Cruise Part 1: Rome, Alanya and Limassol

Our flight from Brussels to Rome was pretty uneventful.  I did find it very interesting that at no point were we required to show ID of any kind.  We checked in online, dropped our checked bags at the counter, scanned our home printed boarding pass to get through a gate, boarded the plane and not once were we asked for any type of ID.  Now that is strange.

We met up with mom and dad at the hotel.  In the ended the hotel ended up double booking our room and moving us to another hotel they managed across the city.  At first I was pretty annoyed because the other hotel wasn't off a metro, but they paid for a taxi over there and a taxi from the hotel to the train station PLUS it was right around the corner from the pizza place we wanted to try.

We had some delicious pizza then did a walking tour by night.  We were in Rome two years ago but only for a day (it was a cruise port stop) and not seeing the sites at night is the downside of cruises.

We had some delicious gelato complete with a dollop of whipped cream on top.  I think I could move to Italy just for the food (the nicer weather would just be a bonus).  Apparently my dad ended up spending 10 euros the day before on just one cone...we were able to get 4 cones for 10 euros...I should start charging for finding better deals :).

The next morning we did some more walking.  I love that Rome is a walkable city and that the sun was shining while were there.  From our hotel, we crossed the river and then wandered down and walked a similar path to the night before to see the site in the daylight hours.  We also climbed the stairs at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier which happens to be right at the Ryan's favorite roundabout.  On our way back to the hotel we stopped for pizza that looked delicious but really didn't taste that amazing.

Alanya, Turkey
We toured this port stop on our own.  After stopping at the TI (tourist info) to gather a map, we hopped on a bus up to the Castle.  Mom maid a friend at the bus stop who in the end happened to be a vendor at the Castle and ended up convincing her to buy something from her.  On the walk back down from the Castle, there was a stray dog that kept following us.  We were finally able to ditch him with some other slower walkers....then when we got back into town it was there.

We laid out on the beach for awhile also.  There are two main beaches.  One is a sand beach and one is pebbles.  We stayed at the pebble beach.  We did some haggling over items in the shops and found a Internet cafe to talk to the kiddos who were happy as could be.  Using the computers was a little challenging since their keys are different.  For instance one of our passwords had a lower case 'i' and the keyboard i had some type of squiggly...the US 'i' was on a separate key off to the side.

The Food - we tried the kebab, falafel and Turkish bagel from the street vendor. Maybe it was just the place we decided on, but the kebab and falafel were not up to par with the rest of Europe...kinda disappoint seeing how they are Turkish.

Limassol, Cyprus
Our next port was another beach town.  This time we came prepared with our swimsuits when we got off the ship.  There wasn't much going on in the town.  Just the normal tourist shops.  We found a beach and went swimming in the Mediterranean.  It was a nice relaxing day and knowing that we'd have 4 really long touring days ahead it was good prep. 

We even found a great pastry shop.  A lot of European pastries are on the dry side.  What we consider 'moist' Europeans consider 'wet'.