Oh my gosh, a lot of time and a lot of traveling has taken place since i last posted here. I am adding some more as we are leaving shortly (Feb 14, 2015) for Rio to spend a few days with our wonderful family there, then board the Ruby Princess on Feb 18 to continue south, then around the horn followed by a northerly cruise all the way to Los Angeles. I will try to update this blog in a more timely way. I am learning. I'll add good photos, if i take any, when we return home.
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Back to the Med. again.
Planning on leaving September 25 on American AL via MIA nonstop to Barcelona. We ill board the very new Royal Princess on 9/27 for 12-day cruise to Venice then continue for another 18 days ending in Ft Lauderdale. Ideal; flying only one way. Meanwhile must get my health up to maximum. Working on it.
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Monday, January 2, 2012
Sunday, January 1, 2012
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Seems we didn't have to leave the house to watch a fireworks display: A neighbor, just 200' away, gave us about 20 minutes of real skyrockets right over our heads! Great fun for us; must have disturbed some who were sleeping, i'm sure. Off to friend's home for the Buc's game and dinner.
Friday, December 23, 2011
We're baaaaack!
OK, so i'm new to blogging. At least i'm going to try to interest myself in my blog and thereby, maybe interest others:
We finished our traveling for 2011 by flying on November 11 to Athens, Greece, to board the Pacific Princess for a 12-day cruise in the eastern Med. and continuing from Rome for 19 more days to visit the western Med, then the Madieras and Bermuda before cruising back to Ft Lauderdale.
Our flights to Athens required a plane change in BWI, and another in Munich before an early next-morning arrival in Athens. We left 4 days early in order to have time to do more in-depth exploring of the southern Greece peninsula. Poor decision on traveling to Greece in November: Temperatures hovered around 40f with non-stop drizzling and constant winds between 35 and 40 mph; no weather for Floridians. Impossible to get even reasonably comfortable outside as we don't own clothing appropriate for these conditions. There went our touring plans! It was even a major struggle to bundle up to walk the necessary 60 feet to the little restaurant next door to our hotel where we did our meals. The restaurant was basically an outdoor business with an awning and plastic side-curtains to keep out the worst of the weather. No central heat, of course, so the waiter had to bring an outdoor propane heater over to our table to stop us from shivering and our soup from freezing in its bowl!
11/15: Boarding day finally arrived and none too soon. We taxied to the port in Pareus and were quickly logged in and went aboard to our cabin. The Pacific Princess is an old friend; we've spent many months cruising on her through many parts and ports of the world. Also, we knew in advance that another couple with whom we've traveled often were to be aboard on this itinerary and we were to share a dining table with them.
We departed Athens bound for Patmos but the seas and the winds were so strong the our Captain decided it was too dangerous to put our tenders into the water to get to shore so we cruised slowly on to Santarini, our next scheduled port.
11/18: We did stop yesterday in Santarini and many passengers went off on tours to scheduled site tours. I was not doing very well walking so we settled on wandering around the port. Our visit today in Kusadasi is our first time here after 2 previous attempts on other ships who failed, again due to weather conditions. After taking the ship shuttle into the middle of the city, we spent 4 uneventful hours people watching and avoiding the ubiquitous rug merchants.
11/20: We arrived in Haifa on Sunday after an uneventful but nicer day at sea. We had been scheduled to stay for one day then move to Ashdod for a day but our Captain, due to recommendations by the US State Department eschewed the move and remained in the port of Haifa overnight. This port was the primary reason i wanted this cruise: I have first cousins living in Tel Aviv whom i've not seen in perhaps 40 years! To reach them we boarded an express double-deck commuter train for the almost one hour ride to Tel Aviv. The train was extermely crowded, mostly with VERY young (to us) boys and girls in military uniforms returning to their posts following a sabbath visit to their families. Many carried small arms, some sub-machine guns, of no concern to Israili civilians who are accustomed to their children doing their military obligation.
We had a wonderful day-long visit with my cousins which even included a chilly walk to the sea-side. The views were spectacular but, since the 'season' for tourists ended a couple of months ago, most of the shops and other sites of interest were closed. Our train-ride back to the Haifa port was very fast and uncrowded; mostly working folks returning from their jobs to their homes in the suburbs.
11/21: As much as we enjoyed our travels yesterday, today my body is paying for it. Very uncomfortable and we are both too exhausted to do more than take a bus tour of the city of Haifa. Some wonderful views of the port and the Mediterranean Sea from the top of the city's giant hill and the landscaping of the Bahai Temple is simply gorgeous.
11/22: Port Said: Heavily into an upper respiratory infection, i had no interest in doing ANYTHING here.
11/23: A little better but still under the weather in Alexandria. We've been here before. Not interested in doing it again.
11/24-25: Two lovely days at sea to rest up and heal.
11/26: Sorrento: The bug is still influencing our movements. Now Ro seems to be getting it!
11/27: Rome(or Civitavecchia, the port for Rome): We are not doing too well as tourists. We hardly got off the ship with constant sniffling and sneezing! Dropped off lots of passengers and took on some new ones.
11/28: What a shame to be in Florence again and not be able to do any touring! egads!
11/29: Genoa: This is not much of a travelogue unless one wants to catch our tissues as we sniffle and snort.
11/30: Nice: We are finally well enough to leave the ship. Found a city-courtesy jitny bus to take us into the middle of the city, actually viewable from a ship cabin's balcony. As we left the bus, the driver told us he would be making the trip every 10 minutes or so so we could take his bus back to the ship at our convenience. We did a lot of window shopping including looking at real estate offerings just to gasp at the local prices for apartments. Unbelievable! Where are there people who can afford those prices? Our friend, Arlene's husband, Milt, had to find a couple of things at a local pharmacy for his wife, who was in great pain and was being treated by the ship's doctor. The pharmacist was very friendly, spoke English well and found the stuff we were looking for. We sent the husband back to where the bus was to pick him up. We wandered all over Nice and finally walked all the way back to the ship. It was quite cool but at least the sun was out and felt good. When we got back to our cabin, our friend's wife asked where her husband was. He should have been back on the ship at least an hour before then. She quickly became hysterical in fear that her husband was 'lost' or hurt. She went screaming to the ship service desk but they said they had no responsibility for passengers on shore and that the courtesy bus was not ship-authorized. It took at least another 45 minutes of Arlene's panic for me to spot Milt's bright blue jacket at the bus-stop across the harbor and for someone to contact the harbor-master who sent private cars to the bus stop to pick up Milt and more than another dozen passengers who had waited up to 2 hours for the bus that never came! It seems the driver never told anyone that he was quitting at noon and people would have to find their own way back to the ship! No fun at all!
12/1: Barcelona: One of our most favorite cities in Europe! Our first time in the new port configuration that now puts passenger ships much further from the city. Fortunately, the ship did arrange for bus service between the port and downtown. Once again, we did a great deal of walking, especially up Las Ramblas, the most fun pedestrian mall we've ever found. We got to the huge open-air market, walked up and down aisles smelling world-class delights and fought for space among a great throng of shoppers. I had been, in particular, looking for a coffee-tin-type package of halavah, a favorite confection of mine. On one earlier trip to Europe, after seaching in just about every port in which we stopped, i finally found the stuff in a tiny middle-eastern grocery in Bordeaux, France! On this trip, too, i had been searching to find more halavah, called 'halvah' in Greece, Turkey and north Africa. In one very small kiosk in the Las Ramblas market, one shop offered slices of halvah in a plastic trow-away container but had no sealed containers. I did buy one package to try later. Eventually, when i opened the plastic container, i tasted what they sold me and promply disposed of it in the trash. It was bitter and inedible!
12/3: Motril: If one had the stamina and was obsessed about seeing Alhambra, this was the place from which to begin your trek. Unfortunately, we had neither so only left the ship to walk around the local area. Not much to see.
12/4: Gibraltar: A cold and sunny Sunday and, once again, we are off-season visitors. We were told that unless we had prior reservations on a ship tour, the special sites were not available to us. Of course, we did NOT have such reservations so we just returned to our ship and spent a quiet day. Only after the tours returned in the late afternoon were we told that it was not true, we could have taken a taxi, if we could have found one, and visited all of the sites, including the apes up top of the 'rock'. Of course there were no taxis to be found as it was a Sunday!
12/5: Casablanca: Our first time in this city but we had visited Tangiers previously. The big draw for tourists here required a 3 1/2 hour bus ride each way. No way could we do this so, instead, we took a short bus ride into the city and walked, literally, miles and miles, exploring the poorer areas and the giant markets of this fascinating city. There is a clear demarkation between the markets and the tall office buildings and fancy hotels. We picked up a local English-speaking 'guide' who directed us to places where he, i am certain, would share in profits, wanted us to visit. We has no qualms about using and enjoying him as we did intend to tip him for his efforts. He did take us to a fantastic 'natural medicine' shop where the proprietor regaled us on the benefits of various herbs and oils, unguents and spices; a great stop but, of course, we bought nothing. Next, needing a toilet, he took us to a modern Egyptian rug and carpet store(no surprise). We did use their facilities but, again, bought nothing. No halvah here, either, although a patisserie did acknowledge they knew of it but had none nor know anyone else who did. In the souk we did find a small drum that we thought our daughter would enjoy (she's a bongo player with local jazz groups) and had fun bargaining with the seller. After he quoted his initial price and we started walking away, he came near and said: "Come on, let's do business. You should offer me less and i will counter your offer and then we do it again until we do business!" He stood there and gave me a lesson, in excellent English, on how to bargain with sellers of anything in that market! Great fun! And we did finally agree on a price of about half of what he initially demanded!
12/8: Madeira, capital of the Funchal Islands: Changes since our last visit; they've moved the city's shopping district right down near the pier. Very convenient to shop. I tasted a couple of their wines but we only bought some toys for our grandchildren.
12/13: After 5 beautiful, sunny and calm sea days, we arrived in Hamilton, Bermuda, our first visit to this lovely island. The pier is in the middle of town so most activities involved shopping and shopping and shopping. We enjoyed our visit and walked as much as we could. On leaving the port, it took some 3 hours to find our way back into the Atlantic Ocean for our 2 more sea days until we reach Ft. Lauderdale.
12/16: The Bermuda triangle deserves its reputation. We just finished 2 days of very rough water before finding calm in the wee hours of this morning entering the harbor of Ft Lauderdale. We are very glad to be home!
We finished our traveling for 2011 by flying on November 11 to Athens, Greece, to board the Pacific Princess for a 12-day cruise in the eastern Med. and continuing from Rome for 19 more days to visit the western Med, then the Madieras and Bermuda before cruising back to Ft Lauderdale.
Our flights to Athens required a plane change in BWI, and another in Munich before an early next-morning arrival in Athens. We left 4 days early in order to have time to do more in-depth exploring of the southern Greece peninsula. Poor decision on traveling to Greece in November: Temperatures hovered around 40f with non-stop drizzling and constant winds between 35 and 40 mph; no weather for Floridians. Impossible to get even reasonably comfortable outside as we don't own clothing appropriate for these conditions. There went our touring plans! It was even a major struggle to bundle up to walk the necessary 60 feet to the little restaurant next door to our hotel where we did our meals. The restaurant was basically an outdoor business with an awning and plastic side-curtains to keep out the worst of the weather. No central heat, of course, so the waiter had to bring an outdoor propane heater over to our table to stop us from shivering and our soup from freezing in its bowl!
11/15: Boarding day finally arrived and none too soon. We taxied to the port in Pareus and were quickly logged in and went aboard to our cabin. The Pacific Princess is an old friend; we've spent many months cruising on her through many parts and ports of the world. Also, we knew in advance that another couple with whom we've traveled often were to be aboard on this itinerary and we were to share a dining table with them.
We departed Athens bound for Patmos but the seas and the winds were so strong the our Captain decided it was too dangerous to put our tenders into the water to get to shore so we cruised slowly on to Santarini, our next scheduled port.
11/18: We did stop yesterday in Santarini and many passengers went off on tours to scheduled site tours. I was not doing very well walking so we settled on wandering around the port. Our visit today in Kusadasi is our first time here after 2 previous attempts on other ships who failed, again due to weather conditions. After taking the ship shuttle into the middle of the city, we spent 4 uneventful hours people watching and avoiding the ubiquitous rug merchants.
11/20: We arrived in Haifa on Sunday after an uneventful but nicer day at sea. We had been scheduled to stay for one day then move to Ashdod for a day but our Captain, due to recommendations by the US State Department eschewed the move and remained in the port of Haifa overnight. This port was the primary reason i wanted this cruise: I have first cousins living in Tel Aviv whom i've not seen in perhaps 40 years! To reach them we boarded an express double-deck commuter train for the almost one hour ride to Tel Aviv. The train was extermely crowded, mostly with VERY young (to us) boys and girls in military uniforms returning to their posts following a sabbath visit to their families. Many carried small arms, some sub-machine guns, of no concern to Israili civilians who are accustomed to their children doing their military obligation.
We had a wonderful day-long visit with my cousins which even included a chilly walk to the sea-side. The views were spectacular but, since the 'season' for tourists ended a couple of months ago, most of the shops and other sites of interest were closed. Our train-ride back to the Haifa port was very fast and uncrowded; mostly working folks returning from their jobs to their homes in the suburbs.
11/21: As much as we enjoyed our travels yesterday, today my body is paying for it. Very uncomfortable and we are both too exhausted to do more than take a bus tour of the city of Haifa. Some wonderful views of the port and the Mediterranean Sea from the top of the city's giant hill and the landscaping of the Bahai Temple is simply gorgeous.
11/22: Port Said: Heavily into an upper respiratory infection, i had no interest in doing ANYTHING here.
11/23: A little better but still under the weather in Alexandria. We've been here before. Not interested in doing it again.
11/24-25: Two lovely days at sea to rest up and heal.
11/26: Sorrento: The bug is still influencing our movements. Now Ro seems to be getting it!
11/27: Rome(or Civitavecchia, the port for Rome): We are not doing too well as tourists. We hardly got off the ship with constant sniffling and sneezing! Dropped off lots of passengers and took on some new ones.
11/28: What a shame to be in Florence again and not be able to do any touring! egads!
11/29: Genoa: This is not much of a travelogue unless one wants to catch our tissues as we sniffle and snort.
11/30: Nice: We are finally well enough to leave the ship. Found a city-courtesy jitny bus to take us into the middle of the city, actually viewable from a ship cabin's balcony. As we left the bus, the driver told us he would be making the trip every 10 minutes or so so we could take his bus back to the ship at our convenience. We did a lot of window shopping including looking at real estate offerings just to gasp at the local prices for apartments. Unbelievable! Where are there people who can afford those prices? Our friend, Arlene's husband, Milt, had to find a couple of things at a local pharmacy for his wife, who was in great pain and was being treated by the ship's doctor. The pharmacist was very friendly, spoke English well and found the stuff we were looking for. We sent the husband back to where the bus was to pick him up. We wandered all over Nice and finally walked all the way back to the ship. It was quite cool but at least the sun was out and felt good. When we got back to our cabin, our friend's wife asked where her husband was. He should have been back on the ship at least an hour before then. She quickly became hysterical in fear that her husband was 'lost' or hurt. She went screaming to the ship service desk but they said they had no responsibility for passengers on shore and that the courtesy bus was not ship-authorized. It took at least another 45 minutes of Arlene's panic for me to spot Milt's bright blue jacket at the bus-stop across the harbor and for someone to contact the harbor-master who sent private cars to the bus stop to pick up Milt and more than another dozen passengers who had waited up to 2 hours for the bus that never came! It seems the driver never told anyone that he was quitting at noon and people would have to find their own way back to the ship! No fun at all!
12/1: Barcelona: One of our most favorite cities in Europe! Our first time in the new port configuration that now puts passenger ships much further from the city. Fortunately, the ship did arrange for bus service between the port and downtown. Once again, we did a great deal of walking, especially up Las Ramblas, the most fun pedestrian mall we've ever found. We got to the huge open-air market, walked up and down aisles smelling world-class delights and fought for space among a great throng of shoppers. I had been, in particular, looking for a coffee-tin-type package of halavah, a favorite confection of mine. On one earlier trip to Europe, after seaching in just about every port in which we stopped, i finally found the stuff in a tiny middle-eastern grocery in Bordeaux, France! On this trip, too, i had been searching to find more halavah, called 'halvah' in Greece, Turkey and north Africa. In one very small kiosk in the Las Ramblas market, one shop offered slices of halvah in a plastic trow-away container but had no sealed containers. I did buy one package to try later. Eventually, when i opened the plastic container, i tasted what they sold me and promply disposed of it in the trash. It was bitter and inedible!
12/3: Motril: If one had the stamina and was obsessed about seeing Alhambra, this was the place from which to begin your trek. Unfortunately, we had neither so only left the ship to walk around the local area. Not much to see.
12/4: Gibraltar: A cold and sunny Sunday and, once again, we are off-season visitors. We were told that unless we had prior reservations on a ship tour, the special sites were not available to us. Of course, we did NOT have such reservations so we just returned to our ship and spent a quiet day. Only after the tours returned in the late afternoon were we told that it was not true, we could have taken a taxi, if we could have found one, and visited all of the sites, including the apes up top of the 'rock'. Of course there were no taxis to be found as it was a Sunday!
12/5: Casablanca: Our first time in this city but we had visited Tangiers previously. The big draw for tourists here required a 3 1/2 hour bus ride each way. No way could we do this so, instead, we took a short bus ride into the city and walked, literally, miles and miles, exploring the poorer areas and the giant markets of this fascinating city. There is a clear demarkation between the markets and the tall office buildings and fancy hotels. We picked up a local English-speaking 'guide' who directed us to places where he, i am certain, would share in profits, wanted us to visit. We has no qualms about using and enjoying him as we did intend to tip him for his efforts. He did take us to a fantastic 'natural medicine' shop where the proprietor regaled us on the benefits of various herbs and oils, unguents and spices; a great stop but, of course, we bought nothing. Next, needing a toilet, he took us to a modern Egyptian rug and carpet store(no surprise). We did use their facilities but, again, bought nothing. No halvah here, either, although a patisserie did acknowledge they knew of it but had none nor know anyone else who did. In the souk we did find a small drum that we thought our daughter would enjoy (she's a bongo player with local jazz groups) and had fun bargaining with the seller. After he quoted his initial price and we started walking away, he came near and said: "Come on, let's do business. You should offer me less and i will counter your offer and then we do it again until we do business!" He stood there and gave me a lesson, in excellent English, on how to bargain with sellers of anything in that market! Great fun! And we did finally agree on a price of about half of what he initially demanded!
12/8: Madeira, capital of the Funchal Islands: Changes since our last visit; they've moved the city's shopping district right down near the pier. Very convenient to shop. I tasted a couple of their wines but we only bought some toys for our grandchildren.
12/13: After 5 beautiful, sunny and calm sea days, we arrived in Hamilton, Bermuda, our first visit to this lovely island. The pier is in the middle of town so most activities involved shopping and shopping and shopping. We enjoyed our visit and walked as much as we could. On leaving the port, it took some 3 hours to find our way back into the Atlantic Ocean for our 2 more sea days until we reach Ft. Lauderdale.
12/16: The Bermuda triangle deserves its reputation. We just finished 2 days of very rough water before finding calm in the wee hours of this morning entering the harbor of Ft Lauderdale. We are very glad to be home!
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