We arrived in Athens after an unexpected day on the ship. On Thursday, we were supposed to go to Mykonos, but the ocean was rough and it was not safe to go into the port. So, we had a nice day of relaxing on the ship before we went back to Greece for our day in Athens on Friday.

We arrived in port and took a very expensive taxi into the city. We arrived at the Acropolis and joined the security line to climb up to the Parthenon. The first thing we saw was an outdoor theater, which is still used for concerts. They were setting up for one when we were there. Brennan said he remembered a CD they had when he was growing up that was recorded here.

This is not a post I thought I would be writing…we went on a cruise to start out the month of October.

Let me give you a little back story-when Brennan was in Wales, he called me one day and told me he had found a cruise through some rewards we had. I was hesitant until he told me we would be paying around $100 + taxes and fees for an 11 night cruise through the Mediterranean and it worked out for the dates after our time with Lauren & Melvin. At that point, I was sold. The funny thing was, it was the exact same ship we were on when we did the cruise at the beginning of the summer in Norway.

So, on October 1, we made our way from central Rome to the cruise port in Civitavecchia and began looking for the Carnival Pride. We ended up on a long walk through the port that was very unnecessary, but eventually found the boarding area. It felt a little strange to be back on the same boat 3 months after we left.

Beside us in the port, this large ferry was painted with Batman on one side and Wonder Woman on the other side. We got to see both sides, since we took an accidental tour through the port trying to find our boarding area.

Our first two days on board were calm. We enjoyed knowing where the best spots were to work, relax, and get coffee. It was much warmer than when we did our first cruise, which was great! As we were sailing on Sunday, we went past this volcano, near the island of Stromboli. Less than a week later, there were news articles about how the volcano on Stromboli was erupting. It was very interesting to see all the water and the different colors compared to the ocean near England and Norway from the first cruise we took.

We made it to Florence in the afternoon of Monday, September 26 and got started exploring right away.

We found one of the main piazzas in Florence and spent some time walking around before joining a free tour around the main parts of the city. The tour guide was very informative, but had a thick Italian accent, which made it challenging to understand her. Thankfully, the scenery itself was beautiful and what I caught of the tour helped bring context to what we were looking at around us. 

At some point before we left Florida, Lauren (one of my best friends from college) let me know that she and her husband Melvin were going to Italy this fall. She asked if we wanted to meet up with them and I enthusiastically said yes! Brennan and I did nearly no planning on this trip-Melvin and Lauren really let us tag along on their Italian vacation and it was amazing. We spent 5 days together in Cinque Terre (on the Western Coast) and in Florence. Italy is one of my favorite places and none of us had been to any of these cities, so it worked out great to explore them together!