Mediterranean Cruise - Day 8, Olbia

In Olbia, you get off and take a five minute bus ride from the ship to the city center.  There wre a lot of buses lined up there and Kelly asked some people in line and they said go across the street to buy tickets to the beach shuttle bus.  -James

Olbia was another port where it was very difficult to find information in advance.  I was pretty sure it was going to be a beach day, but wasn't even entirely sure how to accomplish that.  One of the things James and I have learned on our travels is that we really have to put ourselves out there and not be afraid to look like tourists and ask lots of questions.  We've gotten lost, on the wrong trains/buses, and spent wasted money when we've been to afraid to ask for help.  I really wanted to demonstrate to the boys that you get a lot more out of the travel experience when you both ask questions and interact with others.  Sometimes, I made them do the asking and sometimes James or I would do it.

In any case, as soon as we got off the port bus, everyone queued up in a line at a little booth.  I did too - why not, right?  I got a map and a hard sell on a sightseeing bus.  Knowing we really just were after a beach day, I stepped out of line and walked over to a group of people waiting for another bus.  Bingo - they said they were waiting for the beach shuttle, and we just needed to go across the street to the tourist office to buy the tickets.

We bought the bus tickets and decided to stroll around the town before hitting the beach.  We picked up a few sandwiches and (of course) grab gelatos.  Rudy picked out passionfruit - and I think we all agreed by the end of this trip that it won the prize for best gelato.  The other passionfruit gelatos we tried were sickly sweet, but this one tasted every bit as sour and puckery as the actual fruit.  Delizioso!

We tried to mail post cards at the post office.  Another instance where we stood out like sore thumbs.  The post office is apparently also a bank and has a security door system so you can only go into a vestibule with 2 people; if you go in with too many it yells at you in Italian and all the locals stare at you.  Once you have 1 or 2 people inside, one door closes all the way before the door on the other side opens.  Once you're inside, there is a machine to get a number; except, there are at least four different numbers you can push to get a number.  I asked a lady for help.  She spoke no English and I no Italian, but she pushed the appropriate button for us once I showed her our postcards.  We waited our turn, but it was taking forever.  By the time our helpful friend got to her turn, her husband had joined her.  He spoke decent English and so offered to buy our stamps for us.  After all this, it turned out that a single stamp was 2,50€ so we left with just as many postcards as we came in with!

We made our way back to the beach shuttle.  Once we got to the beach, we set up camp near some rocks.  The boys explored on the rocks a bit but it wasn't really a swimming area.  Once they tired of that, we decided to move over to the swimming area.

 

 

 

 

 

As we were walking from one beach to the other, we almost literally bumped into Kathy and Tony.  They joined us at the beach for a while.  They left, and we followed about an hour later.

 

 

 

We were in Olbia.  -Rudy

[That's the extent of his journaling for the day.  Some days, it just wasn't worth the battle...]

 

Today we went to Olbia.  We wandered around the town and got awesome gelato.  Then we went to the post office and found out that it was going to be 20 dollars to send a couple postcards!  We went to the beach which was kind of a rock beach and kind of a sand  beach.  When we got back on the ship we played some shuffleboard and Dad and I won by 4 points!  Also we went to the show and watched a pianist play very fast.  We went to movie trivia and we almost won!  -Brady

 

 

 

We got back to the port with enough time to call Papa for his birthday and then boarded the boat just before All Aboard. 

This was a really pretty sailaway, with the huge cliff faces in our view until dark. 

We tried this picture on a lower deck, so the ship could block the sun in the eyes!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rudy caught my sunset fever and insisted on having his picture taken most nights with the sunset in the background.  We almost missed this one before the sun slipped away, so this expression was, "Hurry up and take the picture, Mom!"

The last thing we did before bed was to sneak down and decorate Nana's stateroom door for her birthday tomorrow!