were filmed in Dubrovnik.  A lot of the Kings Landing scenes.  This is Lovrijenac Fortress, the Red Keep, and the site of the Battle of Blackwater.

This fountain might be part of Game of Thrones.  Not sure. 

The Old Town area was pretty cool.  It was surrounded by walls that we walked through.  People live in here.  And there's shops, farmers markets, etc.


The nearby island of Lokrum is Qarth from GoT.


The walk of shame stairs from Game of Thrones.


A view of Old Town from Lovrijenac Fortress. 



Lukey and Anna's parents go to Greece

CORFU, GREECE
On Corfu, we took a bus to Paleokastritsa beach. One of the loveliest beaches we've ever seen!  We got spinach pies and beer from a store across the street.  It was pretty amazing.  One of the best parts of the week. 

The water was so clear that no matter how deep you were standing in it you could see the bottom and your feet totally clearly.




From the boat.  Robin really liked this island.
The Old Fortress of Corfu


 SANTORINI, GREECE
Santorini is one of the coolest places in the world!  Everyone should see it.  When you walk through the town of Oia, its hard to believe it even exists.  

We hiked from where the boat docked up a trail of donkeys to Fira, then to Oia.  It was a big hike.  About 7 miles probably, including steps and hills and cliffs.  There were some great views though.

When we got to Oia we found a restaurant and had the best beer of our lives (mostly because we were exhausted) and greek salad, saganaki and zucchini balls.  This meal was so perfect that we recreated it after we got home.  The view from the restaurant was great!



To get up from the boat docks, you can either take a cable car, donkey, or walk along with the donkeys.  We walked.  We had to dodge a lot of donkeys and donkey poo. It was a romantic way to spend our anniversary!
MYKONOS, GREECE 
We spent the day in Mykonos walking around town and going to the beach.  The town was pretty cool because it all looked like this.  We also had a chicken gyro that was excellent.  


The beach was lovely. 



A view of the beach we went to, Agios Ioannis.


Lukey and Anna's parents go to Montenegro

Cruising into Kotor, Montenegro.  Very cool ride to get to Kotor for the last 60 miles.

A view from our boat driving through the fjords (technically a ria coast).  Doesn't do it justice.  Very cool. We spent most of our time on one of the upper decks when hanging out by the pool because we'd get good views of what we were driving by, we could see the whole pool and band and the bartenders at the top of the boat were the best.  We also sat in the pool a lot.


The view from our room.  Having a balcony was great.  We'd finish each night with a glass of wine or other drink on the balcony after we did our rounds of the bars. 

The highlight of Kotor was the cat museum! There were a lot of cats walking around the town so they figured they might as well take care of them.  The museum was one euro to get into and was basically pictures, stamps, etc. of cats.  The proceeds go to taking care of the cats.



We also hiked the mountain of San Giovanni.  I made it most of the way up then decided it was too scary.  Tim made it to the top.

Tim's view from the fortress, TvrÄ‘ave Kotora.  That's our boat down there.

Kotor, Montenegro.

The switchbacks show the hike we did.  

Lukey and Anna's parents go to Venice

For our 10 year anniversary, Tim and I went on a cruise in the Mediterranean Sea.  It was very lovely.  The kids stayed with their grandparents and had a lot of fun with them.  We missed them dearly but called every day.

We started in Venice.  We took a water bus there from the airport and spent the first and last night at a hotel there.  My favorite part of Venice was looking down the streets and seeing lovely sights like this.  Or eating pizza down on of the many streets and drinking a spritz.  This is basically how we spent our time there.  We tried going to St. Mark's square during the day but thought it was too busy.  Less touristy areas were much better.  St. Mark's at night was cool because they played music.  We also went to the Accademia Gallery of Venice.

A view of Venice from our cruise ship.  

View from the balcony at our hotel on the first night.

Tim

The Bridge of Sighs!  I loved this bridge.  It was where people would be sad and sigh as they were on their way to prison because it was their last time seeing Venice. 




St. Mark's at night.  Still very busy but a different, less annoying crowd of people so it was pretty cool.  There were a few different bands set up playing Italian style music.  

There it is again from the cruise ship-the Bridge of Sighs!