Honeymoons are always memorable occasions. Duh, its EPIC,whether you have a good time or not. You're newly married, and everything supposed to be lovey dovey as your share your first official trip as husband and wife. Our honeymoon was an 11-night cruise in the Mediterranean with stops in Italy, Turkey and Greece. This was Rob's first trip, technically, out of the country, because I don't really count the Caribbean with it being so close to the states. We traveled over a great, big ocean (the Atlantic, for those who don't know geography) to get to our port city of Civitavecchia near Rome, Italy.
Itinerary: eleven day cruise to the Mediterranean Sea, including ports to Italy (Rome, Naples), Turkey (Istanbul, Ephesus) and Greece (Santorini, Mykonos and Athens)
Cruise Specifics: Celebrity Equinox, Celebrity Cruises
Weather: high 70s/low 80s during the day, high 60s at night
Planned Excursions: guided tours in Rome, Naples (Pompeii), Istanbul, Ephesus, and Athens
Most Anticipated Activity: seeing the ruins in Pompeii and Ephesus
Cruise Highlight: getting lost in Istanbul for hours, making friends with semi-nonspeaking English good Samaritans and traveling by taxi, metro bus, subway and water taxi just to get back safely to our cruise ship. We only spent $6 to do all of this lol.
Cruise Downer: catching the norovirus and throwing up for 24 hours, getting mud-butt, followed by fever, chills, headache, and joint aches and pains. It basically felt like I had food poisoning and on the way to in the bathroom I got hit by a bus. Most terrible 24-hour sickness of my life, but thank God it only lasted a day. Because of this sickness, I couldn't get off the boat in Mykonos, Greece :(
Best Souvenir Bought: Glass Turkish lamps handcrafted with colorful beads and designs from the Grand Bazaar in Turkey
Scariest Moment: I did get nervous being lost for so long in Istanbul, and there was a definite communication barrier. At one point, Rob asked our good Samaritan how we were going to get to our ship. She replied, "Boat tomorrow." Rob flipped out and exclaimed, "TOMORROW?! Boat TODAY!" Needless to say, she thought we were talking about the water taxis, not a cruise ship. She gave us directions in Turkish and we somehow made it back unharmed. This experience was both the highlight and scariest moment of our trip lol.
Best Moment: There were too many awesome experiences to only pick one as my favorite. We got a relaxing couples massage, robbed the casino of thousands of dollars which ended up paying for all our expenses onboard, we had dinner at a specialty restaurant on the ship where they cooked us lobster right at our table, we saw an entire city made of marble at Ephesus, we had a romantic dinner while watching the sun set in Santorini, and we got to bask in a two week vacation with just ourselves and the open sea.
Worst Moment(s): It's always us missing our kitties at home. Especially this time, as we were gone for almost two whole weeks. The norovirus was also pretty bad.
New Things?: I loved arriving in Istanbul to see that we weren't in Kansas anymore. It was a completely new country with new sights, sounds, smells, and culture. Mosques were everywhere and five times a day you would hear the call to prayer. The Turkish people were so friendly, I'd definitely visit again.
Most Disappointing: It was super disappointing to visit Athens, Greece. I was really excited from the start to see the Parthenon, travel around the city of Athens, and to taste the fabulous cuisine. But, Athens was a super dirty place, the majority of the people we met were very rude, and after seeing Ephesus, Athens wasn't very cool at all. It wasn't preserved as well, they were reconstructing everything so it didn't seem very original, our tour guide was monotone, boring, and at times extremely rude to other fellow cruisers, and the food was just ok. I expected more Athens! Not a place I have to see again before I die...
Worst Money Spent: The $110 we had to spend to buy a new camera when we dropped ours at Ephesus :(
Best Money Spent: the entire trip :)
Best Moment: There were too many awesome experiences to only pick one as my favorite. We got a relaxing couples massage, robbed the casino of thousands of dollars which ended up paying for all our expenses onboard, we had dinner at a specialty restaurant on the ship where they cooked us lobster right at our table, we saw an entire city made of marble at Ephesus, we had a romantic dinner while watching the sun set in Santorini, and we got to bask in a two week vacation with just ourselves and the open sea.
Worst Moment(s): It's always us missing our kitties at home. Especially this time, as we were gone for almost two whole weeks. The norovirus was also pretty bad.
New Things?: I loved arriving in Istanbul to see that we weren't in Kansas anymore. It was a completely new country with new sights, sounds, smells, and culture. Mosques were everywhere and five times a day you would hear the call to prayer. The Turkish people were so friendly, I'd definitely visit again.
Most Disappointing: It was super disappointing to visit Athens, Greece. I was really excited from the start to see the Parthenon, travel around the city of Athens, and to taste the fabulous cuisine. But, Athens was a super dirty place, the majority of the people we met were very rude, and after seeing Ephesus, Athens wasn't very cool at all. It wasn't preserved as well, they were reconstructing everything so it didn't seem very original, our tour guide was monotone, boring, and at times extremely rude to other fellow cruisers, and the food was just ok. I expected more Athens! Not a place I have to see again before I die...
Worst Money Spent: The $110 we had to spend to buy a new camera when we dropped ours at Ephesus :(
Best Money Spent: the entire trip :)
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| The Parthenon in Athens, Greece |
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| Pompeii at the base of Mt. Vesuvius in Naples, Italy |
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| The Library of Celsus in Ephesus, Turkey |
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| The Colloseum in Rome, Italy |
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| The Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey |
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| The town of Oia in Santorini, Greece |
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| The legendary Amalfi coast in Italy (this is actually Positano, a town about twenty minutes north of Amalfi) |
A Mediterranean cruise sounds AH.MAZ.ING! What awesome pictures you have, and sounds like such an incredible honeymoon! So sorry to hear you got sick!
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