Palma, Majorca (Spain) part 2

Plaza de Toros...unplanned stop, but the gate was open so our tour guide asked the bus driver to stop so we could look around

Really cool hallway

Inside the arena

On the bull fighting floor!!! And yes I acted like a bull and charged my brother...ha ha

Entrance to the arena floor

name of the arena

Had to take a pic of the beautiful sea!

Our next stop...the church of Palma

There was a street festival going on and quite possibly a belly dancing competition

Finally made it up to the church

And wouldn't you know we saw our second wedding of the day...no I didn't crash it but I did stick my camera in the doorway and zoomed in :)

Palma, Majorca (Spain) part 1

On our way to the Bellver, Castle

After interrupting a wedding party...whoops...we made it up the stairs to the castle

A moat! Who knew castles really did have them ha ha

Another view of the castle

On the way to the little town of Valldemossa

Valldemossa

Valldemossa

Backside of the Real Cartuja de Valldemossa...it had the strangest, but coolest blue top

Apartments above shops

My future home...or at least one of the many that I saw while there ha ha

Les Baux, France

Ruins...the inscriptions reads "Light after darkness"

The church

The castle/fort now over looks a very posh hotel wear according to our tour guide lots of celebs stay

Inside the church...you could donate 1 euro and light a candle

Inside the church

View of the castle/fort on top of the cliffs from below

On the way back to the ship we saw their version of Alcatraz...haha...it has also been closed down and turned into a museum which you could tour, but it wasn't one of our stops for the day

Avignon, France

View from our balcony on the ship...you can see the storms that eventually caught up to us

Poppy's along the highway

The old bridge...I swear every bridge was called Old Bridge

Building in Avignon...the middle flag is the flag of France and the one on the right is the Flag of Avignon

Palace of the Popes...this is where Pope Benedict the 12th and Pope Clement the 6th...we barely made it inside before it starting pouring!!

This is where the Pope would sit to make sure he was higher than everyone else. Also the window in the picture would project the morning light on the Pope.

The dining hall...on the other side was the fire place

Entrance into the chapel part of the palace. If you look above the doors you'll notice that all the carvings have been be-headed by the French military

Pisa, Italy

This was probably my favorite tour! I was so excited about seeing the leaning tower, taking pics of holding it up, resting on it, pushing it over and extremely excited about getting to climb it!!!! It was 249 stairs to the top and wasn't that bad. Coming back down was really weird because you would be climbing down in the middle and all of a sudden you were on the right or left because of the lean. It almost felt like you were drunk or back on a rocking ship...ha ha.

Entrance to Pisa

Does anyone else think that the leaning tower looks like it's photo bombing the picture

The leaning tower!!!!

about to climb up

The stairs...they've been worn so much that you can see where everyone steps

View from the top

One of the many bells at the top...they don't ring anymore

Florence, Italy

If you didn't guess it from my teaser pics last week, I went on a Mediterranean cruise last month with my family for my brother's gradation. It was a seven day cruise starting in Rome and going to:
1. Florence/Pisa, Italy 
2. Marseille, France
3. Palma, Spain
4. Barcelona, Spain
5. Naples, Italy
6. Rome, Italy 

I took 880 photos during my trip and my brother's girlfriend took 1,500!!! This morning I would like to share a few from Florence, Italy.

Florence

The Duomo

Flags on a gov't building...left to right EU flag, Italy Flag and the flag of Florence

Side street in Florence

Storm rolling in

View from the old bridge

my brother's first real Italian pizza

Sugar Free Giant Cupcake with Roses

I finally made another giant cupcake!! A co-worker of mine asked if I could make a sugar free giant cupcake for her sister's 70th birthday. She let me have full control of how to decorate it and it probably took me about 2 days to figure out that I wanted to make the cupcake look like a bouquet of roses. I love the way it turned out. I sent a pic to my mom who showed my brother who came up with a business plan for me...Katy's Kakes: Making Small Dreams Delicious!

For the cake I used 2 boxes of Pillsbury Sugar Free Devil's Food cake and for the icing I used 3 cartons Pillsbury Sugar Free Vanilla Icing. I used a Wilton 2D tip to make the roses. You start in the middle of the rose and make 2-3 swirls. To fill in the gaps between the roses I pipped a single star using the same 2D tip. Before pipping the roses and stars, I iced the cupcake with a "crumb" layer and so that any gaps wouldn't be as noticeable.

With the leftover batter I was able to make 12 regular size cupcakes and pipped a single rose on each one.

I also used some of my fun cupcake wrappers that say eat more cake on the bottom. I also think the wrappers are pretty festive for a birthday party :)

When I was talking to my co-worker she mentioned that her and her daughter were thinking of trying to make cake pops for the party. When I told her I could make them, she added them to the "order". I used my Baby Cakes Cake Pop Maker for these since it takes less time. I dipped them in white candy melts and covered them with red sugar crystals.