We have been wanting to go on a cruise for awhile now and I found a deal that was too good to be true. MSC, an Italian cruise line gives you one free child for every paying adult. Plus, they are cheap to begin with, on top of which, they do a military discount. And because we booked last minute and they happened to have a balcony room available, they upgraded us for free. How could we say no?? We had heard bad things about MSC cruise lines, people say the customer service just isn’t as good as other cruise lines, but since we have nothing to compare it to and we’ve been living with Italian customer service now for over a year, we decided we could handle it.
We boarded the boat in Venice which is only a half hour away so it was super easy. Our first stop was in Ancona, Italy. The church of San Ciriaco was built in 1189 and may even be an update of a 7th century church. Inside there is a glass case with some saints’ mummified remains. It reminded me a lot of Ukraine, you could see the mummified hands and face. Pretty little church on top of the hill.
There was a beach which we walked aways to get to and were very excited about, but it ended up stinking, literally. You can see all the dark stuff in the water here just past where I am standing, it’s seaweed and it was so gross and smelly. I’m not sure how anyone was enjoying swimming in it.
The town of Ancona was cute and had some good shopping. We found a market that was selling European style suits for 50 euro, and Nick wanted one. But he had to try it on first (Italians are very small, he needed XL in everything, LOL). The lady at the stand was soooo nice. I don’t know if it’s because she appreciated my Italian skills or that she liked Jonah, but she was so sweet. She let Jonah sit in her chair behind the booth and when he started messing with her things she told me it was ok and that “it’s the big ones that are the problem, not the little ones”, which I thought was too cute.
