I had been counting down the days to Dubrovnik for months. We had booked what I thought was going to be a fantastic 🍷wine tour🍷 to Bosnia-Herzegovina. I was excited for two reasons. First of all, one of our winery stops was at a monastery where they had been making wine since the early 1400s. I thought that sounded pretty neat! Secondly, we were going to visit Bosnia, which I also thought was kind of neat. I mean, how many people from Texas can say they’ve visited Bosnia? Not us! We couldn’t say it before the trip, and we still can’t say it!  Here’s what happened…

We woke to another beautiful day, and docked (if I remember correctly) a little early.

 

We met up with the other two couples on our tour before we disembarked, and showed up about 10 minutes early to our designated tour meeting place right across the street from the ship. We waited, and we waited, and then we waited some more. I sent Mario (the owner of the tour company) several text messages and emails. I finally heard back from him 30 minutes after we were supposed to leave that there had been a bad accident that morning which resulted in our driver being air lifted to a hospital in Zagreb and also put our guide in the hospital.🤕 Obviously, Bosnia was not to be.😢

I can’t fault Taste Dubrovnik (the company) because accidents happen.  However, I was a little uneasy while we were trying to get in touch with Mario and find out what was going on, because we had no communication for about 40 minutes. We were angry while we were waiting and wondering, but once we learned what had happened we understood and moved immediately to plan B. We had a PayPal refund by the time we woke up the following day.

Luckily for us Dubrovnik is a pretty easy place to find something else to do. There had been plenty of tour operators hanging around watching to see if we got picked up or not! We ended up hiring a tour company (van & driver) for €15/person. They took us to see the local scenery and views. The views are definitely not too shabby!

We have road signs in the U.S. warning us about deer or moose, but this was the first time I’ve seen a warning sign for feral pigs!

😢 Bosnia:

 

We followed the scenic drive by spending the rest of the day in Dubrovnik Old Town.

 

Once we got to Old Town we walked around a bit, then went to a restaurant called Konoba Jezuite for lunch at the recommendation of the tour company. Truthfully, the walking around part of that last sentence was because we couldn’t find the place!

 

The restaurant was tucked away out of the major traffic areas and we wondered if perhaps we’d been sent on a wild goose chase, but our meal was fantastic. Konoba Jezuite actually ended up being a great choice because we had a wonderful table outside without the kind of crowds we saw at so many other locations.

Jim’s Dumpling Stew:

 

Once we finished lunch we decided to walk the walls of the old city. The Croatians have done an excellent job of creating a steady stream of income in Dubrovnik. The tariff to climb hundreds of stairs and walk the walls of Old Town is about $22.50. Per person!😳

 

One thing that makes the walled cities in the Adriatic different than any of the historical places I’ve visited before is that they’re not ruins, relics, or museums. They’re actual inhabited town centers that happen to have ancient walls to protect them from invaders. People live, work, and play in locations that have been inhabited hundreds or even thousands of years longer than the United States.

Hmm…I’m not sure if this is an ancient problem or a modern problem!😳

 

Unfortunately, the walled city of Dubrovnik was heavily shelled during the War for Croatian Independence in 1991-1992. The Montenegrins and the Serbians set up shop on the hill overlooking Dubrovnik and bombed the walled city relentlessly for seven months.  Here’s a map I found on Wiki that shows how devastating the war was to Old Town:

 

In the pictures you will notice two different types of roof. The solid red roofs are fairly new because those structures were damaged or destroyed in the war and have been rebuilt. The roofs that survived have more signs of age and variation in color. You’ll also notice some buildings that are nothing but ruins. The ruins stand next to surviving buildings that are occupied and house shops, restaurants, and families.

 

We went back to the ship around 6:30, and had dinner in the dining room with one of the couples we spent the day with. Once again after dinner I went straight to bed. I was definitely not the life of the party, but with 10 days to go I didn’t want my cold to decide to linger or turn into anything worse! I was asleep long before we left port headed for Kotor, Montenegro!😴

Tuesday we visited the island of Corfu, Greece. We didn’t really have any expectations for the day because the island didn’t seem to “fit” with the other ports. It almost seemed like an opportunity for a beach day thrown in with the historical ports, but we couldn’t have been more wrong. We were blown away! Our driver, Spiros “2” from Corfu Taxi Tours was fantastic, and everything about the day was memorable.

There were four of us in a vehicle for our “Corfu Taxi” tour, and thankfully we all have a similar travel style…learn about the culture, stop and smell the roses, get off the beaten (tourist) path, eat local cuisine – basically see and do the things that you can’t on a crowded ship’s tour because of numbers and because they’re catering to the masses. Spiros was one of the many guides we had on this trip who “got” us, and he very effectively tailored the day to make it perfect. We started with a drive up into the mountains and stopped a couple times to admire the gorgeous scenery. Even though the day was hazy, we had abundant warm sunshine and stunning views.

We then made our way along the narrow, winding roads to the tiny town of Makrades where Spiros dropped us off at the beginning of town and let us make our way through the village at our own pace. 

We saw the villagers getting ready for their day, and marveled at their easy, comfortable lifestyle. There is a small store and café, but for fresh food the locals rely on the daily arrivals of the fish truck and bread truck. Talk about fresh…the fish is caught in the early morning hours, then brought directly to the customers! I think the local cats were also fans of the fish truck!

We stopped to see Angelokastle (Castle of the Angel), but at Spiros’ recommendation we didn’t make the climb! The acropolis (walled city/fortress) is perched atop a cliff at the highest point of the island. The earliest records of inhabitants at the location have been traced back to the 5th-7th centuries AD, and the complex played an important role in protecting residents during sieges as well as being a cultural and market center for many centuries. Today the renovated castle is open to the public as an important Greek cultural site.

Our next stop was a shopping stop, but not one we minded – it was at an Olive Wood shop in the tiny village of Krini. This was more than just a shop…it was a place where they craft and carve the gorgeous pieces. We all bought some small items, but I really wanted to buy some bowls/baskets (as if I don’t have enough). Alas, I was stopped by the limitations of our suitcases and Lufthansa’s weight restrictions so I passed. That doesn’t mean I won’t have a larger piece soon though…the internet is a wonderful thing!

Spiros asked if we liked bread and wine…obviously he was still getting acquainted!😉 He made a quick stop at a bakery (see the sign…I’m not even going to attempt to type it!) and then we were off to George’s Cellar for a wonderful, relaxing lunch of bread, olive oil, tomatoes, feta, and olives. 

 

I couldn’t get over how fresh and delicious everything was, including the wine! It’s all grown locally, and George’s presses their own olive oil and makes the wine on site. Jim and I were intrigued enough by the wine to buy a bottle, and we were shocked at the cost. It set us back €3.50!😮 The best part of it was we avoided the $18 corkage fee on the ship because the wine looked more like a bottle of balsamic vinegar than wine. It was in a clear bottle with no label, and it had a plastic stopper instead of a cork. The security guy at the ship took a long look when we sent Jim’s bag through the scanner, but he didn’t ask so we didn’t tell! You can see bottles of red wine on the shelf in the next picture. The big barrels? Olive oil…gallons and gallons of liquid gold!

Here’s a funny side story about the wine — when they asked us if we wanted wine with lunch they also asked us if we preferred red wine or white wine. Of course my first question was what kind of red wine. The answer I got was, “It’s made from red grapes.” When I asked what kind of red grapes the waitress shrugged and said, “Just red grapes.” Come to find out, George’s makes four kinds of wine. You can get dry red, sweet red, dry white, or sweet white. I still have no idea what kind of grape was used to make the wine, but that’s not important because it was good.🍷😁🍷

After lunch, wine, and a dessert of candied kumquats (also grown and made on site) we visited Paleokastritsa Monastery, a gorgeous, tranquil spot overlooking the Mediterranean. In addition to the monk’s cells, numerous cats, and an abundance of flowers, the monastery has a working olive oil press and a small museum with artifacts dating back to the Byzantine Empire.

A leisurely drive towards the port brought us back to Old Town Corfu, where Spiros dropped us off to explore. It was interesting, vibrant, and eclectic — we found everything from t-shirt souvenir shops to produce stands to expensive art all existing in the same cramped spaces. We enjoyed our short stroll around the town, but we also got turned around and had a hard time finding our way out of the maze! Google Maps wasn’t much help, in part because all the streets were narrow, winding, and had names we couldn’t pronounce, let alone type! We finally asked a shopkeeper where we should go, and sure enough the correct way out was counter-intuitive to what we were thinking! It’s a good thing we finally put the tech toys away and went old school!

Spiros dropped us off at port around 3:00, a good two hours longer than we had booked and paid for. What a fantastic day! We had a preconceived idea about this port, and we were unexpectedly delighted with both Corfu and our tour. We arrived thinking it was going to be a wasted day, and we left thinking Corfu needs to go on our list of “must return” places!

Dinner was in the Pinnacle Grill with our touring friends. It probably wasn’t our best meal of the trip…our waitress was obviously new to the Pinnacle and service was slow. Still, we had plenty to eat in a quiet, relaxing environment with good company so no complaints.

I was exhausted after dinner and could tell I was coming down with a cold, so I went straight to bed while Jim went exploring the night life. I needed my beauty sleep because we had a big day coming up with a tour to Bosnia, or did we? My next post will be about making lemonade when you’re given lemons! 

Please accept my apologies…I totally lost my way when it came to keeping up with this blog. This was a fantastic and action packed trip…most nights I was so exhausted that I could barely get pictures off my camera before I fell asleep, only to do it all again the next day. Unfortunately, even though I had internet access, the process of resizing the pictures to post was so tedious and slow on the ship I eventually gave up. The good news is now that I’m home I have no such issues, and I get to relive most of the trip by getting caught up on my posts!

We left Valletta at dawn on Sunday, and spent a wonderful (but not very comfortable!) day on the beautiful Maltese island of Gozo.

Here are some “crack of dawn” (literally) pictures of leaving Valletta and arriving in Mgarr, Gozo…

We took a Jeep tour of the island with Barbarossa Tours. There were four or five of us in a pretty small Jeep all day, which is why I said the day was a bit uncomfortable. By the time we got back to the ship we were wind blown, sunburned, and had aching rear ends from the bouncing!😳
 
I finally tied a scarf around my head because I got tired of eating my hair!

Despite the discomfort, the island is stunning, and the contrast between the arid landscape, the limestone structures, and the brilliant blue of the Mediterranean was breathtaking!

One of our morning stops was at the Ggantija Temples. The structures date back to 3,600 and 3,200 BC. In addition to the temples and surrounding walls, there is a museum containing artifacts from the excavation of the site.

In addition to lots of scenery and the visit to the temples, we spent quite a bit of time at the Citadel. The current structures date back to Medieval times, but there has been a fortification on the site since 1500 BC.

What a view!

The cathedral within the city walls is still in use, and there was a wedding taking place during our visit. I didn’t see the bride and groom, but I loved their get-away car. It brought back memories of learning to drive (and parallel park!) in my mom’s 1976 Bonneville!

We had a nice, relaxing lunch, and would have happily spent more time exploring the narrow streets and enjoying the day, but our driver was a bit of a task-master. Her job was to make sure we saw the whole island, and by golly that’s what she did! It was somewhat comical at times, and we felt like we were negotiating tour time vs. relaxation! Our driver originally suggested we could tour the Citadel and eat in just 45 minutes.🙄 We all vetoed that idea, then she offered us an hour, but we said no to that also. We finally got her to agree to something that we thought was reasonable and would still allow her to check all the boxes on her list!

After lunch we made a stop where the Azure Window used to be, but it was very crowded and commercialized even though the main attraction does not exist any longer. 

More scenery and Ta’ Pinu Basilica:

One of the highlights for me was seeing the salt pans on the remote north side of the island. We drove along the coast and learned about the process of extracting salt from the sea using giant pans or flats that line the coast between the sea and the coastal road. The pans are 350 years old, and the tradition of making sea salt has been passed down in families for generations. Since the salt is gathered during the summer we did not get to see the process, but there is plenty of information available on the Internet.

 
By the time we returned to the port we were ready to go “home” and relax!

Sunday night was quite profitable. We had a nice dinner in Canaletto, the Italian specialty restaurant on the ship. Jim was tired and went to bed right after dinner, and I decided to check out the casino. I returned to the room within 45 minutes, $730 richer than I entered!😂

Monday was a much needed sea day, and we accomplished absolutely nothing, unless you consider sitting on the balcony an accomplishment.😁 

Dinner was a “Gala” night with friends in the dining room, and we went to the show after. It was OK…better than some I’ve seen, but this cruise was 99% about the ports and for us the ship/cruise was just a means of getting us there!

Once we got to Greece on Tuesday we had eleven busy days before we could sit and relax…and that was on the plane home!

We woke Friday to hazy foggy skies after 10 hours of much needed sleep 😴! Oh well, at least it wasn’t raining and the fog was outside and no longer in my head! The captain did a “drive-by” of Stromboli, but the volcano was all but obscured in the haze.

At 10:00 we went to the well attended Cruise Critic Meet and Greet. It gave us an opportunity to put names to faces and meet most of the people we’ll be touring with in the ports as well as make definite plans.

We took a “Godfather and Hidden Villages” tour with Sicily Life and thought it was fantastic. My favorite part of the day was the time we spent in Savoca, a tiny village on a cliff where major scenes from The Godfather were filmed. We got our exercise in this town…there’s only one way to get to the top, and that’s by foot power!

Our next stop was Taormina – a much larger town than Savoca and filled with tourists. 

 
We wandered for a while, then set up shop right on the square for people watching, Arancini, and Cannolis! 

Finally, we visited Castelmola, several hundred feet above Taormina overlooking Mount Etna. The village was charming, but unfortunately Etna was shrouded by clouds so seeing the mountain wasn’t happening for us.

Back at the ship, we spent the rest of our evening on our balcony with some red wine.🍷 The captain had promised a drive-by of Mount Etna to see the lava flow. He tried, but the clouds just weren’t cooperating so off we went towards Malta.

I didn’t sleep as well Wednesday night as I had the night before, but I think that probably had something to do with the dryer churning away and knowing we had to get packed up and ready to leave by 10:00. As soon as I got up I removed more things from the dryer and set it to run again, but in the end we ended up packing a couple damp things.🙄

Our weather luck was no more, and it was raining off and on when we set out at 10:00 with our fantastic guide Rossella from Rome Cabs. We originally booked just a transfer, but then I read about some other tour options and added those to the transfer. Since we were in Italy I wasn’t in as much of a hurry to get to the ship as I would be in Galveston!😆 Unfortunately the rain meant that traffic was outrageous and we had to alter our route somewhat, but we really had a nice time. The best part was every time we got ready to get out of the car the rain stopped!

Our first stop was in the tiny medieval town of Ceri. The castle was built in the 12th century, and sits atop a cliff. There is a single steep, winding road leading up/down, and a traffic light at either end controls entry and exit. 

Today, the town is home to 7 families. There is a church, a café, 2 restaurants, and a tobacco shop (the town version of a convenience store). What a charming place!

If you look carefully in the next picture you can see what looks like a doorway in the hillside. That’s actually the entrance to an Etruscan Necropolis, so the area has been inhabited for thousands of years.

From Ceri we drove to the coast. I was fascinated by the Umbrella Pines, which Rossella told us are found only in Italy.

Our next stop was Santa Severa castle on the coast, which was built in the 15th century. The original plan had been to go to Lake Bracchiano and castle which are from the same period, but between the weather and traffic near Rome, we opted to head to the coast. It was interesting to walk around the village…the castle is RIGHT on the water, so it was very different than anything I’ve seen before.

We got to Civitavecchia about 1:15…check-in was a breeze, but getting onto the ship was an adventure in the sideways rain.🌧💦🌧 We used our umbrellas as shields!☔️ Our refurbished suite is beautiful, but our main interest is in the huge balcony! I’ll post more on the ship itself later when I have time to take some pictures. We ended our first of 12 cruise nights sharing dinner with new friends, and fell into a deep sleep soon after dinner. So far everything has gone according to plan, and we hope our luck continues!

Not the Rouses in Rome, that’s for sure! We had an action packed two days, and we saw as much as we could in the short time we had. 

Tuesday was dedicated to two Italian icons, the Vatican and the Colosseum. I tried not to schedule our tours that way, but it was the only way to fit everything in so we went ahead with it. In hindsight, it wasn’t too bad and it was a good way for us to keep going and ignore the jet lag on an absolutely gorgeous day.


We started with an early admission tour of the Vatican with a 7:15 meeting time. In my opinion, this is the only sane way to see the Sistine Chapel and tour the museum, unless of course you enjoy spending your time in a throng of shuffling tourists waving selfie sticks. Jim and I were both stunned at the size of Vatican City – it’s huge! In particular, St. Peter’s Basilica was much bigger than we thought it was. We’ve only seen it on TV, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen the inside, but pictures don’t really do it justice. St. Peter’s and St. Peter’s Square are massive and magnificent. On the other hand, the Sistine Chapel is much smaller than I envisioned.

It was wonderful to have a guide who could tell us about the history of the structures and the meaning behind all the paintings and artwork. To really do the Vatican Museums justice would require days, not hours. Touring does give you a sense of how much power and money the pope and the Catholic Church had at one time.

After we left the Vatican, we made the only mistake of the trip so far. We didn’t think we had enough time to go elsewhere for lunch and be at the Colosseum at 1:00, so we did something we’d been warned not to do. We ate lunch in one of the tourist restaurants near St. Peter’s Square. My thought was that an Italian restaurant couldn’t ruin pizza, but I was sorely mistaken. We spent 55 Euros for personal pizzas, one salad, and two bottles of water!😝 Not only was it extremely overpriced (we found food and wine in Rome to be very reasonable), it was just awful. Have you ever had mall pizza? I would have traded my lunch for mall food in a heartbeat! Nevertheless, it did serve the purpose of saving some time, but next time we will know better.

We had an afternoon tour of the Colosseum, Palatine Hill, and the Roman Forum with the same guide we had in the morning. It was fantastic! Andrea really knows his stuff, and was able to explain not only how the Colosseum was built, but how it worked and what it was used for. 

I thought the Colosseum was very interesting, because I saw so many similarities to modern stadiums. It was a very thorough and engaging tour, although I did wonder why anybody would build such a nice stadium without escalators!😉 Our tour included the dungeons and the third tier. The stairs were steep…much steeper than stairs in a modern house.

 

From the Colosseum, we walked over to Palatine Hill and then through the Forum before our tour ended. It was time for a taxi back to the apartment! We had walked six miles which isn’t too far, but according to Jim’s tracker we had climbed the equivalent of 23 stories! At that point my legs were done. It’s a very different kind of exercise than a class at the gym, especially since the stairs were steep and uneven…there were times I was literally pulling myself up them!

We had a nice dinner with new friends – it sort of made up for lunch!🙂 Rome is a city filled with tiny restaurants and delicious food and wine. We were both stunned at how inexpensive really good wine is. We chose a bottle of Montepulciano for 20 Euros, and it was one of the more expensive ones on the list. I checked it on my wine app, and it retails for about $19 in the US. There was only a very slight mark-up! 

We could barely keep our eyes open at the end of dinner. We were both asleep well before 10:00! It had been a long, wonderful day!

My original plan was to update this all the way through Wednesday in one post. That was before I wrote all of Tuesday and Wednesday and hit the wrong button.😢 My writing went to that big cyber-cemetery where all failed tech attempts live, never to be seen again. Since it’s now Friday night and we’re on the ship, I think I’ll take it one day at a time until I get caught up. I will also add the pictures as I can. Enjoy!

We are in Rome! After 15 months of obsession over every minute detail we are here! The good news so far is we’re here, all our clothes and other worldly goods made it without taking a detour, and the apartment we rented is great! The bad news is between the two of us we got about 2.5 hours of sleep on the way over, and since my sleep wasn’t long enough to register on the clock Jim gets credit for all 2.5 hours and I earned a big fat zero!😝 Sadly, it was expected, and honestly wouldn’t have been any different in business or first class…I just don’t sleep on planes.

We were pretty happy with Lufthansa Premium Economy. Our seats were roomy and comfortable, the food was decent – not 1972 TWA good, but perfectly edible, and the service was friendly and attentive. We would choose it again, especially since we bought our tickets early and they were only marginally more expensive than United Economy Plus for a much better experience.

We thought changing planes in Frankfurt was an interesting experience. The A380 requires a special gate, because the two decks board by their own jetway. The A380 gates are always at the end of a terminal. That means our flight came in to Germany and then we had to walk to Austria to catch our flight to Rome.😮 Our trek across the continent involved a fairly quick immigration line and an “interesting” trip through security. Even though we seemingly never left the secure area of the airport, everyone coming off an intercontinental flight onto a “local” flight has to clear security. The experience reminded me very much of going through immigration in Russia…they are in charge, they are not your friend, and if they take a dislike to you you will probably miss your flight. Fortunately we did not run afoul of the lovely lady who was manning our line, but she was greatly offended by the guy in front of us who we let go ahead because his flight was boarding. Apparently that irked her, because he got patted down, wanded, probed, and the agents completely unpacked his carry-ons! I stood quietly by and practiced saying “yes ma’am” because at that point in the journey the thought of getting groped didn’t excite me!

Our flight from Frankfurt to Rome was interesting in that I was expecting German efficiency in the boarding process, but instead the process was, “Economy, you can line up and board.” We were looking forward to catching a quick nap, but our seats were moved to an exit row with fixed armrests, and it’s hard to fall asleep when your seat only fits part of your body! Still, we were on time, the weather is beautiful, and most importantly our suitcases made it!

After we checked into our apartment we found the local grocery store for a few essentials (coffee!☕️) and walked over to Piazza Navona to meet our tour. 

We usually try to do something to keep us going on our first night in Europe. We took a Walks of Italy Welcome to Rome tour, which covered some of the main tourist sights in a short two hour walking tour. Our guide was great, but everything was very crowded with locals since Tuesday is a holiday and many people are taking a four day weekend. I really started dragging at the Pantheon, but fortunately that ancient architectural miracle was followed by the ancient tradition of eating gelato, and the sugar rush revived me temporarily.

 

We were both asleep by about 9:00 Rome time, or 2 in the afternoon at home. That means that I started writing this at 3 a.m. Tuesday, but when I have jet lag I’ll take sleep when I can get it! On tap for today is the Vatican, the Colosseum, and dinner with new friends…I can’t wait!