April 27: Tunis, Tunisia --- our first steps into Africa!

Seeing our bottle of water with Arabic writing was pretty cool!

The tour we did was through Disney (I totally DID NOT want to brave it on my own in a Muslim country. I may be pretty brave and adventurous in foreign places, but not that brave.......) Our stops were Carthage (a world heritage site), M'dina (a shopping market), the Bardo Museum, and the town of Sidi Bou Said. I picked the longest tour so that we could see all we could in this new country and continent. It was a long day, but we had a very interesting time....it will make DS17and I some great memories. : |

Visiting Carthage

An overlook of the city near the Carthage ruins

I just had to take this picture to prove I was there in Tunis too! (Carthage ruins and overlook of the city in the background.)

Their markets and souvenirs were very fascinating to me! I loved the mosiac plaques (pictures above), and ended up buying one of a camel, but did it later on our last stop of our tour.

Bardo Musem entrance

The Bardo museum is known for its ancient mosiacs. They were very impressive!

The Bardo museum was ok, but after seeing the Vatican museum, the Louvre, and other exceptional museums in the world, this one did not quite interest me much.....It was nice, but I would have shortened the time here to spend more time elsewhere, like in Carthage or Sidi Bou Said....seemed like we were always hurrying on this day.

Walking to Mdina marketplace...the following few pictures shows the very interesting views along the way.

The back of DS17 as our group entered the marketplace....this place was pretty overwhelming. I probably would have been more nervous and scared if I hadn't experienced marketplaces in China first. These were nothing compared to them!...but close....  : |

We went to a Berber rug presentation that our guide said we could opt to go to with him, but it was just a glorified sales pitch. We thought it would be more about how the rugs were made, and they did have a lady on display making a berber rug, but alot of people were pressured to buy, but no one did. The prices were WAY too high, don't know who they think they are fooling. They even started pressuring DS and he is just a kid! They seemed way too desperate to me..... I did buy some jeweled boxes for all the kids and myself and had to really haggle to get them down, but I still am pretty sure I paid WAY too high for them still...oh well. I am still so happy I got them.

The rug lady

Next, onto the town of Sidi Bou Said and their famous blue doors. I thought this town was very pretty, albeit a little too rushed.

The port area we were docked in was very nice and Arabic themed

Walking back to the ship that was held just for our tour to get back. It was a very fun day!

Most people did not like this port stop of Tunis, but I found it very interesting and was happy to be visiting a new continent. So while people were complaining alot, I was just grateful because who knows when I will be in Africa next if at all??

April 26: Malta

This was technically Day #3 on the cruise.

Day 1: Embarkation

Day 2: Sea Day (our last one in a long time)

Day 3: Malta

Tyler and I went on Disney's Blue Grotto excursion in Malta. It was really fun, and not bad considering there were quite a few of us on the bus. It was very popular and had sold out a few times leading up to the cruise so we were expecting it to be pretty full. We began our tour at the fishing village, and then went to the Blue grotto afterwards. I returned into town to see St. John's Co-Cathedral the later half of the day.

A pretty area to view the coastline

The water was electric blue!

The boats that they take us out in on the Blue Grotto tour

Above: Looking down at the opening of the Blue Grotto.

I had to get a picture with Valetta. Tyler was at the Stack having too much fun, so he wasn't around.

They had a place for stray cats! They had little cat houses sat up in this park like area. They must really love cats!

Some views from the bow of the ship

We came back on the ship and saw their port entertainment. I loved the Maltese costumes they were wearing.

We went up on this fort (above) and got some beautiful shots of the harbor and cityscape (pictures below)

The cannons that they fired in tribute as we exited the harbor. It was really cool. They set them off one at a time, and although I filmed it, I was on the wrong side of the ship and didn't get all of them. :(

When we exited, we came out of a different way than when we entered, so we were able to see some different parts of the church.


Above: The streets were all so pretty and this is one of the streets that we took to get to and from the church.
Inside the cathedral:

Above: A picture from the web, you can see the epitaphs all along the floor in more natural-type lighting.

Below: The cathedral as we saw it, but all of the knight's epitaphs were all covered by chairs. I was a little disappointed by this. I would have loved to see the entire scope of them all.

 Above: This is an example of how the floor really looks when the chairs aren't in the way.

Above: An example of one of the individual knight's epitaphs along the floor. All made with tiny marble pieces.

One of the few pictures that turned out not so blurry because I used a flash. (Before I found out no flash photography.)

Above: This picture was taken without a flash, excuse the blurriness, but I think it can still be seen ok....

After our Blue Grotto tour, I went out with friends to walk around and see some of Valetta. There was a church there that I really wanted to see that had hundreds of tile mosiac crests on the floor ---tributes to Maltese knights. I was disappointed because there was a function or something set up there and the floor was covered with chairs and mats so that you could not see the scope of them. I posted pictures up above that shows what it really looks like.


Above: I LOVED this window!

The horse and buggies all lined up

The Magic docked at Malta!

That is a crazy looking boat

Malta is known for their brightly colored fishing boats, and their old fashioned busses. Our guide on our tour earlier in the day said that some of them were 50 years old and still in commission. She also said that they have super cheap bus fares for locals that was sponsored by the government and so everyone uses the bus system there.

The spot that we were docked out. It was very quaint and beautiful. It also had a really nice shopping center right off of the port. In the above pictures you can see that all of the buildings there are made of limestone. They quarry it there.