Palma is the capital city of Mallorca, and was founded by the Romans in 123 BC. There is a massive Cathedral, the Santa Maria, which is Gothic in design, and closed when we got there! The closed churches and cathedrals in Spain have been quite a surprise to me, as in the past, all of the churches and cathedrals, in Europe, have been open, no matter what time we arrived.The fortress on the other hand was open, and we enjoyed it immensely. The Almudaina is a Moorish-style fortress that was converted to a royal residence. The views from every window were stunning, and the breeze flowing through ..read more

Today we are in Ibiza, Spain. Another island, off the coast of Spain. The beaches are both sandy and rugged, and the hillside are covered in fig and olive trees. There is a 16th century “castle” which is now filled with shops. We were told that the people of Ibiza party morning, noon and night. We grabbed a taxi, and headed to the beach, along the way, we saw many areas where salt, apparently used to cure fish in Norway, was gathered. Our taxi driver’s father worked at there, and even restored the first steam engine. The beach was lovely, and the water very inviting, but since we were not ..read more

  We were supposed to go to Cadiz, Spain yesterday, which we were really looking forward to, but apparently the winds were quite fierce, and this boat benga monster, we were unable to dock. What that meant was another day at sea, at the back of the boat, in our quiet little corner. Reading books and playing games. Today, we went to Motril, Spain. We took a shuttle bus to the “Old Town”, and walked around, a bit. There was an old church, but it was closed; I am quite shocked that every church we have come upon, has been closed. This has never happened, in Europe, before. Old Town, was ..read more

Yesterday was a fairly uneventful day, as it was a sea day, but we did get to enjoy the show, “Burn the Floor”! It is a modern take on ballroom dancing with fabulous dancers, costumes and music. My face could not stop smiling, under my mask1 Bahahaha I am a little sick of the food, but the entertainment on the ship has been incredible. They even have tables in the atrium with PUZZLES!! I might write a post later on this ship, Norwegians EPIC, but my advice would be to skip it! Today we arrived in Funchal, Portugal on the island of Madeira, which is located 370 miles off the coast of Morocco ..read more

After four days at sea, we were super excited to get off of the ship in the Azores. Ponta Delgada is one of nine islands in the Azores and best known for their beautiful green countryside and mineral springs. Apparently their soil, although mostly volcanic, is extremely rich, and they claim to be able to grow just about anything planted. As per usual, we left the ship and searched out a taxi, to see what we could see. To our good fortune, and travel angels, we found an amazing driver who took us on an amazing drive around Ponta Delgada. The lush, green countryside was soooo beautiful! So man ..read more

What a pleasure to travel by train in Europe! We took the Thalys train from Amsterdam to Brussels, in just over two hours. No schlep to the airport, no security, no luggage constraints, and no three-hour wait. Ahhhh......so, so nice!That coupled with the fact that we are close to the Metro at both of the hotels, and it literally was a hop, skip, and jump! Once we arrived at the Central Station in Brussels, we thought we would take a taxi, one mile, to our hotel, when low and behold, the taxis were on strike. Our first traffic strike this trip, which is amazing. Also, there is going to b ..read more

Time to hit the streets of Amsterdam! It will be the hottest day of our trip so far, so I am keeping my fingers crossed for a cloud cover and a breeze!We decided that since it "may" rain tomorrow, we would hit the old city center today, as it is a bit further from our hotel and more walking, outdoors. Three metro stops away and we were at the Amsterdam Centraal train station, which was a beautiful, old building with two different clocks, towers, and a goldcrest, of some sort. It was built between 1881 and 1889. Across the canal, sits the Basilica of Saint Nicholas. It is Amst ..read more

I think that we are all going to miss our little apartment, in our little neighborhood when we leave Berlin. It was so wonderful to return to a quiet neighborhood after tourist-ing all day.Before leaving, Joe and I had a fabulous acai-type bowl for breakfast. We headed to the airport in an Uber and got caught in a traffic jam, not that it really mattered as we had plenty of time. We were booked on an Easy Jet flight, and they were pretty great! Our special assistant from check-in to the gate was actually from Los Angeles but had been living in Berlin for more than 35 years. It was grea ..read more

Today is our last day in Paris and our last day in Europe. Tomorrow we fly home to New York, and the next day, home to Tennessee. It has been a fabulous trip, and my brain is overloaded, and confused, trying to remember everything we did, and everywhere we went.Today is easy; We went to the Rodin Museum. There was some sort of demonstrations going on when we got there, so there were police blocking off all of the roads. Fortunately, we were able to reach the entrance to the Museum, from a side street. We spent a lot of time in the gardens, viewing "The Gates of Hell", "The Thinker", "Adam a ..read more

Today, after another slow start, we decided to walk up to the Acr d'Triumphe, which is probably a ten-minute walk from our hotel, IF you turn the right way on the street you are looking for. Otherwise, it takes closer to an hour. UGH.Once we turned around, after asking three people, we quickly found it but had we gone the correct direction, we would have missed this church; Saint-Honore d'Eylau Parish. It was a lovely little church with an art deco glass roof and a delightful blue ceiling. It was built as a temporary church, therefore is "poor in ornamentation", but I liked its' simplicity ..read more