Mediterranean Cruise- Sicily

Our first stop was Messina, Sicily.  We knew the next few days in Athens and Ephesus were going to be pretty hectic, so we decided to take it a little easy in Sicily.  First, we took a little train ride around Messina and heard all about the history of the area.

It is really a beautiful town and it is the closest point of Sicily to the Italian mainland.  Because it is a port city, there are lots of tourists in the area, although many people venture up to Mt. Etna, a live volcano that you can see from the city.

 

 

After the train ride, we visited the Cathedral in Messina and we loved it.  I'm not sure Drew feels quite as strongly about it as I, but I would say it is possibly my favorite church we have seen, next to St. Vitus' Cathedral in Prague.  It had beautiful murals painted on the domes at the front and on each of the ceiling beams throughout the length of the church.  What a beautiful place to worship!

No trip to Sicily would have been complete without pizza and gelato so we stopped at a local pizzaria and then for gelato on the way back to the ship.

Sorry this is taking so long!!  Hopefully I can have the post on Athens to you a bit more quickly!!

Mediterranian Cruise- At Sea

There is so much to write about the cruise, I thought I would make an entry for each location.  This first one is about our time on the ship.

It was a bit difficult cruising with a one-year old (did I just say "one-year old"?), but the staff on the ship did everything in their power to accomodate Eli and his needs.  At dinner, they always brought us something special for him to eat and a special treat of some fruit, as well.  Royal Caribbean also has on-board babysitters who we used several times throughout the cruise.  They were so sweet with Elijah and absolutely fell in love with him.  They even put a love note and stuffed animal on our door as a gift to him.  The babysitting allowed us to have a special dinner at Chops (the on-board steakhouse, where we had the best steaks we've tasted since coming to the UK), to visit the casino, and to see several shows, including the ice skating spectacuar!

There were also a few on-board activities for babies on the ship.  There was a play group at least once a day and you could check out toys from the toy library for the babies to play with in your stateroom or on deck.


 
One challenge was the fact that there was no seperate baby pool and RC doesn't let children who aren't potty trained yet in the big pool so Eli didn't get to swim on board which means mommy and daddy didn't really get to either. There was plenty of room on deck for a quick play, however.

Our room attendant, Dinada, was a very nice man who took excellent care of us.  He warmed up to Elijah immediately, as he has a 10 month old daughter at home. 

We really enjoyed having a balcony on this trip.  It was a nice place to sit and relax and the views were amazing, especially when we passed through the straight of Messina between Italy's mainland and Sicily and could see the active volcano, Mt. Etna.

 

 

Be watching for posts about all the stops on the trip to be coming soon!