Joe and Joe

Beautiful day. Found a great antique store where Merkes bought a painting, 2 vases, and an engraving. 

Palais Longchamp

Sailing between Corsica to the North and Sardinia to the South. You can see the little strips of land on either side of the photo. 

Courtesy of my iPhone map…

I scheduled massages on sea days. This is the relaxation room at the bow of the ship while you wait for your masseuse. 

After my massage we had received an invitation to tour the bridge with a small group of suite passengers. 

The entire bridge is bigger than expected. William and his wife Lenore are from Bucks County, PA. They ended up sitting opposite of us at lunch. 

A bad shot of me and a horrible shot of Lenore, who is quite lovely and charming in person 

Our small group of 18 then had lunch with the captain and senior staff. Joe and I sat between the 2nd Captain and the Food & Beverage director for the ship. It actually turned out to be a very fun and lively lunch. 

After lunch, Sharon and her husband David had four of us up to their Penthouse Suite. All the rest of us at the lunch were in the 8 Royal Suites. We don’t have a baby grand piano in ours.

Docked in Messina, Sicily today. The first two shots were taken from the ship. 

The Fountain of Neptune looking towards the harbor. 1557. 

We arrived in Salerno this morning. Gennaro was our driver for the day as we toured cities along the coast. 

Cathedral of Saint Andrew in the center of Amalfi. 

We had lunch at a little terrace restaurant in Ravello, just over an hour up the coast from the ship. We had a table right by the railing and when we stood up to leave it was quickly scooped up by two women who we found out were also on our ship. 

Villa Ruffalo

Back on the ship there a number of art installations. This one is by Julie Heffernan. We’ve liked her work for years. 

An easy hour drive to the port and then onboard Celebrity Silhouette. We had a couple glasses of prosecco in Michael’s Club and then up to our stateroom. 

Nicola is picking us up at 11am to head to the port of Civitavecchia. We were feeling too lazy to go up to the restaurant.

Back home…

Military presence directly outside our building. Will sleep safe tonight. 

Home while we are in Rome before and after the cruise. 

Merkes snapped some pics while Nicola drove us from the airport to the hotel.