Athens, Greece - July 24

Corinth Canal

Temple of Apollo at Corinth

37 degrees, but there’s a breeze and little humidity – not saying that it wasn’t blazing hot, but we weren’t drenched

There are 2 major cities on our itinerary this year and today we are in the first – Athens. Actually not really IN, but outside of. As we spent a few days here a couple of years ago we opt to go out of the city for our touring. We get off to a bit of a late start this morning as the port is very busy, so docking is delayed by about half an hour – no big deal.

cicadas

city of Corinth

We first visited an area called Argolis – this is in the northeast corner of the Peloponnese (the peninsula attached to main-land Greece.) The main attraction is its archaeologically. As we travel from spot to spot today we are on major highways. So far this trip the travelling has been on smaller, less major roads – mostly because we’ve visited small spots where there are no major roads.

Our first stop today is the Corinth Canal. This is a short photo stop and we are on our way once again. To view this canal we go to the middle of a bridge 200 feet above the water. The canal is four miles long, 75 feet wide and 26 feet deep and was only built in the 19th century. To me the numbers don’t mean much until we are out in the middle of the bridge. The canal is very far down and seems very narrow – it doesn’t look so narrow when a ship is inside it.

cheese course after dinner

Next on the itinerary is a visit to ancient Corinth where St. Paul lived and worked for a year and a half. The Temple of Apollo is a main attraction of the visit - seven of its original columns still stand. All around this part of the world we hear cicadas. These insects are like crickets that make a kind of buzzing sound, not like a bee, but more like a machine and it’s loud. It’s obvious right away whenever we get to an area with them. I got a not great picture of one. Lastly, we walked around the remains of Corinth’s Agora or Market Place.

Next is a visit to the ruins of ancient Mycenae. One of the cool things we see here are shaft graves and a Beehive Tomb, sometimes called the Tomb of Agamemnon. It is HOT, there’s little shade and the walk is a very steep and uphill – some people don’t bother.

Next is lunch of typical Greek foods. After a long day we return to the ship for a shower, a couple of drinks and a casual dinner.

considering bungee jumping

Speaking of dinner...last night we ate at the ship's French themed restaurant. It was good, but LOOOOONG.For a lot of the time we had to remind them we were there. Not that we had anywhere to go, but 2.5 hours is a bit long. Anyway...for desert you can choose cheese which comes on a wheeled cart  quite delightful!

ancient city of Corinth

Zakynthos, Greece - July 23

harbor view with our ship in the distance

Weather was warm, but overcast. I don't think I broke a sweat - this is new.

Zaykanthos, our port today is a sleepy Greek (Ionian) island where we visit a few tiny sights. Zakynthos is both the name of the island and the main town. It was all but destroyed by an earthquake and fire in 1953, this means there aren't any ancient ruins to visit.

monestery

We visit a village called Bohali, whose main claim to fame is the views of Zakynthos town and our ship in the harbor. Next we visit the Monastery of Anafonitria. This is a lovely small place where the visit is short. We follow our religious experience with a beer (of course) not worrying to finish it, as in this civilized part of the world, alcohol consumption is not as tightly gripped as it can be 'other places. Beer on a bus, on the street and in a park...OK, maybe we couldn't drink it in the church, but it can live with that. I thought it might be an issue in the church and monastery that I didn't have my knees and shoulders covered, but no problem.

water onions

One cool thing that we didn't see was the Logerhead turtles. These turtles live and lay their eggs on Zaykanthos, maybe next time. I would love to see this, The only wildlife we've seen so far are goats, turkeys, chickens and roosters - no sea life. We talked to a guy yesterday who say a water-spout which I would have loved to see.

We spent the afternoon at the pool and had dinner at the French restaurant.

Corfu, Greece - July 22

Today was very relaxed as we decided to forego a tour as we had been to Corfu before. We slept in, finally went in to the city, had a lunch Greek salad, calamari, wine and beer. Really this was the extent of the

lunch

day.h 

interesting sign

Kotor, Montenegro - July 21

degrees – why bother mentioning the weather…it’s always the same…HOT and HUMID. It’s actually worth mentioning that it is a bit overcast that just does enough to take the edge off the crazy humid heat. Once the clouds part it is back to the sweltering, drenching heat. 

Perast from a small boat

full size bag bought from Heathrow

collapsed bag bought from Heathrow

For the rest of the afternoon, it is mostly overcast which makes an afternoon on our cabin’s balcony delightful.

Jet lag rears it’s unpredictable head once again and we are up just after 7, although we aren’t scheduled to be anywhere until 10 and last night was relatively early.

Kotor is in a bay, in a fjord which makes sailing in and out gorgeous. Fjords make it seem like we are in a lake although we’re not. Of course we are still in the sea, but the overlapping mountains make the distance seem closed.

Church of Sveti Nikola

annual sailboat race

as seen from our balcony

This morning our boat is tendered in the Kotor Bay which means we have to take small tender boats to shore – this is only about 10 minutes. After meeting our guide we take a 25 min bus ride from Kotor to a smaller resort town called Perast. Here we take a short boat ride to an one of 2 small islands called ornate Our Lady of the Rocks where we visit the Church of Sveti Nikola built between the 15th and 17^th centuries. The our morning ends with a walking tour of Kotor which we’ve visited before so we head back to the boat for a leisurely lunch and afternoon on our cabin’s veranda.

as seen from our balcony

The evening consists of dinner, the ships’s Broadway themed show and a few drinks.

Karen...we would love to have Seth...we would have to plan a bit more in the future...uncle Chris needs to train to keep up with Seth in this heat!!

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Dubrovnik, Croatia - July 20

So, I said that I was stronger than let lag, but I may have been wrong. To me jet lag says “feel free to sleep any time you want regardless of whether you are in fact tired.” That being said…we work up at our 6, decided to watch the sunrise on our balcony with coffee, and went back to sleep until about 12!!

bar outside the city walls

cooling my feet

view of our wine and yachets

snack of local Croatian foods

We didn’t dock until around 2:00 with our tour starting at 2:15. We started with a walking tour of Dubrovnik’s old city. Because we’ve been here before we decided to forego the walking tour in search of a bar on the outside of the old city walls. It is HOT and HUMID, but once we find the bar and get a drink we are comfortable.

After a 2 min photo stop on the coast road we arrive at the Old Mill Ljuta, which is a working mill. The mill is in a picturesque location of creeks and flowing water. We have a snack of local dried meet, cheese, bread and wine next to a small waterfall – I am in love! After our snack we stroll the grounds visiting more of the grounds flowing waters. At one point I see a rat (yes, a rat!) nibbling at Chris’ feet. He escaped unscathed. Because we were still hot and sweaty, I decided to cool my feet in the flowing water of the creek – I was very cold, but I wasn’t complaining.

Lastly, we visited Cavtat, which is a seaside resort on the way back to Dubrovnik. We have about 30mmin during which we are able to put back a bottle of wine while looking at HUGE yachts. We’ve been to Monte Carol and Tropez which are filled with huge yachts, but this is something else!

Milan to Venice - July 19

What we can see of Venice

July 19 Milan - Venice

30 degrees

The train is our mode of transportation to Venice this morning. The journey takes about 2.5 hours and is painless. Once in Venice we have to find our way to a meeting point to then be transported by coach to the ship.

industrial Venice

From the train in Venice to the ship is a bit of an exercise. 1 – off the train, 2 – figure out where to go, 3 – hoof it (with luggage of course) in the blazing heat (although not as much as Milan...yet) up and over a foot bridge (stairs), 4 - fix Chris' 25 year old duffle bag that just happened to snap mid-hoof 5 – get semi-lost, ask a friendly Italian who really should have laughed at me but didn’t and pointed at the next doorway, 6 – find the ‘People Mover’ in the next doorway, 7 - buy tickets to said ‘People Mover’, 8 – take people mover (very short tram) to the port where the ship actually isn’t due to a festival in Venice, 9 – find, after a looooooong walk in the blazing heat (still not as hot as Milan, but getting there), the spot to finally ditch our luggage, go through security and board a bus for the 20 min journey to the boat, 10 – get our welcome Champagne and take a breath!!

Once we board our rooms aren’t ready yet, so we get ourselves a drink, hook up with friends Deanna and Ron who will be our travelling companions for the next 10 days and eat some lunch. No bruschetta or pizza for this meal (although I’m sure I could get some if my heart desired) it was grilled sea bream for me (awesome – I will definitely be having that one again) and a burger for Chris.

in-room bar set up

After a bit of laundry, ironing and the safety drill, we head up to the top deck for a sail-away party. Sadly, as we are not in the heart of Venice as we were the last time we sailed here, there isn’t much of Venice to see.

Drinks, dinner and a losing session for me (thankfully not for Chris) at the casino round out the evening. We aren't docking in Dubrovnik tomorrow until the afternoon, so I stay out a bit later than I typically will.

Milan, Italy - July 18

before

after

July 18 Milan

33 degrees                                                                                                                      

the Duomo plaza

The highlight of today was seeing Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper. It was all that I had hoped for. We had to get tickets months ago and I am so glad we did. It was painted on the wall of the Santa Maria delle Grazie convent. It was painted at the end of the 1400s and covers an entire wall – about 15 feet high and 30 feet wide. Our tickets included a tour and visit. Our tour was titled ‘the Last Supper, After Hours’ and that is what it was - a group of 25 people and a guide. Our guide was great, she described a bit outside the building and then gave a detailed description of the painting, including the depiction of the crucifixion which is on the wall opposite the Last Supper. There are no pics as none were allowed, I'm pretty sure you are all familiar with the Last Supper. Here's Wikipedia's depiction.

Last Supper

Duomo facade

We also visited the Duomo today. This Gothic cathedral is huge and is Milan’s main attraction. Construction started in the 1300s and finished in 1965.

Church of the Last Supper

Lunch was pasta and a giant beer for Chris; a Caprese salad and wine for me. Dinner – pasta for me and wiener schnitzel for him – oh and wine, do I have to mention that? To be fair, wiener schnitzel is actually veal Milanese so he is arguably eating more local dishes than I am.

Duomo facade

We asked at our hotel about a taxi to the train station tomorrow for our voyage to Venice and we told ‘yesterday a problem – tomorrow, likely no problem’ When we asked further, we were told yesterday there was a strike, but not today and not LIKELY tomorrow.

We had a night cap at our hotel bar, which is a tiny street side spot outside of the hotel which seems more popular with locals than hotel guests. This is a self-serve bar (which most seem) and we sit outside on a low ledge – most people stand in the road.

Duomo facade

night cap

Our alternate ports to Jerusalem are Antalya, Turkey; Alanya, Turkey; Mikonos, Greece. We’ve been to Mikonos before, but not the ports in Turkey.

street of Milan

Lori – I forgot about Michael’s interest in cemeteries, as far as cemeteries go (and I am FAR from an expert) I think it is pretty spectacular.

Heather – we haven’t done a lot of shopping, so I can’t say about leather

Milan, Italy - July 17

32 degrees

Well, we just received confirmation that Israel has officially been pulled from our cruise itinerary. While hardly a surprise, we are a bit disappointed. We’re not totally crushed as we’ve been there before and it is a big commitment getting from the coast to Jerusalem, but our 3 days in Israel was going to be a pretty big highlight of the cruise. Considering what the people living there are going through this is hardly even worth mentioning.

Today our goal was to get train tickets for our journey to Venice on Saturday. The station is about 3 km away so that was a healthy walk. Half way there was a small park we stopped in for a refreshment. I’ve noticed a lot of people jog here – not much different from home I guess and that locals take lunch later than we would – more like 1:00.

On our way back we found ourselves on a narrow windy (I suppose a lot of them wind) street that was almost an alley – a high fashion alley. On either side were high-end shops – Dolce and Gabbana, Tiffany, Prada etc. Struck me as funny on this tiny little street, I did my best to pry Chris away before he was albe to do too much damage!!

Milan cityscape

Lunch was...wait for it…wine, bruschetta and pizza. We are sure to order water each time we sit down as we are sweating just a bit. Much to my delight I was able to find a seat in the loo – luxury.

Duomo

The highlight of my evening was finding a piggly- wiggly!!!!!  Typically on vacation we happen upon multiple convenience/grocery stores where we buy water, beer, wine, snacks etc and check out the local sundries. Milan was not offering up this usual find. We googled, asked, searched and NOTHING. Finally tonight we found one – I was in heaven. Firstly…it had AC, not the half assed AC some places have, but hard core, grocery store blasting, chill you until you beg for mercy, but for god’s sake don’t AC. On top of the North-Pole atmosphere, it had Granna Padano cheese by the giant hunk for what this Canadian thinks is next-to-nothing. I don’t typically buy these cheeses in these large quantities, but from what I remember at home this price would buy me a small piece.

20.00 worth of cheese

Our goal for the evening was to visit the Navigilio which is a hip, happening place for mostly locals. Here patrons spilled out onto the street drinking, eating and socializing. These places aren’t ‘off-limits’ for kids and there were plenty of them playing while the adults socialized. The places were so busy we walked around for a bit before we actually sat for dinner. We had risotto, lasagne, bresaola (salad of dried meet, arugula and parmesan cheese) and a fizzy red wine. I didn’t know fizzy red wine was such the thing until we hit the grocery store and saw many ‘Frizzante’ red wines – I can’t say it was my favourite.

Navigilio

One thing we’ve noticed here is the preponderance of mosquitos in the evenings. In our experience there aren’t many at all in big cities, but Milan is unique in this respect. Tonight there were actually old-school mosquito coils where we were eating – won’t know until tomorrow if we fell victim.

mosquito coil

Milan, Italy - July 16

29 degrees

Jet lag, what jet lag? Although we slept late, we are awake at a reasonable hour – 10ish. I think it’s that sleeping on the plane that does it. While we didn’t have a full night’s sleep, we had enough to not be exhausted until close to midnight last night. Unfortunately, we aren’t up in time for the hotel’s breakfast – oh well…I’m sure my body thinks it’s breakfast time anyway. Maybe it’s time for a pizza and wine

main building housing the ashes of many

Our first stop today is Milan’s castle (before the wine and pizza) – Sforza Castle. The castle is from the 15th century on the remains of a 14th-century fortification. We chose not to visit any of the castle’s museums – Egyptian, ancient art, weapons, but stroll around the grounds and the surrounding park.

Finally it was time for wine, pizza and bruschetta at a street side café – lovely. I am not happy, yet not surprised that there IS NO seat on the toilet in the WC. I know, I know…I am a princess, and judge me as you like, but I like a good ol’ sit when I do my business.

tomb depicting the stations of the cross

last supper

 While not much of a tourist site, Milan’s Cimitero Monumentale is one of the two largest cemeteries in the city. I had read about this place and thought it might be interesting to visit – I wasn’t wrong. This place is full of artistic tombs and monuments – and I mean FULL. Some of the tombs are enormous and all are very beautiful.

In the evening we head out for a drink at our hotel’s bar, accompanied by Milan’s version of tapas – apertivo. This is basically a spread of buffet-style snacks to go with the pre-dinner drink. The drinks apparently are a couple of Euros more expensive to supplement the food, which is what we found. The food was pretty much what you’d expect…olives, bruschetta, chips, cheese, etc.

Our ‘real’ dinner is at an outdoor spot near our hotel where I have pasta (of course) and Chris has wiener schnitzel – huh? A little more after dinner wine at another outdoor spot and that is the day.

expanse of the cemetery

Calgary to Milan - July 14/15

our ride

26 degrees when we arrive late evening

Travel days are the necessary evils preceding great vacations. As far as travel days go, today/yesterday wasn’t too foul. Calgary to Vancouver to London to Milan – LOOOONG, but fine. Especially considering we were able to use travel points for business seats – on the UPPER DECK of the plane. Super quiet, super roomy, super…super! Business tickets also meant I was able to take a shower in the business lounge while waiting for the last flight to Milan. I don’t think the charm of showering in an airport will ever really wear off – maybe once I shower ON the plane, but I don’t see that happening any time soon. Heathrow meant showering, shopping eating, drinking and resting.

I have had my eye on a particular tote/travel bag for a long time. I found them in Calgary, but thought they were a bit over priced so I gave up. However…last year I saw them in the airport in London for a much better price - of course not being exactly an impulse shopper I waited until this year. I was hoping to find them again this year and once I did I bought 2. If they’re good enough for the future queen of England, they’re good enough for me.

After 21 hours or so (4 AM Calgary time), we arrived in Milan to a cool, modern hotel right next to the Duomo which is where I plan to spend at least a bit of time before we leave on Saturday. On first glance, in the dark, Milan looks like a nice place to be for the next few days. Predictably, we aren't up for too much once we check in; a bit of a walk around but that’s it.

Summer 2014

In just over 3 short weeks Chris and I will be setting sail on another summer vacation. This year we will start with a few days in Milan, Italy followed by a cruise from Venice to Athens.

July 19           Venice, Italy

July 20           Dubrovnik, Croatia

July 21           Kotor, Montenegro

July 22           Corfu, Greece  

July 23           Zakynthos, Greece

July 24           Athens (Piraeus), Greece

July 25           Santorini, Greece

July 26           Marmaris, Turkey

July 27           Ephesus (Kusadasi), Turkey

July 28           Istanbul, Turkey

July 29           Istanbul, Turkey                              

July 30           Istanbul, Turkey

July 31           Ephesus (Kusadasi), Turkey

Aug 1            Rhodes, Greece

Aug 2            Limassol, Cyprus

Aug 3            Jerusalem (Haifa), Israel

Aug 4            Jerusalem (Haifa), Israel                              

Aug 5            Jerusalem (Haifa), Israel

Aug 6            AT SEA 

Aug 7            Patmos, Greece

Aug 8            Athens (Piraeus), Greece

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