Photo of the Week: Washington DC

Washington Monument, Washington DC

Happy President's Day!

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More Vacation Plans

I am excited to announce my next tour this summer - Contiki's Northern Adventure

After much deliberation over whether to go to South America, Europe or to stay close to home, I decided to stay close to home and see the National Parks out west.

I surprised myself with this a bit.  But I decided South America fit into my long term travel plans better.  And the flights to Europe this summer were going to be expensive.  Everyone I asked, and I mean everyone, thought I should do this tour.

So I'll be starting in Chicago and ending in Los Angeles.  Now that the tour is booked, I just need airfare. And to pack and research some of these places.  If you have any tips, feel free to share, I've only been to Las Vegas, LA and Grand Canyon (via helicopter).

Ancient Rome

I've been to Rome, I saw the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, the Vatican, and Piazza Navona.  On my Mediterranean Cruise it was time to dig deeper (pun intended), I decided to go inside the Colosseum and into The Roman Forum. 

For tickets I suggest getting them anywhere except the Colosseum, the line was extremely long.  I got mine from the pushy lady at the visitors kiosk in Civitavecchia.  The line at The Forum was long, but not nearly as insane as at the Colosseum.  But there were also 4 ships in port that day bringing somewhere around 10,000 extra visitors to the city. 

I opted not to do any sort of tour of the Colosseum, while I'm sure I missed some because of it, I also didn't feel like I missed a real lot.  If you're not going to do a tour I would suggest reading up a bit on the Colosseum before hand.  I didn't find there was much information provided inside the Colosseum.  But the walk through the Colosseum was worth it, the inside was just cool.  You could walk through several layers and see the different view, though I never did figure out where the box seats of the day would have been. 

I've heard rumors that they are going to cover the underground area of the Colosseum, it's above ground now but was underground when the Colosseum was in use.  Then they will offer tours of the underground section.  A small portion was covered when I went, leading me to believe the process has begun.  If that's the case, I think it takes away one of the reason to go inside the Colosseum.   Looking at the underground tunnels is a key component of the Colosseum.

I also did not do a tour of The Forum and I wonder if I should have.  I honestly thought it was a bit boring.  There were more signs here then there had been at the Colosseum, so there was some information available here.  But most of the area seemed like park land where you couldn't go on the grass.  

Inside the Roman Forum

I would suggest skipping The Forum in favor of some of the other interesting sites in Rome, but I do think the Colosseum is worth entry if you have more then a day or two in Rome.  The outside of the Colosseum is impressive in its own right, but with so much history in Rome it's hard to prioritize visiting the inside of the Colosseum if you're only there for one day.   


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Photo of the Week: Orlando

Grand Floridian, Walt Disney World, Orlando, FL

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Travel Tip - Bring copies

Whenever I travel I like to bring copies of all of my important documents - drivers license, passport, visa's, reservations, and credit card information.  I also keep an electronic copy of all these documents and give photo copies and electronic copies to a member of my family.

When I travel domestically I'm less likely to do this, mostly because I'm lazy.  But, I always do this when I'm traveling internationally.  While I've never had a problem, I like knowing that if I'm away and lose any of this information I can easily access it to make police reports and to obtain new documents.  I like having a variety of ways to get this information too.  If my suitcase gets lost and the photo copies were in there, then I can just go to my email account and print out new copies.

So my tip this week is to have copies of all your important documents.

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The Ports Of Livorno and Civitavecchia

Port Side in Livorno

The port of Livorno, Italy is the closest port to Florence, a popular stop for ships in the Western Mediterranean.  The port of Civitavecchia is the port that is closest to Rome.  I just want to take a moment to set your expectations accordingly for the immediate port areas. 

The good view at Livorno

Livorno is a VERY industrial port.  You will not be able to walk off the ship at this port and do anything.  Actually, I'm not sure that even a few miles from the port there is much to do.  I'm sure their is a town nearby, but I distinctly remember driving for a decent bit before seeing anything that remotely resembled the Tuscany in my dreams.  I haven't heard of anyone getting off the port for a little while to just enjoy the area.  I highly suggest planning a tour either through the cruise line or privatly if you want to get off the ship.

Starboard Side in Livorno

Civitavecchia is a little better.  You cannot walk out of the the port area, you must take a free shuttle bus out of the port to Cicitavecchia, but here there is an actual little town.  It's nothing fancy, but there are some shops, restaurants and a beachy area.  This isn't the type of place you'll spend a day, but it would be perfectly suitable if you just wanted to escape the ship for an hour or two without the cost and energy required to visit Rome or take another excursion of the area. 

I was quite shocked when I visited Livorno, I expected the port area to be somewhat industrial, given that it's the place where shipping happens.  But, from what I could tell their was nothing there to entice those who stayed onboard for the day to take a quick trip off the ship for anything.  Civitavecchia was much closer to my expectations, but probably because of the research I had done prior to the cruise.

Happy Sailing

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Photo of the Week: Italy

Photo from Pompeii, Italy

Travel Tip - Bring Contact Information

So on my last trip to Disney World I was meeting my friend Terye at the Port Orleans French Quarter resort (I'll be posting about the resort in a week or two).  I was flying in that day and she was driving over from Tampa.  When I got to the resort I went to pull up Terye's information for check in and it was NOT in my phone, ACK!

I had recently fixed an error in my phone book and her phone number and address got lost.  I had thought to double check, but thought I had checked it already, apparently not.

I did get in contact with Terye through Facebook and email and she called me, so it worked out.  But my tip is that if you're supposed to be meeting someone on your trip, double and triple check that you have their information.

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Port Orleans French Quarter

For my last trip to Disney World my friend and I choose the Port Orleans French Quarter Resort.  It's a moderate resort with a lot of charm, I really liked it.

My stay here started with a ride from the airport on Disney's Magical Express, I was fortunate to be the first hotel drop off.  When I got off the bus I was given beads, it must be Mardi Gras everyday!  I had no wait to check in.  

The only other resort I have stayed at in Disney World was All-Star Sports and this was a big improvement.  The resort had a much nicer setting, bigger rooms, a nicer pool area.  Even though the resort has a similar motel like structure, you never felt like you were at a motel. 

The rooms had good lighting (and I like a bright room), were tastefully decorated to the theme of the French Quarter.  The rooms had been refirbished in 2010-2011 (or something like that) and I was worried that the new queen size beds might make the rooms feel smaller, but there was plenty of room for my friend and I.  I think a 3rd person would easily be accomodated there, and a 4th would be fine depending on the relationship of the travelers.  The new queen size beds were comfortable too.

The room had a table and chairs, nightstand, 3 dressers drawers, a refrigerator, flat screen TV, double sink in the bathroom, a typical hotel hairdryer and a small safe.  There was no formal closet, but a clothes bar in the bathroom with a shelf.

The bathroom had two seperate areas.  The toilet and shower were in a seperate room (the lighting was kinda dim) and the sinks were outside that room with a curtain you could use to section off the sink area from the rest of the hotel room, a great privacy feature.  I loved the two sinks, 2 mirrors and all the extra space that comes with that.  It was nice to be able to spread out my stuff on the sink. 

The resort itself is the smallest of the moderate resorts and I found it was a very easy resort to get around and there really is no bad location.  We weren't close to anything, but then again, nothing was far away either.  Everything was under a 5 minute walk from our room (in building 2 - 2221). 

Port Orleans Riverside is the sister resort of French Quarter and I did get a chance to take a walk there one afternoon, the walk was about 10 minutes along a river and we took the boat back to French Quarter.  The river provided a great setting for both resorts and made it more picturesque. Riverside is a much larger resort and much more spread out.  While it also had a great theme, I don't think I would have liked how spread out it was.  But it does have a larger store, a sit down restaurant, a larger lobby and more activities.

I thought the location of the resort was MUCH better then the All-Star Resorts.  It was was much closer to everything (except that Animal Kingdom).  Whether we drove or took Disney Transportation, it was never a long drive.

Dining at the resort was only quick service, but they had a pretty good variety of foods.  I had heard the beignets were great there.  As much as I love fried dough, it was just fried dough with powdered sugar.  I found the lunch menu was kinda boring, but the dinner menu had a good variety of foods, not what I would have expected from quick service.

Overall, I thought French Quarter was a great resort, I would recommend it to anyone.  For couples it has a more intimate feel then some of the larger resorts.  For the price it has a good location (you can't compete with the monorail resorts or the Epcot resorts), a great setting, great ammenities and was a managable size.

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Photo of the Week: Italy

Sorrento, Italy

Website Recommendation: Visa Stamper

Visa Stamper is a website where you can recreate your passport(s).  It's a fun little site that is still in Beta. 

What you do is set up an account and add in all your stamps from you passport, the website then recreats the pages for you to view online.  You can even add stamps for locations you went to, but didn't get a stamp for.

The site is still in Beta and could use a little work to make it better, such as differentiating between a land and an air entry or adding visas.  But, it does its simple functions well and all the stamps that I have matched the ones that were shown. 

http://visastamper.com/

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Livorno Ship Tour: Pisa and A Taste Of Tuscany

When my cruise on the Norwegian Epic stopped in Livorno I decided to do the tour called: Pisa and A Taste of Tuscany.  Although the port of Livorno is primarily known for servicing Florence, Florence is actually an hour to two from the port.  Having been to Florence previously I decided to do something different. Pisa and Tuscany!


This is one of those big group tours from the cruise line and when I say big group I mean that there were multiple busses doing the same tour, so we're talking about over 200 people on this tour.  But, compared to some other big bus tours I have taken, this one didn't feel quite as heardy or touristy as I've experienced in the past.

We had an early meeting in a dining room, though not nearly as early as some of the other tours that left the ship this day, 8:30 am.  Sailing alone I had hoped to meet some people on excursions, it turned out I had already met several people who were on my tour and was on a bus with 3 of them.

The first part of the tour went to Pisa, on the way our tour guide spoke about the region of Tuscany. Once we arrived we parked in a bus parking area we took a 5-10 minute walk to the tower and then got some information about the leaning tower and the other buildings.  Then we got some free time, I think we had an hour before our meeting time, plenty of time to take photos and do some shopping or have a drink at one of the local street vendors.  I will talk about the Pisa in the next few weeks, but I will say that if you got rid of the hordes of tourists, this would be a nice place to visit.

After Pisa we went to a winery for a tour and lunch.  This winery had a stunning setting - it had that old, fancy farm feel and was nestled within the surrounding hills.  We got a quick tour, which was just fine with me since I've been on winery tours in the past.  If you want an in-depth tour of a winery, this is not it. Though the staff was very friendly and answered any questions asked.  We also learned a little bit about making olive oil.

After that we had lunch, lunch was served in tents outside, which we had perfect weather for.  There were some smaller tents (see the photos) that were heavenly.  However, we were in a much larger tent that fit several busses of guests.  This was a nice setting, but not as dreamy as the smaller tents. But the food was fabulous and we were given suggestions on which wines to drink with each course.  I personally didn't like any of the wines, they were too dry for me.  But, they had the best balsamic vinegar ever! The olive oil was also very good. We were given the opportunity to purchase the olive oil and vinegar as well as a few other items. The lunch was a couple different courses of light foods - pasta, meats, breads.

After that we returned to the ship with a little time to enjoy the ship before all the full day tours returned to the ship.  This tour only took about 5 and a half to 6 hours.  I thought it was a very nice tour for anyone who wants to have an experience other then Florence.  While I do try to avoid some of the big group tours, they tend to have a much less authentic feel, this was one of the better big group tours I have taken with a cruise line.  It also allowed me to save my energy for the next day in Rome!

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Photo of the Week: France

Eiffel Tower, Paris, France

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