Leaving Barcelona and Heading to Italy! Port Livorno:

I have learned that the Port of Barcelona is a wonderful and beautiful place with much to see. As Columbus looks out to see so do I and Sonia waiting to sail on the mighty Norwegian Epic, which is the flag ship of Norwegian Cruise lines! This is the third voyage that I have made with Norwegian. The first was on the final voyage of the Norwegian Sea. In which I met one of the great Maitre 'd's Boris. That was in 2005 which was our maiden voyage to the Caribbean. Our second Voyage was to Hawaii on the Norwegian Pride of America. The great thing is that you can do a down payment on a trip with them and pay on it till you are paid off then take the trip! That's how we do all of our trips with them. If you like they can arrange for all of the hotel, transfers, flights and excursions so there are no surprises.

So we take the taxi to the port and get on this wonderful ship and get ready to sail. Of course we get there early enough to be able to explore the ship and get settled in so we are ready for our safety drill. All ships have a safety drill at least with in 24 hours of being on the ship. Norwegian usually gets that over pretty quick so everyone knows where we need to be in case of an emergency. This is of course mandatory by Maritime Law.

One of things that the people of Barcelona love to do on a Sunday afternoon is sail! This is what we saw while waiting to sail out.

Believe it or not I took this picture of this rather tall bridge while on the 15th deck of the Epic. The Epic has 19 decks.

This is a chandeleir in the Atrium on the overlooking the Fifth deck.

This is the Epic.

 The next pictures are of the wheel house. Pretty incredible!

As I said, The Epic certainly dwarfed the bridge.

We sailed all night thru the mysterious Sunset and mist of the Mediterranean Sea.

Welcome to Livorno, Italy!

On to Tuscany and the Five Villages!

The blocks that you see in the fore front are actually granite that is used for sculptures and building materials. These come from the mountains in the distance. The trees are called Umbrella trees which come from the pine or fir trees. 

Beautiful Tuscany Villa's 

The next time that you have an olive or a chestnut thank God for brave Italian souls that risk their lives picking them for you.

My beautiful wife, Sonia.

One of our wonderful guides.

I would have loved to set on that balcony under that umbrella and enjoyed a nice bottle of Tuscany wine.

This gives playing in the back yard a whole new meaning!

They certainly love their wolves in Italy. Team Jacob!

Yes, this is a street. 

The white that you see in these mountains are NOT snow but Granite. 

Here is another one of our wonderful guides.

Here I am! Ready to start my little challenge!

Sonia and I in Tuscany!

Wine in Tuscany! Does it get better? Maybe....