30. November 2009 by Samldanach.

Well, this one is going to be quick. Mostly because I am typing it up Monday morning, and am feeling decidedly ooky. I will spare you the TMI.

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30. November 2009 by Samldanach.

Well, we are Americans. And, in the immortal words of our President, “Yes, we Cannes!”

It’s a good thing you can’t actually throw things at me over the internet.

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30. November 2009 by Samldanach.

Where is Lucca? Yup, I heard you asking that. Lucca is a small-ish city in Tuscany, very near to Pisa and Florence. As a tourist attraction, its most redeeming feature is the old walled city in the middle of town. This is where we spent the day.

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30. November 2009 by Samldanach.

Again with the bright and early. And adventures with setting wake up calls. Le sigh. (That is my signature phrase this week. You like?)

Today, we used the cruise’s tour bus to get us to the city and back (1 ½ hours each way, which they tell us would be 350 euros by taxi!). But, we are doing Rome “on our own.” Which means that Sonya, as the one who has been here before, gets to play tour guide.

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30. November 2009 by Samldanach.

Ah, nothing quite like getting up early while on vacation. At least, if there is anything like it, I don’t like it.

We headed out to see Pompeii. We got to see a tiny slice of Naples along the way. I noticed when we were in Scotland that it looked remarkably like the Appalachian Mountains. And, clearly, that must be why the Scots were so happy to settle there. Naples looks remarkably like New Jersey. Perhaps that’s why so many Italians settled there?

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30. November 2009 by Samldanach.

We woke up early enough this morning to watch the ship come into port, which was totally worth it. Malta is beautiful and impressive. I’ve never seen anything like it. The area has very little real estate, so they compensated by building up. But, unlike the skyscrapers you see in most cities that follow that path, Valletta (the main city on Malta) has multiple levels of buildings, with many areas carved out of the rocky hillsides. It is incredibly dense, which made it a fantastic city for walking around and exploring.

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30. November 2009 by Samldanach.

We woke up bright an early, at about 6:00. We promptly went back to sleep.

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30. November 2009 by Samldanach.

The trip to begin the cruise was pretty uneventful. We got packed much faster than we expected, so sat around the house trying to work out what we’d forgotten. Sonya’s dad was nice enough to come take us to the airport and pick up the dog for the week at the same time. Dulles security was painfully slow (they only had security lanes open), but nothing unusual.

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