Punta Mita, Mexico

For my Fortieth my mom took me on a vacation to a surprise location in Mexico.- Punta Mita.   Definitely a benefit having a mom, who is a travel agent. 

 

After a short flight to Puerto Vallarta.  Only two hours from Sky Harbor, we took a short bus ride to the St.  Regis Hotel a beautiful resort 

 Upon arrival we were greeted with margaritas, which we enjoyed while we sat overlooking infinity pools looking out towards the ocean while the staff got us checked in. 

The room was lovely with a nice patio to sit and enjoy our morning coffee or tea, brought every morning by our butler.  Yes, Butler!  Need anything, they were there to help.  Even offered to unpack and pack our suitcases.   One of our favorite parts of the room, was the outdoor shower.  I definitely want one of those. 

 After our morning beverages we would walk down to the beach, grab a lounger, order a bloody and set up for the day.  It was amazing how empty the beach was.  Wonder where the other people were.

Spent the days, reading and swimming in the ocean.  Have to say it was a little difficult imagining these characters surviving in the harsh Alaska winter as I lay out on the beach, swimming in the ocean to cool off

Eating fish tacos and drinking margaritas.  The margaritas were very good.  Didn't have that sweet taste they have here

   We did take part in a couple of the activities

 One was a guacamole making class.  Have to say ours turned out pretty tasty.  I  had not realized before was to use Serrano peppers when making guac. 

Being huge seafood lovers, we ate fish/seafood at every meal.  They had  a "catch of the day" event one day, showing different fish and then we got to choose which fish we wanted.  We went for the fish tacos with the sea bass. 

 We headed into town twice for dinner to Si Senor and Blue Shrimp.  Both very good  They brought out these fish while at Si Senor.  It was lovely to sit outside and watch the sunset over the Pacific Ocean

Had a fantastic time.  Thanks for making the start of my 40th year so much fun. 

The Amalfi coast



Honestly, I have been so bad about writing these that I am not even sure where these photos were taken.  I do know that we had a great time exploring the Amalfi coast the last few days of our cruise

 The sights were beautiful.

 We got our feet into the ocean

 And wandered around, sightseeing, window shopping and eating.

Absolutely love muscles. 

 Seeing churches with interesting decorum

 And narrow walkways

 And tons of olives.  I absolutely love olives.  I actually ate all of a roommates olives once and then replaced them without them knowing.  Or maybe they did, but they never said anything

Cara happened to be in Sorrento at the same time as us.  What a small world and how fun to be able to see her and explore Sorrento

Just another gorgeous shot



Pompeii, Italy

Pompeii was a location I was especially looking forward to seeing.  I have to admit that I was surprised at the population that currently lives here.  Not, really sure why I also live near a volcanic mountain that has erupted in the past.

The drive to Pompeii was very pretty.  I loved the sights over looking the city(ies), up the beautiful mountain sides and looking out towards the ocean.  Always a treat when you live in a landlocked, dry state

I'll be honest, I'm not sure that this photo was taken on that drive.  But, I can say that it was taken in Italy and well lets just say it was

It's crazy to think so many people living their daily lives all just to wiped out at once.  Thankful that I live in a time that science is able to warn us of any upcoming natural threats.  And yes, if they said that the Peaks were going to blow I'd be gone.

 I would have loved to see what this looked like in it's day.  I have no doubt it was quite the site to see.  Beautiful gardens and sculptures

 We wandered all over the park.  Mostly in search of finding the preserved remains

 Unfortunately, the headsets did not work.  Well at least not the English language ones.  Most of them didn't play anything and if they did it was about something nowhere near where we were standing.  It was very frustrating.  I would recommend to anyone going to have a human guide to show you the sites

 We did finally find where the casts of the people were.   There was no way I was leaving without finding them. 

 They have moved the items found to one specific area close to the beginning of the park

Apollo

So many neat sites, items, buildings, and history to see.  Next time I will have to check out Herculaneum

Malta and Gozo

We spent a few days in Malta and Gozo, I believe South of Italy.  But, honestly not sure.  The nice thing about having someone else in charge of the driving. 

 

Since I was completely ignorant about the country of Malta.  I will share with you a few facts.

• It's approx. 122 sq miles
• Official languages English and Maltese.  (according to some locals Maltese is difficult even for native speakers)
• Apparently a lot of movies have been filmed in this area.  The ones they seemed to be the most proud of are "Troy"-2004 and "Popeye"-1980
• Oh and it's gorgeous.  Definitely a must see



 

 Took a tour on these boats.  Which was a short, approx. 20min boat ride.  Around these rock formations, and the clear blue water

 The original plan was a night in Malta and then a night in Gozo.   But, the ship was unable to dock by Gozo due to weather.  So stayed 2 nights in Malta and took a day trip over to Gozo



We were fortunate to have tour guides to show us around. I loved the limestone buildings.  The pops of color made for photo ops around every corner

Yes, they do have cars.  And they even drive them down their small streets .  Crazy to an American whose 2 lane roads would be a 4 lanes here

 

And the views of the ocean

And beautiful clear waters

Driving around the country side

Had lunch at this spot.  Enjoyed some delicious muscles. 

I'm not sure if Malta and Gozo are popular European travel destinations, but I would recommend a visit. Hope to make it back

Windstar Cruise

I decided to do a post separate for the boat itself and will do others for the stops that we made.  We did a ten day cruise leaving from Civitavecchia, about an hours drive from Rome, going down around Sicily and Malta returning to Civitavecchia. 

The cruise was through Windstar.  The boat has about 300 passengers plus crew.  Being smaller it does not have some of the activities of bigger ships.  But, that was fine.  It was actually nice to not have thousands of other people around.

 

 

 

I was definitely more interested doing site seeing at the ports than playing games on a cruise ship. 

The cabins were nice, but small.  I loved being able to unpack my  bag for 10days and not have to worry about lugging it around with me.  Made travel so much easier. 

 

 

 

 

Everyday when we left a port the boat would let out it's sails and play "1492" from the movie Columbus

Our first day on the boat we had a long haul and were on for 24hrs, but it was fine.  We just enjoyed having some time to relax.  We even took a class on the art of folding towels into animals. 





And won a straight razor shave.  There being no men in our cabin we decided just to gift it another passenger

We typically would eat breakfast and dinner on the ship.  Breakfast we pretty much always opted for the buffet.  Which offered quite a few options, cheeses, meats, eggs, fruit, breads, yogurts, etc, etc and always a cappuccino.  Definitely different for me as I am not a coffee drinker, but when in Italy... and it actually was not bad. 



Dinner they had a menu that varied from day to day.  Some of it very good, some of it ok.  We typically would get a bottle of wine and have it for a couple of nights and sit and enjoy the wine, an appetizer, a meal and dessert. 

 



 

They did have two specialty restaurants on board that you were given a night at each.  Unfortunately, I was feeling a bit sick from the boat on the one of those nights and so didn't enjoy the meal as much as I might have otherwise. 

Most of the other passengers were couples and honestly not always friendly, but we did make friends with another mother/daughter team

Saw some beautiful sights and even spotted a dolphin

I've never been one to think of going on a cruise, but would definitely do something like that again.   Basically was just a moving hotel room.  Super convenient and saw amazing sites