Riviera Drive...Italy, France & Spain

It is exactly one week since we disembarked the Costa Cruise line.  If we ever had any conceptions of loosing weight on this trip we can finally put that to rest!  Costa Cruise Lines was great but in typical Italian fashion, the ship is looking a little tired and in need of some reno's.  Overall, we enjoyed the Greek Islands the most and were not overly impressed with Izmir, Turkey or Catania, Sicily.  The weather was fantastic and we met three American Couples at our dinner sitting and managed to spend the rest of the week solidifying our friendship.  The seas were very calm and the weather was fantastic considering the time of year.  From Rome we drove to Genoa and had dinner with our friends Mario, Roberta, Stephano and Victoria.  They cooked us a lovely Italian dinner that added yet another couple of notches to the belt.  The next day we made our way along the Italian Riviera and it was by far the most beautiful part of Italy from our perspective only to be outdone by the French Riviera which breathtaking to say the least.  This is a spot where we could have easily spent 4-6 weeks.  Today we arrive in Spain and it was nothing like we expected.  This country is immaculate and the infrastructure surpasses most of what we see in North America.  We travelled the Costa Brava which is equally as spectacular as the French Riviera without the opulence.  Spain is another country we will be returning to and we look forward to our upcoming week at our time share resort in Malaga November 11. 

Arrived in Barcelona November 4 and found the city to be very cosmopolitan, everybody speaking English.  For a very large city it is amazing clean and well organized with a superb infrastructure that is constantly being brought up to today's standards.  There are cranes and evidence of construction everywhere.

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