Mix It Up With Marc

Travel, there is nothing like it. Travel is worth every penny spent on it. Travel brings new experiences forms new memories that you will hold dear forever. You get to eat new exotic foods and meet new people.

When it came time for us to leave the country of Israel, my family stayed over night with some friends in the northern port city of Haifa. The next day we boarded an Italian luxury liner name M.S. Masapia. Then we set sail to the island of Cyress.

I’ll never forget watching my sister as she watched Israel disappear on the horizon. Tears rolled down her face as she watched the coast disappear. She graduated from high school the year we lived in Israel and she knew she would probably never see any of her friends again. I know it had to be hard for her.

The next day when I woke up I looked out my window and we were right off the coast of cypress. We didn’t go ashore but sailed on to the island of Crete. There we went ashore and spent the afternoon visiting the ancient sites of interest and drove down Embassy row. We boarded ship and from there we set sail for the Greek islands. Greece was incredible with all it’s ancient ruins like the Parthenon at the Acropolis. Those buildings were so huge they made us feel very small. We drove by taxi all through the city of Athens and saw the Greek Palace with it’s Greek guards. Then we ate some great Greek food and saw some other historical places of interest.

We boarded ship and set sail for Italy. The M.S. Masapia was and Italian luxury liner and let me tell you those Italians know all about luxury. What a beautiful ship she was. The food was incredible and we were constantly being pampered by the crew. We sailed up the boot of Italy to the port of Genoa. We had had our car stowed on board so the car was unloaded and we were off to see Europe. We drove all over Italy, Rome and up into the Italian Alps. Rome was and incredible city. So full of ancient history and fantastic Roman buildings that were still in use after thousands of years. We went to the coliseum and the Forum across the street. And the Italian women were beautiful.

From there we drove north to lake Como up in the Italian Alps. The air was so fresh and lake Como was beautiful. We stayed in an Alpine Tavern over night and enjoyed their good food. The next day we tried to go into Switzerland but we left our passports at the tavern with our belongings. So they would not let us through. That was back when you had to have a passport to travel from one European country to the next. So we ended up heading to Austria.

We drove on the Autobahn and saw ancient castles about every ten miles or so. I was surprised that there were so many castles right off the Autobahn. We went to this little bakery that was Hitlers favorite place to eat a Danish. Then we went to the Castle of Neshwashstien. I’m probably spelling it wrong but it is the castle that Walt Disney designed the Cinderella’s castle after at Disney World. It was at the top of a very high hill and behind it was a beautiful eleven hundred foot waterfall. Inside the castle was pure opulence. The rooms were decorated in pure gold and the table that the king ate at dropped down into the kitchen so they could put the food on it then it rose up in front of the king. That king was killed by the people of Austria because he bankrupted the country by spending so much money on his castles. The people rose up and killed the king then threw his body in a lake.

Check my blog out soon and I will tell you more of out European summer.

Welcome back for another journey down not only memory lane, but a fantastic place to explore!

One of our favorite weekend places to go in Israel was Caesarea. This is an ancient port city on the coast of Israel. In ancient times it was the city where Pontius Pilate governed the nation of Israel.

There are beautiful ancient Roman ruins everywhere.

We would walk along the beach where an ancient roman aqua duct came down from the mountains to provide the people of Caesarea with water. The place was beautiful, and in ancient times it was a large busy port city. Near the beach there is a stone with the name of Pontius Pilate inscribed on it. There are many marble statues of Roman leaders. Most of them had their heads lopped off by conquering armies.

There was also a very large amphitheater. I loved the beauty of Caesarea. In recent years archeologists have unearthed incredible artifacts. Many made of gold or silver. There must have been much wealth in Caesarea. We use to have picnics there and dig in the sand looking for ancient coins. We found a lot of them.

We would take them home and soak them in acid until all the hard dirt would dissolve off of them. The coins were made of copper or silver most of the time and would have eagles or roman soldiers on them. We would walk the beach and find pot shards, buttons and ancient iron nails in the water. Not far from Caesarea was a small town name Natanya. Out in the water was a sunken ship with two masts and the bow sticking up out of the water. I use to love walking down the beach to that site at sunset to see the sun go down behind that ship. It was a beautiful sight.

Not far from there was the ruins of an ancient… Stay tuned for my next post!