Mary and Chris felt that a nice vacation was long overdue, having ventured out of Lafayette very few times during 2020.  After studying our options we decided on a Mediterranean cruise; it would allow us to visit parts of Europe we hadn’t been to in the past. 

 

We especially wanted to spend time in Italy.  Several Italian ports of call were featured on Viking’s Mediterranean Odyssey.  We were likewise curious about the country of Croatia. 

 

Prior to boarding our ship we spent one night at Hotel Colon where we were given a sixth-floor private terrace room directly across from Barcelona Cathedral.  We walked all around the central city to fight off jet lag. 

 

The next day at Port of Barcelona, we boarded the Viking Jupiter and cast off for Aix-en-Provence.  After a city tour, we visited the farmhouse, now museum, of Piere-Auguste Renoir.  The following day brought us to Pisa to view the baptistery, cathedral and the iconic leaning tower, which is a marble-clad wedding cake 186 feet tall.  On Sunday we toured Rome, including the Vatican’s Piazza San Pietro.  The famous Sistine Chapel is closed on Sundays – oh, well, maybe next time.  We next hit Naples and then cruised around the southern extreme, ending up in the Adriatic, making Corfu, Greece at about 7:00 am.  The wife of a couple we met was originally from Lafayette.  Small world.  The next morning found us docking in Dubrovnik.  After stops in Cavtat and Ljuta, we returned for a hike atop the ancient city walls overlooking the Old City and the rugged Adriatic coast.  Next was the city of Split, a town equally as cool as Dubrovnik.  There, Emperor Diocletian of Rome built his “retirement palace” around 395 AD.  His burial site is there amid some small sphinx statues his troops brought back to Croatia from Egypt.  Then we went on to Venice followed by a three-day extension stay in Tuscany.