Lauren & Jeremy » Previous Adventures

Aloha from Hawaii, Our photos from the islands

Lauren and Jeremy — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 12:44:08 +0000

We got a little lazy about blogging this adventure but we had an amazing trip! Here is a slideshow of the pictures we took throughout the different islands. Enjoy!

Hawaii

See the slideshow at Flickr.com

Pics from the trip!

Lauren and Jeremy — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 12:34:42 +0000

European Adventure Part 4

See the slideshow at Flickr.com

Our next stop Livorno, Italy

Lauren and Jeremy — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 22:34:15 +0000

Our next stop on our journey was Livorno, Italy. Usually people head out to Florence from here, but since we had already been there we decided to rent a car and check out a town called Lucca and then go to Pisa. Lucca is famous for its intact Renaissance-era city walls, that were built in 180 BC.

Lauren taking her Hat shot

The city had so much charm. Within the city walls there are over 100 churches. Car traffic is not allowed and there are tons of people moving around the street on bikes, mostly women doing their shopping. We walked around the city for many hours, stopping for some croissants and coffee along the way.

Delicious!

The city has tons of narrow streets with little shops and restaurants along the way. We wandered the streets enjoying the architecture and sights…..not to mention a few gelato stops

This is called San Michele in Foro

Lauren trying to find the next sight!

Jeremy managed to find a bike shop. Yeah! Here he is trying on his new cycling jersey.

To get one of the best views of the entire town of Lucca, we stopped at the Casa and Torre Guinigi, which is a tower with oak trees on top. You climb (and climb and climb) up to the top for a birds eye view of the entire walled-in city.

Stairs we had to climb to reach the roof.

View of Lucca from the tower

After all the walking around it was time to look through Fodor’s and find us a restaurant to eat at.

Delicious lunch @ Buca L. Antonio

As much as we loved walking around Lucca we still had to get to Pisa. So we jumped back in our rental and followed the green signs until we reached our next stop: Pisa, Italy. Pisa is famous for the leaning tower of Pisa…who knew!

Another of Jeremy’s finest hat shots.

Ah we made it … The leaning tower of Pisa. It really is pretty shocking when you first see it.

Jeremy’s tourist shot

Lauren’s tourist shot

Here is a complete slideshow of the pictures we captured during our stops in Tuscany.. Enjoy

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Pisa 78.8 °F

Time to visit the capital of Italy – Rome

Lauren and Jeremy — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 22:15:20 +0000

The cruise ship actually docked in Civitavecchia, Italy which is the port located about an hour from Rome. We decided we would wing it here and somehow make it to Rome. Once off the ship, we missed the sign for the shuttle to take us outside of the port. (Mistake #1) So we walked and walked and walked until about 30 minutes passed and we finally made it out. I won’t mention that it felt like it was 110 degrees out. So once we finally made it out, we were bombarded by taxi drivers that would take us to Rome, but we decided to be a bit more adventurous and take the train. (Mistake #2) What we didn’t realize was there is no air conditioning on the train…oops.

Lauren looking through Fodor’s to help pick out some stops to see in Rome

Well we did finally make it to Rome and the good stuff was about to begin. We decided to do one of those hop on hop off buss tours that take you to all the sights.

Check out the girl in the background…she is so excited!

The Vatican and St. Peters….we didn’t have a tour set up and therefore would have had to brave the line (ridiculous) to go in, so we decided to save it for our next trip to Rome.

Trevi Fountain

The Forum

The Colosseum, of course

This was a restaurant in the Trastavere area…pizza here was supposed to be excellent….and it was!

This just reminded us of one of our dear friends

Ready to head back to the ship! It was a long day of walking and those damn blisters were still hurting!

Here is a slide show of all the pictures we took in Rome

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August 11th at 4:35pm – RIP Mac

Lauren and Jeremy — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 07:52:03 +0000

On August 11th at 4:35pm, Jeremy’s laptop named Mac passed away. We tried everything we could to resesitate him, but the hard drive stopped pumping. Mac brought us all a ton of joy during his lifetime. He was always there for us when we needed to speak and was always willing to look through our pictures.

Needless to say, without Mac here we haven’t been able to blog. We will post our pics and videos once we get home.

RIP – Mac

Sorrento, Italy and the Amalfi Coast….. What a place!

Lauren and Jeremy — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 07:42:20 +0000

After an incredible stop in Santorini, Greece, we were a little worried everything else would not be able to live up to the beauty that Santorini had. Well we were pleasantly surprised by the beauty of the Amalfi Coast. Once the ship was in port we hired a driver named Antonio for the day and it was time to explore. Our goal, visit Sorrento, Positano, Amalfi and Ravello.

The town of Ravello which is perched high above the city of Amalfi.

Our model

This is where we had lunch… Delicioso! It’s been there for over 300 years

One of the great views

Entrance way to a hotel

The car we drove around in … (that would have been nice)

another view of our car….

hard to tell in this pic but the lemons here are the size of grapefruits

Wedding going on in Ravello… check out the little guys suit and shades. There always seem to be weddings going on in the middle of the afternoon on weekdays.

amazing views everywhere

Amalfi coast…this was a beautiful hotel with an elevator that goes down to one of the beaches.

Fun toy

as you can see the road runs along the cliffs for about 20 miles

We stopped at the beach in Postitano and had some coffee and crepes

Yummm, some nice hot coffee on a nice hot day….

A new hat pic to add to the collection.

A little photo opp along the way

Oh Ralphers, we miss you.

Sorrento, Italy 75.2 °F

Video Highlights from Santorini in 3D…oops I mean HD

Lauren and Jeremy — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 05:37:39 +0000

Sit back and relax, here are our video highlights from our stop in Santorini, Greece. Hope you enjoy!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TsDlV3f8n8

See you in Italy!

Santorini 78.8 °F

Santorini could be one of the most beautiful places on Earth!

Lauren and Jeremy — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 17:45:13 +0000

There are a bunch of words that can accurately describe Santorini, Greece. A few of them would be magnificent, breathtaking, gorgeous, picturesque and stunning. By now you should have a good idea of how amazing this place is so we will do our best to show you with a bunch of pictures. Once we docked, we jumped in a gondola which takes you to the top of the island. Once on top, we rented a convertible and it was time to explore the island. Our first destination was Oia, which is a small town that you can walk through and do some shopping. It’s the most photographed village here.

In our Greekorghini heading to Oia

View of Oia

There are cats and dogs walking around town. This one seems pretty comfortable.

Here is Lauren posing with her Santorini hat. FYI we always take a picture with a hat of the place we visit. Most of the shopkeepers give us dirty looks. (Good thing we have already been to most of the places we are visiting so I (Lauren) don’t have to pose in silly hats too often). Not sure why I had to do this one….again.

Lots of great subjects for pics

One of the few windmills on the island

ohhhh….we miss Ralphers

What is a donkey doing in Santorini? It’s actually the other way to get to the top of Santorini. I’ll take the gondola.

We could definitely stay here for a while!

Not sure what this expression is for…..maybe he realized he took his last bite of Baklava

aaaahhh- We miss Casey!

So Picturesque!

I look like I’m standing in front of a postcard.

Check out that pool!

It was sooo hot, we were very tempted to jump down off the cliff.

They found a nice place in the shade.

Can you beat this view?

Laure found a replacement for Ralphers (never).

Finally made it to the beach. Notice the black sand.

Video Highlights from Turkey

Lauren and Jeremy — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 08:56:16 +0000

Grab your popcorn and your 3D glasses and get ready to enjoy our video highlights from Turkey in 3D. Well not exactly 3D but someday it will be. Here is a quick video with some highlights from our first stop.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV7qgCeiC3M

Istanbul 87.8 °F

Hello from 2 continents – Turkey that is!

Lauren and Jeremy — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 17:36:28 +0000

After a long night of flying, we finally made it to Istanbul, Turkey. After checking into the hotel we only had one thing left to do… Sleep right through our dinner reservation and continue sleeping for the next 12 hours. The long flight took its toll on us and this was the only way to catch up. The next morning we woke up full of energy and we were ready for our full day walking tour throughout Istanbul. Since we had already been here, we decided to to take an off the beaten path tour and bypass the major tourist attractions. After a quick breakfast we headed to the lobby to meet our guide. From there we jumped in taxi and headed to the to the main square. Next, we walked through some historic areas and headed through the Jewish quarters. There are about 25K Jews living here amongst a population of roughly 15 million.

The first stop we checked out was the Galata tower. From the top we had a 360 degree view of Turkey. Very cool!

View from the Galata Tower overlooking the old city

Along the way we spotted this tram which is one of the oldest working trollys in the world.

Quite a beautiful city!

Once we covered most of the European side. It was time to board our ferry and head to the Asian side of Turkey.

Our captain

Before we headed to the Asian side (Istanbul is the only city in the world that is located on 2 difference continents)we stopped at the Spice Market and checked out some of the local flavors. Along the way we sampled some turkish delight. Kind of taste like marshmallows.

hmmm …which ones of these work in the microwave????

There was booth after booth with vendors selling their spices…Very aggressive vendors! Once we made it over to the Asian side our guide took us to one of his favorite places for a really good lunch. We tried 5 or 6 local Turkish dishes that were all very good. Jeremy even had some meatballs. After a long day of walking around someones feet developed blisters so it was time to call it a day and head to our “Cabin”

War wounds from the walking tour

Since the tour was over and our reservations at Nobu were not until 8:30. We had a few hours so it was time to get the Scrabble Superbowl started.

Lauren is off to an early lead ! 3-1

View from our “cabin” – The old city at dusk

Istanbul 86 °F