Jen and Dave: Adventuring

We woke today to the Turkish port of Kuşadası. A busy place bustling with vendors and shops, we boarded an excursion bus for the ancient city of Ephesus. This well-preserved wonder of the ancient world adds to our “7 Wonders” collection. Ephesus was an Ancient Greek city, and full of interesting hints at life. Particularly…

Once home to the Colossus, one of the 7 Wonders of the ancient world, Rhodes or Rhodos is a city of layers, with Greek, Ottoman, Turkish, and Venetian influences blending and mixing in unexpected ways. We docked just outside the fortification walls of the old city, and wandered along the waterfront until we came to…

A charming old town on a popular tourist destination Greek island, Chania hadn’t gone to bed yet when we started walking her streets at 8:30 am – or, at least the clubs had not. We wandered the old port, checking out the tiny minnows in the crystal-clear waters. The harbour is dominated by a Venetian…

Today was a sea day. Jen spent the morning painting in ten forward, while Dave hot tubbed. In the afternoon, Jen participated in a variety of arts and crafts activities organized through the ship while Dave walked the decks. A show tonight, some food, and lots of relaxation!

Early this morning we pulled into the tiny port of Valletta in Malta, squeezing past the breakwater and docking on the three cities side. Heading shoreside, we immediately boarded a slightly smaller boat to be shuttled across the harbour to Valletta proper. Taking the elevator up to the level of the main city, we started…

Today’s stop was an anchorage near Taormina, Sicily – a small place called Naxos. Today’s activity was a bus trip most of the way up Mt. Etna, an active but “gentle” volcano. En route we saw the remains of flows, birch trees, an endemic species of broom, and even a fox! Our destination was Silvestri…

Today the ship docked at Naples, where we met a private guide arranged through the ship. We had booked tickets to Pompeii, and we were matched with a guide who had an archaeological background who had previously dug at Pompeii – we felt so lucky to have Mario. The first thing we saw was a…

Not built in a day, can’t be seen in a day, but we got the highlights. We started by bussing from the port of Civitavecchia to where Rome and the Vatican meet, St Peter’s Square, a two hour journey that Jen slept through. Once we arrived at ten o’clock, we were turned loose with instructions…

Waking up to room service, topped with coffee from Ten Forward, we exited our floating hotel to the busy industrial port of Livorno, Italy on a not-so-busy sunny Sunday. A shuttle took us through the port, past an old naval fort, to downtown. We wandered the mostly empty city, seeing the canals and where the…

We anchored at the delightful harbour of Villefranche-Sur-Mer this morning, and soon found ourselves on a tender headed into the port. We skirted the citadel and headed through the edge of town, before starting to climb. Stairs. Many, many, many stairs. Then stairs in the forest. Then delightful forested switchback trail. We eventually ended up…