Giorno Napolitano!

Naples day - although we spent most of it about an hour’s drive away on the Amalfi coast.


There were only about 40-some people on our tour, and we boarded small but very comfortable mini-buses that held about 16 people each. Our guide (‘Mamma’ Concetta) explained on the way that large highway coaches are no longer allowed to drive into Positano - you’ll see why when you look at the photos below - so these were the largest vehicles that could be used for any ship’s tours into the town.

We set out, passing Mount Vesuvius on the way and getting some historical and gastronomic information from Connie as we drove. Not only is she an archaeological guide, but she loves to cook and to grow things - including peanuts, bananas, tomatoes, spinach, etc, etc., so she also shared some recipes as we drove out - prompting Norm at one point to call out ‘Okay, I’m ready to order now!’

The Amalfi coast drive was everything that we expected from the photos we’ve seen, and more. The craggy cliffs that run straight down into the sea, the blue water and white foam from the surf and the winding coast road (so who is it that looked at this coastline and said, ‘I think this would be a great place to build a road!’??) are just as amazing first hand as they are described in books and magazine articles about the area.

Once we arrived in Positano, we had about an hour and a half to wander around town on our own. It isn’t very big, but built from the beach right up the hillside inside a little bay. It might just be easier to post a few photos than to try to describe it:

After Positano, it was on to Sorrento where we had lunch in a four-star hotel restaurant. Sorrento itself was just like another relatively large city after the small-town atmosphere of Positano, but the area where we were dropped off had some nice tiny side-streets, so we went for a wander on our own while everyone else was deciding what they wanted to buy from the local woodworking and ceramics shop. We had just seen a brief demonstration of marquetry, or intarsia, where the artist cuts a (quite often very intricate) design out of a stack of thin sheets of wood veneer. The artist then takes pieces from the various layers of veneer (all in different shades of wood, or even painted woods) and creates a finished picture that includes different shades and colours to give it more depth. We saw some amazing creations, including the Last Supper and some Amalfi Coast panoramas, that would have taken 3 months of work to complete. But the most interesting piece was one we saw after the demonstration - a cigar humidor with internal humidity controls and a beautiful varnished outer marquetry box. Norm looked at it a few times, trying to decide if it was worth the first year of Mitchell’s university tuition to buy it… cigars…Mitchell…cigars…Mitchell. It was a close-run thing, but we guess Mitch will be going to school next year after all!

Lunch was at the Terrazza Bosquet Restaurant in a gorgeous small hotel overlooking the harbour. Just walking in from the road was a treat for a gardener or tropical plant lover, and the location of the dining room didn’t disappoint either. We had a four-course meal that included wine (white, red and rosé) and a little Prosecco to start. Just a lovely way to prepare us for our afternoon tour of Pompeii. Here are a couple of photos from the hotel:

The hotel lobby area

The view from the restaurant balcony

Connie led us in our tour through a small part of the whole Pompeii excavation for about an hour and a half or so. It was pretty much the same route we took in our tour the last time we visited, but it never hurts to get fresh information and see the results of the recent restorations. Again, photos will probably tell a lot more than we could, so here are a few:



The main square with Temple of Zeus and Mt. Vesuvius in the background



One of the homes withe the original mosaic tile floor in the entrance

The Temple of Apollo and Diana

Once we got back to the ship, we decided a little down-time at the whirlpool was in order, so we took an hour to relax before getting ready for dinner. Tomorrow is a sea day, so there’s no rush to get up (except for Monica who has a spa appointment at 9:00). We’ll report again tomorrow. Buona Notte!

If It’s Friday….

…we must be going to the ship!


This morning, we all decided to finish repacking what we had taken out of our suitcases for Rome before we went for breakfast - a mistake, as it turned out. Norm and Barb told us about a group of 35 German tourists who had ‘invaded’ the Rooftop Patio last night after we left. Of course, we didn’t think that they would ALL be in the breakfast room at 9:00 in the morning, but sure enough, there they were, so breakfast was delayed slightly while we tried to find a table (or tables) to eat at.

Once that was done, Larry went to check out and was given a fax from the transfer company who was sending the van and driver to take us to Civitavecchia to pick up the ship, telling us that the transfer was scheduled a half-hour later than we had confirmed it for. The Reception staff helped us out here, and in the end the driver was only about 10 minutes late. You know, you can stuff quite a bit into the back of a Merecedes 6-passenger van! With luggage to the rafters and some carry-ons taking up the front seat, we set off. The trip is highway almost all the way, so he had us to the port in about an hour and a quarter.

Norm, Barb and Mitch left their luggage with the porters and had our driver drop them off at a local hotel where they were meeting Norm’s niece Katy and her (now) fiancé, Joel. They had just been on the previous cruise on the same ship, and had become engaged while on board. The only one who didn’t know about it in advance was Katy! Since Joel is with the Canadian Forces and is heading back to Afghanistan to finish his tour at the end of this holiday, Norm wanted to make sure he saw them if he had the chance. It all worked out well in the end - they had their visit and boarded the ship in plenty of time before sailing at 5:00.

As for us, we checked in, dropped our carry-ons in our stateroom and did our refamiliarization wander around the ship. We’re not used to anything quite this large, so it took a little time. We did, however, find all the important places, including the cigar lounge for Norm, and changed our dinner seating from 6:00 (we were expecting 6:45 but the time had been moved up) to 8:30 (much more civilized given the length of some of our tours) and got back to our stateroom to unpack with time to spare before lifeboat drill.

Other than the fact that there are more announcements being made here than we are used to, the bothersome thing is that they are all made in at least three languages other than English and therefore take one heck of a long time to finish!

Our tablemates in the dining room are a couple from Ottawa who are doing some more extensive touring around Italy after the cruise is over. Bernice reminds us of Patricia Dorst (and that is a compliment, though she talks almost as much as Patricia!) and we spent a nice extended time over dinner…as much as anything else, that was to give Mitch enough time to eat his first AND second main courses! You can’t complain when someone enjoys their food as much as he does, though.

Well, it’s off to bed a little early since we have to meet for our tour at 7:30 in the morning. We are going to the Amalfi coast - Positano and Sorrento - and visiting Pompeii on the way back. We’re expecting a long day with quite a bit of walking - not that we shouldn’t be used to that by now!

Another Day, Another Temple

Today we continued exercising off the pizza and pasta from the last few meals and saw a bit more of Rome along the way. After breakfast in the hotel we set out with our walking shoes and maps and headed toward the Colosseum and Ancient Rome. Since a city block in Rome can be anywhere from 20 feet to 200 feet long, the map really doesn’t show you just how close together things are. As a result, it only took us about 20 minutes to reach the Colosseum - and the sidewalk vendors, and the (fake) Roman centurians who would pose for photos with you (for a fee) in front of the building, and the various companies offering tours.

Much as we don’t usually use this kind of tour, we hadn’t arranged one for this area ahead of time. Once Larry found out what the entrance fee for the Colosseum and Forum areas was, it turned out that the extra cost for the tour wasn’t all that much, so we picked one and bought our tickets. For 8 Euros each we had a 45 minute guided tour of the inside of the Colosseum as well as over an hour on Palatine Hill, taking a look at the temple ruins and getting an overview of the Forum. We had two very good guides who knew their stuff (comparing their explanations to what we learned last time from our Rome Walks guide), and the second one had a dry sense of humour that added a lot to her commentary. Mitchell in particular was very impressed with this part of Rome - even if they didn’t serve pizza there.

Leaving the Forum area we headed off in the direction of the Jewish Ghetto and the Rome Synagogue. Deciphering the map as best we could - there a lot of small streets and some are not on the map - we found ourselves on a small side street with no name that we could find. Of course, the signs over the restaurants, Nonna Betta’s Kosher Restaurant and Roman Jewish Restaurant, told us we were probably in the right area, so we stopped for lunch. Norm still doesn’t understand how, even in Rome, a kosher restaurant could NOT serve matzoh ball soup! After lunch we set off in search of dessert at the oldest Jewish bakery in Rome - which is also the most well-hidden as we never did find it - and then went to check out the Synagogue. While this is apparently a must-see for Jewish tourists visiting Rome, one apparently must see it during hours of worship, because it was closed. Probably the only place of worship in all of Rome that is not open to the public.

Once we finished there, we needed to get back to the hotel to change so we could come ALL the way back to practically the same corner for dinner, as Norm had been told that we could not miss a visit to the Trastevere district. So, after looking fruitlessly for a cab for a few minutes, we decided to retrace our steps and headed backwards from the Jewish Ghetto, past the Theatre of Marcellus, up to the National Museum and along the Via Nazionale towards the hotel. Except that the road bends around a couple of large buildings part way back and we took the wrong route around it. But every cloud has a silver lining, and although all roads may lead to Rome, all roads in Rome seem to lead to the Trevi Fountain. We found ourselves back at the fountain just when Mitch was getting a little peckish so he and Barb picked up some gelatos to get them through the rest of the trip back. From there it was pretty easy to reach the hotel (even if it was uphill all the way) and we had enough time to shower and change before setting out for dinner.

So we called a cab to take us to a restaurant called Sora Lella in Trastevere - no address because the bar waiter at the Rooftop Patio at the hotel said every cab driver would know where it was - and we, of course, must have got the ONLY cabbie in Rome who had never been there. But no fear, we had a backup plan of three other restaurants we found in our tour book and the local magazine for visitors that is provided in our hotel rooms. So the cab dropped us off at another restaurant just across the river from the Synagogue area and we set out to look over a few options.

We finally decided on a restaurant with a large and busy outdoor patio, and had yet another enjoyable meal. Norm, Barb and Mitch all got their fix of steamed mussels and Monica finally had a plate of pasta - she’d been too busy with Osso Bucco, Calamari and Eggplant Parmagiana up to now. We headed back soon after dinner, since the day’s touring had tired everyone out.

Now we’re all looking forward to boarding the ship tomorrow.

Buongiorno, Roma!

Of course, there’s nothing ‘uneventful’ about this trip! It is Mitchell’s first trip off the North American continent and he’s determined to experience everything he can, including Fish ‘n Chips and Guiness at almost  0:Darkhundred in the morning during our stopover in London.

Both flights were calm and smooth and all of our luggage managed to arrive at the same time we did. Our transfer representative met us at the Rome airport and soon after we were on our way. We are staying at the Hotel Nord Nuova, a small boutique-type hotel near the train station. Although our room is rather small, it is quite comfy for our needs, and the rest of the hotel is quite nice. There’s a rooftop patio with a bar and some nice views. It’s a bonus that there is practically no building in downtown Rome over 7 storeys high…

Tuesday afternoon was spent near the hotel since we all took a little time to acclimatize to the time change. Norm and Barb took a short walk around and found some restaurants only a couple of blocks away - not that there is ANY shortage of restaurants - every second storefront is a Trattoria, Osteria, or Gelateria, or so it seems. We found a nice looking place with a large patio area, and settled in for our first real Italian meal, and Mitch’s first Roman pizza!

On Wednesday our first stop was the Vatican Tour. The only disappointment here was that Pope Benedict wasn’t in residence, so there was no Wednesday blessing - something Norm had been looking forward to seeing. Oh, well; apparently the Pope’s time on the balcony is so short that you might miss it if you blinked anyway. Here are some of our photos.

A tabletop model of Vatican City.  Total area:  110 acres, plus the Pope's summer residence at Castelgondolfo outside of Rome.

This last image is from a corner of one of the 'Rafael Rooms'.  Rafael was painting frescoes on the walls in some of the rooms at the same time Michelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel.  It is more than amazing that you can look carefully at these paintings and literally see the original brushstrokes!

I hope Mitch will be gracious enough to share some of the surreptitious photos he took on his phone camera in the Sistine Chapel. The guards are rather strict about not taking pictures (apparently Nikon has the exclusive rights to any images), but since most of the interesting stuff is on the ceiling anyway, as long as the camera is out of sight, you can take a chance or two that you’ll get something good.

'The Boys' inside St. Peter's Basilica.  Surprisingly, no lightning strikes were reported - Thanks, Mom!!

In the afternoon, we walked the ‘north side’ of downtown. From our hotel, we went to the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon and Piazza Navona, where we stayed for dinner. Taking all of the advice we had received about not eating in the piazzas to heart, and going by last night’s great experience, we wandered a block or two off Navona and found a nice little place with tables on the sidewalk. It was yet another excellent meal.

This is the little sidestreet where we had dinner, just off Piazza Navona, just as the moon was rising.

All in all, a great, full day. And tomorrow promises to be just as interesting - Ancient Rome and Trastevere.

Ready, Set…

And as Barb would say, “One more sleep!”

…which is something Thomas obviously decided to take literally. He didn’t have quite as much time as usual to spend in the suitcases, since they only came out the day before our departure, but he did crawl on top of them at the first opportunity. By the time we were ready to leave, though, he’d decided that since we were leaving anyway, he’d just ignore us and take his nap in the living room. But that’s okay; while we’re gone, he and Jane will spoil each other rotten.

This trip will be a lot of fun, since we will be able to share it, not only with you, but with Norm, Barb and Mitchell. We hope you’ll enjoy coming along via the blog. Our itinerary will take us to a few exotic places we haven’t been to before, and will give us a chance to show our friends first-hand some of the things we have experienced, which is just as much fun as seeing them the first time ourselves.


Next stop - Rome!!

Day 21 Athens & Homeward Bound

Our final day of the trip started out completely different. The ship didn’t get into Piraeus, the port for Athens, until 9:00AM and it was completely overcast. The very first cloudy day we have seen since we left the house on March 13!!!!! It was decidedly strange not seeing the sun at breakfast.


In all of our cruising experience, this is the first time that our last day on the ship was a port day and not a sea day and since we leave the ship at 5:15AM Saturday morning, we had to fit in packing and site-seeing. Being that it was also Good Friday and many places in Athens were closed today, the choice of tours was limited, so we decided on packing in the morning and an afternoon city tour.

We were the only non-Greek cruise ship in the area, and the only other one in port with any activity was boarding this afternoon. It didn’t help much that it was called the ‘Cristal’ - because there isn’t really much control in the port once you’re checked in, we actually passed someone with a boarding card for the Cristal trying to get up our gangway! We also saw a slightly modified ‘old friend’ in port - the former Nordic Prince that we sailed on in the early 1990’s. She’s now called the ‘Aquamarine’ and like Cristal, she sails for Louis Cruises, a Greek line.

Our tour was Athens and the Acropolis, a bus tour of the principal sites, followed by a visit to the Acropolis. As it happens, there are not a whole lot of sites to be seen from a bus, so our first and only stop before the Acropolis was the Athens Olympic Stadium built for the 1896 Summer Olympics, the first Olympics of the modern age. As you can see from the picture it’s a small stadium by today’s Olympic stadium standards, but it is still in use and seats 60,000 people!!!

Our second and final stop was the Acropolis, which stands on a surprisingly high hill in the center of the city. Building heights in Athens are strictly controlled, 12 storeys for apartments and 10 for offices, so that the Acropolis is always in view. The bus park was half way up the hill, meaning we had to hike up the steps the remainder of the way. Surprising us not at all, like virtually every “world site” we have ever visited, large parts of the temples were covered by scaffolding. According to our guide, restoration work is almost a constant feature, meaning the scaffolding is too!

It was a good thing that the tourist traffic was light; we had a better opportunity to wander around and get a good look at the temples and surrounding areas. It was certainly impressive to see these temples, but not as impressive as seeing the pyramids. We think it is probably because we can identify more with the Greek culture that built the temples and it does not seem as much an engineering feat as a marvel of design and sculpting. Here are some of the photos we took:

The Erechtheum and the Porch of Caryitides

Looking Down over Hadrian's Arch (in the lower left corner) and the remains of the Temple of Zeus

From below, the arches of the Herodeon Theatre and the Parthenon in the background

It is now just after Midnight here in Athens and our bus for the airport leaves at 5:15AM Saturday morning our time or 10:15 Friday night Toronto time. We plan on sleeping most of the way home (to make up for the sleep we won’t get tonight!!) and with luck, we should be home by 4:30 Saturday afternoon. It has been a great trip and we hope you have enjoyed coming along for the ride with us.

Day 18 & 19 Jerusalem

Tuesday was a relaxation day, for those who took the tour to Cairo and the Pyramids to recover prior to the next long day in Israel.


Wednesday dawned as a repeat of most days - sunny and cloudless, although a little cooler than most everyone on the ship has been used to for almost the whole world cruise. The Captain might as well just record the weather report for his 9:00 update: ‘It is a beautiful ‘Crystal’ clear day out there…the latest weather forecast I have shows nothing but good weather ahead of us…’ has been a standard refrain throughout the trip.

Of course, most of us were awake BEFORE the sun rose as the all-day tours were set to leave at around 7:15AM and there was mandatory personal-appearance Israeli Immigration inspection beforehand. No one could get off the ship without their stamped visitor’s pass (no, they don’t stamp your passport) and of course, this didn’t start on time so it held up a lot of the tour buses.

We had originally planned to go to Masada and the Dead Sea, but changed that to a tour of Jerusalem instead as it was Holy Week and, as Larry has said, ‘going to Israel in Holy Week and not going to Jerusalem is like going to Rome and not seeing the Vatican’. Apparently it turned out to be a good choice, since we overheard someone at one of lectures saying that a bad traffic accident in front of them on the highway to Masada made the whole tour extremely late and their swim (float?) in the Dead Sea became no more than a chance to dip their toes in.

We had very light traffic going into Jerusalem - about an hour’s drive from Ashdod - but most likely it was because everyone had been up late the night before celebrating the Pesach or Passover Seder with their families. Our first stops in the morning weren’t too bad, but by the time we finished lunch and headed out to our walking tour of Old Jerusalem, the tour crowds and the locals had caught up with us.

We had an extremely knowledgeable tour guide named Rafael, who had undergraduate and graduate degrees in Theology, and who did his best to bring the religious/political issues between Israel and Palestine into an unbiased perspective. At one point we were standing overlooking a valley as Rafael pointed out the distant hills in Jordan, the Red Sea, some Israeli settlements and the infamous “security fence”, at which point someone asked if what we were looking at was the “West Bank”. When he said that in fact it was, a lady blurted out “then those settlements are in Palestinian territory!”, to which he replied “Welcome to the Middle East!”

From Mount Scopus, overlooking the West Bank

Also in the morning, we visited the room where the Last Supper might possibly have taken place. Our destination lecturer had explained that some fairly recent discoveries of the remains of a synagogue dating back to the 1st Century right underneath the building gave the claim more archaeological credence. And since there’s no fancy build-up like there is in some of the other sites, it was much easier to imagine that it in fact could have happened here. Of course, Larry didn’t find the scribble on the wall saying ‘I was here (signed) Jesus’ so he’s not entirely convinced.

The 'actual' room is the area on the left by the stained glass window.  The other areas were added afterwards

Mary's tomb under the Domition Church - one of 3 possible sites around the Middle East and Turkey

Our first stop on the afternoon walking tour of the Old Town was the Christian Quarter and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Being Holy Week we had expected it to be crowded, but this was ridiculous. According to our onboard destination lecturer, who is a credentialed historian, most scholars accept that this church is in fact located on/over Golgotha, the place of the crucifixion. The “actual” site is on the second floor and is reached by an incredibly steep and narrow staircase. A (really gaudy, in an Eastern Orthodox sort of way) shrine has been built over a hole in the floor (a sterling silver plated hole no less) revered as the actual hole that held the cross! Call us cynical, but we figure the chances of this being the actual hole are right up there with winning 6/49 all by yourself…………ten times!!!! Nonetheless throngs of good Christians couldn’t wait to get close to this place. You could tell they were “Good Christians” by the pushing, shoving, cutting in line and general disregard for anyone but themselves. We had several older people in our group and a few of us “younger” types actually feared for their safety. Actually one of the older ladies was very nearly knocked down the stairs on the way out by someone trying to get in through the exit. These pictures will give you some idea of what we are talking about.

A small sample of the crowds

The Shrine - the person in the middle is bending toward 'the hole' where the cross allegedly stood

Note the restrained decoration

After exiting the crucifixion site, the next stop (on the lower floor) was the “actual” tomb Jesus was buried in We put that in quotes as there are at least one, and possibly two, other sites that our lecturer told us are better candidates as the true site. Nonetheless, a three-hour-long line of pilgrims meant we weren’t going to be able to get into the tomb. Our guide explained that the length of the line (besides it being Holy Week) is due to the fact one must enter and exit the mausoleum surrounding the tomb through the same door, and this gets to the constant battle between the five Christian Sects that control the church complex. Five of the six control the “entrance” door, but the sixth controls the “exit” door and has decreed it to be a “holy place” suitable only for use by their clerics!!! Well at least the line was orderly here. We left the church feeling more than a bit disgusted by the whole thing.

The Mausoleum surrounding the tomb.  At noon, the sunlight shines through the hole in the dome and hits the tomb.  The only thing all the Christian sects could agree on.

We think we may have walked on/crossed over/been somewhere close to the Via Dolorosa, but our guide never had a chance to point it out specifically since he and Sarah the tour escort and Michael from Shorex and one of the ship’s photographers were extremely busy trying to keep our group of 23 intact. Some of the old streets, now converted into what reminded us of Arabian souks, were so narrow that two people would have a hard time passing each other, never mind the hundreds trying to.

Not the greatest photo, but could you imagine Jesus trying to find his way around modern 'Old Jerusalem'?

Our final stop was the Western, or Wailing Wall in the Jewish Quarter. This wall is the last remnant of the Second Temple and as such is Judaism’s holiest site. Our guide had explained that in Biblical times entire families would travel to Jerusalem at Passover to worship at the temple, and although only the wall remains today, the tradition remains the same, particularly among the most Orthodox of the Jewish community. Actually our guide did tell us that this site is always busy and as crowded as it was, it is actually more crowded on Friday/Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath!!!!

The “tradition” when visiting the Wall is to put a prayer or request to God on paper and insert it into a crack in the wall, and our guide handed out paper and pens to those who wished. While a few of our group went off to do this, we stayed with our guide as he discussed the “Palestine” situation from a different perspective. In the picture you see the Dome of the Rock, Islam’s holiest site, which is built right on top of the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site. He said that the majority of people in Israel accept that the West Bank and Gaza will be the Palestinian state of the future. The problem is both sides want their “holy site” to be their capital and “how do you do that when one is built on top of the other??” His best guess is that his great-grandchildren and “our” great-grandchildren will still be having the same conversation years from now.