Christmas Cruise - San Pietro in Vincoli

Within the San Pietro in Vincoli (Church of St. Peter in Chains) there is little hidden gem of Michelangelo's very well known sculpture of Moses which is part of the tomb of Pope Julius II.

This is a couple of other photos of some interesting things in that church.

Christmas Cruise - Roman Colosseum

Here are the pictures of the outside of the colosseum and the kids with one of the dudes dressed up in Roman duds.

Christmas Cruise - Ancient Rome

On our all day tour of Rome we first went to ancient Rome to the colosseum and surroundings. Unfortuantely we did not get to go inside but we knew we were going back in February so that was not a huge deal. The first pictures of the rocks are of the original road in ancient Rome. There were a bunch of people surrounding the colosseum dressed in ancient Roman centurian costumes. It made for a rather cool effect if it weren't for all the other people there ruining it! ;-) The weather that day was perfect though it was a tiny bit cold. Anyway, here are the pictures...

Christmas Cruise - Corfou

The second day in Greece was spent in Corfou. For this tour we went to Achilleion which was:

a palace built in Corfu by the Empress of Austria Elisabeth of Bavaria, also known as Sissi, after a suggestion by Austrian Consul Alexander von Watzberg...designed with the mythical hero Achilles as its central theme.

After spending a couple of hours there we then went to downtown Corfou to look at a church and do some shopping. The downtown was not all that impressive and was quite dirty. Plus the weather was not the best. Nevertheless we had a great excursion number three with our new friends.

Christmas Cruise - Katakolon Greek Dinner

This was the Greek dinner in Katakolon. It really wasn't much in the way of food but was just finger foods that we have frequently in the US. And the dancing was sort of lame. The highlight was the Ouzo.

After the spending the whole day with our new friends the Sohos we shared a bottle of Ouzo with them. Many that was crazy. Rebekkah and Jennifer had fun dancing Greek-style.

Christmas Cruise - Olympia Race Track

These pictures are of the race track at Olympia. Everything has pretty much deteriorated away after several earthquakes and several thousand years but the original starting/finish line is still there. Rather than racing in a circle like they do today, they ran back and forth between two lines. All of the mondern 40 meter, 100 meter, 200 meter, etc. races originated with this.

Christmas Cruise - Olympia

Our next stop was Katakolon, Greece which is the port for the ancient site of Olympia. If you didn't already know, this site:

is known for having been the site of the Olympic Games in classical times, comparable in importance to the Pythian Games held in Delphi. Both games were held every Olympiad (i.e. every four years), the Olympic Games dating back possibly further than 776 BC. In 394 AD ( after exactly 1170 years ) emperor Theodosius I abolished them as they were then considered reminiscent of paganism. The first olympic games were in Olympia in honor of Zeus.

The link has a pretty cool artists rendering of what it might have looked like back then. We hung out all day here with our new friends the Sohos. It was a really good time.