The 82nd good thing about Lagos: Being here gives us the opportunity to get away

We are entitled to 2 interim leaves a year while we live in Lagos (R&R trips where the company pays for our flights and a per diem). We took our first one at the end of July, and I finally finished organizing my photos. We found a great deal on a Mediterranean cruise. We flew to Rome (via Paris) and spent a couple of days sightseeing there.
I really enjoyed Rome! Here's a photo of us with the Colliseum in the background.

We then took a train to Civitavecchia, the port that's near Rome and got on our 7 night Costa cruise ship. Our first port was in Sicily and we took an excursion to the beautiful city of Tourmina.

Our next port was the Isle of Patmos, where John the Revelator received the vision that is now recorded in the book of Revelations in the New Testament. There's a church built now on the site of that cave where he lived and there's also a great monastery on top of the island.

That evening we stopped on the island of Mykonos and enjoyed an evening stroll (along with the passengers from about 4 cruise ships). We would love to come back here when it wasn't so crowded!

Our next port was Izmir, Turkey where we took a fabulous excursion to the ancient city of Ephesus. We were amazed at the extensive ruins there. This picture is of the showpiece at Ephesus, the ancient library.

Our final port was the beautiful island of Santorini, where we took a trip across the island to see the charming and picturesque village of Oia.

If you want to see more of our cruise, you can visit my web album -- it has more than 400 pictures (and that's not even all that I took!). Digital cameras with big media cards are great!

Here's the address (you may need to copy and paste into your browser):

http://picasaweb.google.com/w.carolee/MediterraneanCruise?authkey=SNCu-A_jmYg

I think a cruise was a great way to see different areas in the Mediterranean! We had a fabulous time!