Cruising Blue

Animals of the Mediterranean

2008-12-17T14:22:00.000-08:00

It has been almost a month since we arrived home from the trip, and I am having fun looking through the pictures, sorting through the souvenirs and gifts, and making a calendar!

YES! I did something sort of crafty that involved absolutely no cutting and pasting with real paper. I made a calendar of some of the animals we saw on the trip. While in Mykonos, Carol decided I needed to publish my own (or our own) calendar of the "Cats of..." variety that you see all over Italy and Greece. We did not really see many cats in Italy, but in Istanbul and Mykonos it seems we saw cats everywhere.

Also, in Pompeii and in Athens, there were dogs that accompanied tourists around the various ruins. In fact, in Pompeii there was a dog with a limp that came up to our group when we first arrived. He was whining and crying loudly like he had just been injured and everyone was shocked when the guide spoke sharply to him (a brown lab-type dog) and pushed him out of the way. It turns out that that dog was a great actor and had figured out how to get -- attention? handouts? None of us really had any foot, although Judy did feed him some nuts. He followed us around for most of the time we were there, lying down to sleep while we enjoyed the sights. Eventually, when other people arrived, he wandered off -- before I had a chance to take his picture. There was another dog, however, that joined us and napped with us for a bit. And then there was this dog on the Acropolis in Athens.

Anyway, I got the calendars printed at Shutterfly.com, and for those of you not on my snail mail list, I will try to post them in a sharing mode some place where you can see the rest of the pictures. Soon. I promise. No cutting or pasting required.

We missed the really bad acqua alta

2008-12-01T12:00:00.000-08:00

When we arrived in Venice the was some discussion about the water being high, but it did not seem to be a problem for delivering us to our hotel. When we left the hotel we noticed what appeared to be tables about three feet high that stretched across our little Campo d'Moise. Hmmm... What could those be?

When we reached St. Marks we realized that the tables were in fact the walkways that were used during the acqua alta. In the square there were large puddles of water, and several places people were using the walkways or wading through the water (5-6 inches deep). The large puddles were easy to avoid, but as we were leaving the square we noticed water bubbling up or down the drains in the middle of the square. All over the town we saw the walkways ready to be deployed in case of high water, but we were lucky and the weather was beautiful.

However, the weather was just waiting for us to leave! According to the news, this is almost the worst acqua alta in memory! Ack!

Friday at home...we have disembarked

2008-11-21T10:19:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it has been almost a week since the end of the cruise and that this is my third day at home. The cat woke me up this morning at 5:00 a.m. by barfing on the bed. This did not happen on the cruise!

Plus, where is that room service when you need it? I think I am addicted to sweet little croissants and things that just do not appear here at home.

We sailed into Venice last Saturday just as the sun was rising.

After this view of the Serenisimma, the disembarkation was such a zoo! You have to put your bags out the night before and then get up (assuming you have slept) and be ready to go by an assigned time. You meet in one of the lounges and when they call your color and number you get off the ship. Then you are supposed to meet your luggage in a large terminal, where they have been grouped by color and number.

We had changed our color/number to "Red 15" with a disembarkation time of 9:00 a.m. At 7:30 a.m. our cabin attendant knocked on the door and asked when we were leaving. When I said sometime before 9:00 he gave me his patented blank stare and said we had to be out by 8:00 a.m. What?? No one else knew anything about this.

So you can see we were well prepared for the chaos in the cruise terminal building where we found all of our luggage except for one of my bags. Lesley and I stood in line to get two carts for all of the suitcases and then realized that one was missing. Lesley did finally find my bag somewhere all alone because all of the tags had been torn off!

The private taxi service that we had worried about was not as straightforward as we had hoped. You had to pay the dispatcher at a stand at the exit for the terminal. He took the money, gave you a receipt and told you which taxi to look for. Our taxi was 129. "Just go to the last floating dock," the dispatcher said pointing back in the direction we had come.

So about half of the passengers (the ship held 2,000) were crammed into the area of the floating docks, and several dozen water taxis (motor boats to you) were floating in the water waiting their turn to pick people up. I went off and found 129 floating in the middle and somehow made eye contact. He was a nice looking man about our age, not the sexy blond in taxi 145. Number 129 quickly starting angling toward one of the three places where you could board the taxis, we began trying to thread our way through the crowd of people and luggage tolleys, and in pretty short order we were on board.

There had apparently been "acqua alta" that day which you could sort of tell from the waves spraying up as they hit the floating docks. The driver said something about it being possible (or did he say impossible?) to get to the dock for our hotel. When it is high water there are some bridges that you cannot pass under, so we were lucky. The trip to the Hotel Violino d'Oro was amazing as is any trip around Venice by boat. And we managed to give the guy two tips, so he was probably a very happy driver.

Later

Mykonos

2008-11-15T01:42:00.000-08:00

Mykonos is just like you imagine it to be - little white houses and blue doors and shutters scattered across the hills. The hills are rocky and mostly barren, just a few trees manage to grow in the nooks. The old town is stretched out along the harbor with more town, "Little Venice," in the next inlet and then maybe even more modern establishments.

We only made it to the old town and the view of the windmills in Little Venice from a distance. Our shipped docked a short distance away from the town and we took a shuttle bus. The we wandered. This is not a good place to get lost from the group, better to wander on your own or with one companion. That way when you find a little alley to go down and find some wonderful view, you don't have to worry about the companions left behind.

The other occupation of the Mykonos-ians is selling stuff like jewelry and other souvenirs. In preparation for going home Lesley and I and several others bought a new suitcase. I hope this works out. Others were looking at the beautiful jewelry, but most of us managed to resist this expense.

Carol and I were in search of the post office which of course closed at like noon and did not reopen while we were there. We got conflicting info about whether we would find stamps for postcards anywhere. So we wandered in a mostly residential area and then found this great little hotel, Elena Hotel. When we asked if they had stamps the man said he would mail the postcards for us. So we trusted him. Then we picked up the brochure of the place. It seemed charming, and we are busy making plans to return to Mykonos when it is warmer.

This is the very end of the season for Mykonos. Many of the restaurants were closed, and some of the shops were also closed. Some shops that were open had limited stock on hand. They are definitely getting ready for winter. The best months are June, before it gets too hot, or September. November is a bit cold, but some ladies did take off their shoes and see if the Mediterranean was cold. They said not.

The other activity on Mykonos was the kitty sighting. We found cats in most of the cities we visited, but the ones in Mykonos were trying to be particularly photogenic. Carol wants me to make a calendar of the cats. Okay.

More later.

If its Friday we must be...somewhere in the Adriatic

2008-11-14T01:22:00.000-08:00

Cruising is such an interesting experience. Last night was our final formal night and three of us got all dressed up in our finery, went to a cocktail party and then a show, and then the late dinner seating. (Lesley was sick in bed with a cold.)

During our sea day yesterday we had experienced some sort of engine trouble and the ship was actually stopped for a while. I was not aware of this because I was having a hot stone treatment in the spa so did not even notice that the ship was particularly quiet or still.

Then during the show the ship seemed to start rocking a bit more than it had been. During dinner they announced that the ship had lost one of its engines, or thrusters or something so that instead of 24 knots we were only going about 15 knots and thus would not have time to get to Split on time on Friday and still make it to Venice on Saturday. SO... We have an entire day to obsess over packing and weather in Venice and other such information while we sail up the Adriatic Sea toward Venice. Just sea as far as the eye can see (unaided by binoculars). (Not "ocean" as we ignorant Californians tend to call these large bodies of water.)

Or to go on to the internet and think of you.

We are all getting ready to reenter the real world, first on land in Venice (that can't be called the real world, yet). Then getting home. We were talking about what we would be doing next time this week - cooking, cleaning house, blogging.

Home soon. Later

Istanbul!

2008-11-12T11:44:00.000-08:00

Here is a map of the section of Istanbul that we were in.

View Larger Map

I thought that the pink arrow is where the ship docked, at the tip of the "Golden Horn," but in fact that is not where we docked. But it did not matter because we took a ship excursion. This was our first ship excursion. There were hundreds of people trying to get onto busses at the asme time. Once we were on the bus, the traffic was pretty bad, but the tour itself was great. Also we did not have long lines in most of the places because we were the only ship here. Sometimes there are three or four ships here at the same time!.

The green arrow is the Topkapi Palace.

The yellow arrow is the Hagia Sophia, or St. Sophia as the guide called it.

The purple arrow is the Blue Mosque.

The aqua arrow is the Grand Bazaar.

After the Blue Mosque we went to a carpet making lecture (or sales pitch), then walked to the Grand Bazaar. There are 4000 shops in the covered bazaar and about 14,000 in the area. Wow! mostly they were tourist shops of souvenirs mixed with tourist shops of jewelry, leather, carpets, spices. Pashminas are the tourist item de jour.

Oh no! She is speaking french. I know no Turkish. Sorry.

More later.

If its Tuesday it must be... where are we?

2008-11-11T10:54:00.000-08:00

If it is Tuesday it must be Istanbul. Or it is Wednesday? Well today I forgot what day of the week it was, but I did know that I was in Istanbul. Yesterday we went to the Topkapi Palace which has this amazing exhibit of jewels. The Topkapi dagger, featured in the movie Topkapi which we will all have to rush out to rent, was particularly amazing with three egg sized cabachon emeralds so green it did not look like anything you had ever seen. That was preceded by a large coffer of emeralds of the same size. Then came the rather "boring" (according to our guide because of the emerald cut) 55 carat diamond, then the rather spectacular 86 carat diamond (with a brilliant cut).

Okay. We also saw Moses' rod, St. John the Baptist's arm surrounded by a gold case, and other relics. Things wars have been fought over. You can really imagine those crusaders charging through here. Then we went to St. Sophia which was the largest building at the time it was built as a church (I think). It is now a beautiful museum/monument. Today we went to the Blue Mosque (pictured). It is still a mosque, so we had to take our shoes off. We were not there during a prayer time.

One of the most striking things about Turkey is that it is a secular government, not religious, and according to our guide most of the citizens are not practicing (or strictly practicing) Moslems. So there was not a rush of men to the mosque when the time of prayers were called.

We drove across the bridge to Asia, just for the view back toward the old part of the city, and to be able to say we had been to Asia. Fun day.

Oh yes, and the bazaar. Well, more later.

Rome was Wonderful

2008-11-09T10:47:00.000-08:00

So, Lesley, Carol and I dilly-dallied around until late morning on Wednesday, before leaving the ship to take the train to Rome. We got on the high-speed train and reached Rome in about 45 minutes. We took a cab to the fabulous Hotel Raphael. The rooms were fabulous -- we were upgraded to suites.

Then we took off to explore Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. We walked to all of the places and then back to the room where I took a nice bath in the big bathtub, We then went across town to meet Judy at the Trattoria Monti. This was a very nice place. We were seven for dinner and the waiter recommended the special appetizers and then we ordered mostly just a pasta dish each. Very delicioso!

On Thursday, we took a cab to the Colisseum were we hooked up with two American girls who were selling tours. We were so charmed by their California accents (one was from Bakersfield), that we signed up. The guide was such a character, she must have been Italian, but she had some sort of strange accent. She had the men acting out the gladiator fights. That was fun.

Then we hiked up the Palantine Hill and down through the Forum. Then went to the Castel d'Angelo to see the wonderful bridge. Back to the hotel to get our bags and then to the Termini. We had to stand in line for about 20 minutes, so missed the high speed trains. The train took more like an hour to get back to Civitavecchia and we barely made the last bus to the ship! Exciting.

More later.

Edited to add the photo which is a view from the roof of our hotel in Rome!

No Cote d'Azur for us!

2008-11-06T13:04:00.000-08:00

So, we did not make it to Nice by train because there was a blackout all along the coast from Monaco to Cannes. When we reached Villefranche by tender, it was raining sort of regular - you would get wet and miserable if you did not have a coat and umbrella (which one of our group did not have).

Anyway, Villefranche was looking very picturesque with the slight rain, then as we were walking toward the train station the rain started coming down in buckets. We stood there for a while and then made way toward the awnings of the several cafes along the waterfront. Oh, did I mention that the cafes were closed because of no electricity. We were standing in one restaurant outdoor seating area with another couple from America and the water started coming up from the sewers. THEN the man hole cover about 6 feet away popped off because of water spouting up against it, and now out of it, and a rat ran towards us! Another floated along, drowned.

So we headed back to the tender, stopping in the one shop that was open - that's right we could not even shop because the electricity was out!

Out first big adventure ended with a trip to the spa onboard the Celebrity Summit. The picture was taken before the rats came!

More later!

Rome Restaurants

2008-11-05T13:53:00.000-08:00

Here are some restaurant recommendations for Rome:
Alberto Ciarla
40, Piazza San Cosimato, Rome, Italy
+39 6 581 8688 / +39 6 581 6068

Review in Real Travel

Ristorante Piperno
Monte dè Cenci 9 - 00186 Roma
Tel. +39 06 68806629
Tel. +39 06 6833606

Review on Real Travel

Trattoria Monti
Via San Vito, 13a, Rome, Italy
+39 6 446 6573

Review by Katie Parla

Review by Real Travel

Agata e Romeo
Via Carlo Alberto, 45
00185 Roma (RM), Italy
+39 06 4466115

Review in Lonely Planet

We finally made reservations for Trattoria Monti for November 5. Will let you know how it goes.

Cote d'Azur on our own

2008-11-03T11:36:00.000-08:00

You may remember that we had a big plan to take the train in to Nice from the port of Villefranche and wander on our own. The market place on Cours Saleya is an antique mart and I wanted to walk down the Promenade de Anglais. I did not think we wanted to go further afield as described in this post.

Here is a map of our first port of call, and a link to the port review for Villefranche.

View Larger Map

We arrive at the yellow arrow. Monaco/Monte Carlo is east (right) at the aqua arrow. Nice is west (left) at the blue arrow. Nice is a couple of miles away. The train from Villefranche actually cuts through the mountain to reach Nice.

Eze (green) and St. Paul d'Vence (fuschia) are two popular destinations for tours in the area. Cannes is a green arrow off to the left (west) past Antibes.

These maps are great if you zoom out to see the overview of the area or zoom in for the details. Also, here is a web site, Real Travel, with lots of maps. The link will take you to a map similar to this one of the area, but it also links to maps of the specific destinations, like Nice.

P.S. Here is a link to another Villefranche map that is even better since it appears to be the official city map.

So, is that what we did?

Bon Voyage!

2008-10-30T11:32:00.000-07:00

We are all flocking to our respective airports and flying over the seas to Barcelona. After a couple of days of sightseeing we will board the ship on Saturday. Here is a map of the itinerary:

You have to match the ports with the itinerary over on the right column. Our first day is a sea day - to get a chance to rest up from all of the preparations! I will try to blog every few days from the cruise, but won't be back here in person until November 19!

See you!

Venice vantage point

2008-10-28T17:48:00.000-07:00

One of the guys on Cruise Critic had this recommendation while in Venice:

The Hilton Molino Stucky hotel - located on Guidecca; go to the rooftop bar and pool and get a full, clear, no heaving with tourist view of Venice, and probably the ship in dock too, it really is wonderful - if you go please enjoy a drink on me! I think it is one of the best vantage points of an amzing city and my be a lovely place for you to reflect on the previous 2 weeks voyage!

This sounds like fun. Hope the weather cooperates.

Barcelona weather

2008-10-26T16:41:00.000-07:00

We did it and got tickets for the Sagrada Familia on Saturday morning at 9:00. Either we will all be dead to the world or raring to go at that time of the morning.

For the weather in Barcelona, see this link to the Weather Underground. Looks like it will be drizzly on Friday, the day we arrive, with 40% chance of showers, temperature HIGH 48 degrees!!! On Saturday, the temperature will shoot up to 51 degrees, but it looks like the rain will stop and just leave the clouds behind for our outing.

Well...sort of icky, but a nice cool start to the trip.

Image from flicker account saramusico.

Barcelona excursion on Saturday morning

2008-10-24T14:44:00.000-07:00

I really want to go to the La Sagrada Familia cathedral. To avoid the lines it is suggested that you buy tickets in advance at this website. The only times available right now are 9 a.m., 2:00 p.m. or 4 p.m. The tickets are 10 euros.

Does anyone else want to go at 9:00?

P.S. Exchange rate is down to $1.26!!

Money, money, money

2008-10-08T12:36:00.000-07:00

Have you seen Mamma Mia!? Thinking about money made me start singing this song -

Money, money, money,
Must be funny

With the falling (rising?) Euro, we may be getting some better deals than we first considered. For example, the train ticket to Nice was €4 each round trip. In July when I was trying to figure out how much money we needed (which I never did finish that calculation), that was $6.50 for the train. Today it is $5.47. YAY!! The train to Rome is about €11 each round trip. In July this was $18, but in todays dollars it is only $15.

So at least there is some good financial news! All of this economic doom and gloom is making me cranky.

Picture "Falling Money" from freefoto.

Acqua Alta in Venice - Full Moon November 13

2008-09-26T11:50:00.000-07:00

Did you know that while we are in Venice there is a very good chance that there will be flooding? We have been having a discussion over on Cruise Critic about this occurrence -- and what to do if it should happen while we are there!

Please see the post on our other blog that provides all the info and solutions!

Top picture courtesy of Flicker user Gweneal Paiser.

Don't forget to vote

2008-09-23T16:00:00.001-07:00

Sorry if you already saw this post on the other website, but don't forget to get your "absentee"* ballot to vote in the general Presidential election. The election is November 4, 2008 (in case you had forgotten).

If you are in California you can send in your request at any time up until 7 days before the election (which is October 28 --please don't wait that long). You can get info about voting by mail (for Californians) at the Secretary of State website. I filled out the form to mail, but then I went to my local county website and it provided a way to electronically request a ballot to vote by mail! (We will see if that works.)

*Apparently "absentee" is no longer politically correct and in California such terminology has been changed to "vote by mail." Okay.

Athens info and map

2008-09-17T13:15:00.000-07:00

Here is a map of the port of Pireaus and the city of Athens. We have signed up to go on a tour in Athens with Greece Cruise Excursions. Their description of the tour is:

Acropolis, Archeological Museum, Plaka, City Highlights

View Larger Map

The bluish arrow is where the ship docks and the yellow arrow is the Acropolis. To really see the city you need to zoom in.

The Pláka is the picturesque old historical neighbourhood of Athens, clustered around the northern and eastern slopes of the Acropolis, and incorporating labyrinthine streets and neoclassical architecture. Plaka is built on top of the residential areas of the ancient town of Athens. (from Wikipedia).

View of Acropolis from Plaka. Image from Wikipedia.

Great review from Cruise Critic for similar itinerary

2008-08-28T18:47:00.000-07:00

Here is a link to a cruise Critic review of a similar itinerary, A Long Summit Review (July 22). This is a particularly interesting review because it also discusses the issues that might arise between four (female) friends and arranging the excursions, deciding where to go, etc. The reviewer discusses everything from how to get from the airport to the hotel to the type of food she had in the Normandy restaurant.

Enjoy! Then we need to discuss some things, like -- I wonder if it is too late to make reservations in the Normandy restaurant?

Kay T

Livorno area map

2008-08-26T10:32:00.000-07:00

This seems to have worked! The purple arrows are general sites, places on the ship tours. The others are on the private tour we have planned for this stop! Click on the arrow for more details, and zoom in for a closer look!

View Larger Map

Livorno and Tuscany

2008-08-23T18:10:00.000-07:00

At the Livorno port of call there are many possible destinations to chose from. I tried to do a map like the other ones, but for some reason Google is not cooperating. We have chosen to take a non-ship tour that drives along the famous Chianti Classico Wine Route. It is about 1 hour and 42 minutes from the port city of Livorno to the city of Greve in Chianti, the center of most of our tour stops. Here is an edited version of the tour company information.

The first stop of our tour is a visit to the castle of Vicchiomaggio for our first wine tasting experience of Chianti Classico.

"A few miles ahead, we will allow ourselves a treat, by visiting the small town of Greve. This is the home of Da Verrazzano, founder of the Hudson Bay, and today's capital of the Chianti region."

Greve In Chianti

We will also stop at Montefioralle, a small village above Greve, which still preserves its medieval architectural flavor.

Montefioralle

As we depart Greve we will encounter the beautiful Vignamaggio estate, which belonged to Mona Lisa's family. This was the setting of the hit movie "Much Ado about Nothing". Today's owner is one of the best Chianti masters. We will have lunch at Vignamaggio Estate.

Castello Vignamaggio, (image from Wikicommons)

We can then tailor the afternoon to your personal tastes: there are more Wineries that will be happy to show you their cellars or we can stop at the Bonollo grappa distillery; if you have had enough Bacchus for one day we can visit the beautiful Abbey of Passignano or somewhere else of your choice.

For more about the Chianti region see http://www.bardotti.com/chianti.htm.

Packing and Organizing

2008-08-18T11:45:00.000-07:00

I spent some time this weekend getting out the various outfits I envisioned taking on the trip and trying things on. My sister was here so we had fun. Of course it had been pretty hot here and I said I would only try on these "fall" things if it was cool, and the weather obliged by being foggy yesterday morning. The boots I bought at the Macy's sale are pretty comfortable, but they did make my legs hot by the time we got done.

Also went shopping on Saturday and bought a couple of tops, not sure if I will be taking them or not. I am still stuck on what coat to take, although I am sure it will not ultimately matter -- no matter what we expect from the weather it will probably be the opposite! Cold? Rainy? Hot? Scorching?

So how are you all doing on the packing front? The Roll Call website has a packing page with a couple of suggested websites about packing.

Finally, I have posted a picture of the four of us over on the right. This is a copy of our pic from the party in June.

Roll Call website

2008-08-12T11:06:00.000-07:00

I am not sure if any of you check the Cruise Critic website. There are lots of articles about ports of call and reviews of the ships, etc. Also there are Forums that allow people to ask questions and then to chat about various questions. These forums are organized differently than a blog -- the thread is started by a "new post." People "reply" to the post and the most recent reply is at the end of the thread.

Also, if you join the website there is an area called Roll Call. Only people who are registered can go into this area so that there is some protection for your privacy. You basically go to the thread for our sailing - "Summit 11/01/08 Barcelona to Venice." Right now we have over 20 pages of replies and comments. Lots of good stuff in there. This is also the page where you can sign up for the Cruise Connections party. I believe that if you don't sign up they won't let you attend! We have 55 people signed up so far (Carol and I have signed up).

Finally, one of the members of our roll call has set up a web page for our sailing. There is a list there of all the people who have signed up from our particular cruise and other helpful info.

I am getting excited!

Checking in again

2008-08-04T16:21:00.000-07:00

Hope you all arranged to pay the balance of the cruise that was due August 1, 2008. Or at least that was when Alex wanted the balance paid, someone else said it was not due until August 13.

Also, found this great site, Flyer.com, that has info about using credit cards overseas. I wish I had know about this site before I went away for the last several days and stayed at a Marriott. Those dollars at Marriott count for miles on United, but only if you sign up before your stay. Bummer. So, don't forget to consider other ways of accumulating frequent flyer miles. I am so bad at this.

Kay T