A Roman Holiday

Well since our embryo adoption plans were delayed four months when our first match fell through in April, we decided to squeeze in one last adventure before kids arrive.  We picked Italy and a Mediteranean cruise!  As we began to plan for Italy I realized that when our last round of infertility treatments failed we planned our trip to England and France; when we had our miscarriage we planned our trip to Aruba and Puerto Rico; and now when our first adoption match fell through we are planning a trip to Italy.  I suppose our wonderful travels have been a positive side effect of infertility.  There is something satisfying in saying, "If we can't have kids then we are going to do things that people with kids can't do!"  But more than that there is something therapudic for us in planning a big vacation. It is like a giant jigsaw puzzle that you have to piece together carefully as you work towards the final product-especially since we use our timeshare points with Marriott to pay for a huge portion of the trip.  We have decided to fly into Venice where we will board Holland America's brand new ship The Nieuw Amsterdam for a 12-day cruise to Croatia, Greece, and Turkey.  After the cruise we will take the train from Venice to visit Florence in the Tuscany region, Naples and Pompeii, and finally Rome.  So here is our Italian puzzle so far: