TP Thursday: A cruise kaleidoscope

Here we are in Bari, Italy nearly midway through the Celebrity cruise that is taking us from Rome to Venice and into autumn in Europe. We’ve had a  kaleidoscope of experiences since setting sail; so many that I couldn’t think of a single topic on which to focus this Travel Photo Thursday. Sometimes travel is like that - it jumbles the mind.

So think of this post as a kaleidoscope of our last week:

Napoli:  Birth place of Sophia Loren and pizza!

Catania, Sicily: The Duomo was just one of the many historic sites we visited on this day when we logged 11 miles on the pedometer. Actually, 10 or 11 miles a day is becoming the norm for this trip.

Valletta, Malta:  Watching the sun rise over this ancient city was magic, simply, pure magic. So much so, that we've vowed to return and spend much more than a single day here.

Whew!  A day at sea to rest our senses before heading to Corfu, Greece and up the Adriatic for the last half of the cruise.










 I saved one of our favorite photos to end today’s post:

After all, we know that Italy is at the center of the fashion world, right? This fellow was in a Napoli store window – I couldn’t resist closing this post with him.




Ciao for now!  It’s Travel Photo Thursday so head over to Budget Travelers Sandbox for more travel photos. 

And a note of thanks to those of you who responded so positively to the last post:  Thank you so much for reposting on your FB pages, your tweets , Google + and all the other nice accolades.  They were most appreciated. And it is great to have so many new blogosphere friends.

Celebrity Silhouette: Oh the Places You Will Go!

If Celebrity Cruise lines ever needed a new slogan, they could turn to the Cat in the Hat’s, “Oh the Places You Will Go!” and pretty much nail it.

We have started phase two of our Italian Adventure aboard the Silhouette, a ship still in its inaugural season. It capacity is 2,886 guests, its cruising speed 24 knots, for those of you into statistics.


We boarded the ship in Rome’s cruise port,Civitavecchia, on Thursday – a beautiful, sunny  morning as evidenced by the photo above.  We sat on this deck enjoying a leisurely lunch and sipping a glass of welcome champagne while awaiting the announcement that our rooms were ready to occupy.


And at 1 p.m. we were settling into our floating home for the next 12 days.  Thanks to a recommendation from the agency we use for booking our cruises we ended up with a balcony large enough for eight people and a room of almost the same size! 


Everything is large and spacious on this ship – even the lawn art.  Being part of the Solstice Class ships, we do have a 15th floor lawn – that many have remarked is much greener than what they left back home.

Our route will loop us around Italy’s boot:  yesterday we were in Napoli, today Sicily and tomorrow Malta (which was one of the reasons this routing called out to us). Then we have a day to rest our senses before visiting Greece, Montenegro, Croatia and four more ports in Italy before ending up in Venice.

Now that the computer is up and running again (we took a break from computers for a few days) I will tell you more about the wonderful ports we’re visiting aboard this luxurious supersized yacht on which we are sailing.

Hurtling through time and space to Italy

Monday already seems ages ago. Maybe it is because on this Friday afternoon we are giving our senses a break and spending some time at ‘home’ in Bologna, Italy. Time - moving forward, thinking back - really does take on new dimensions when you travel.

Monday was the day we said farewell to our summer in the Pacific Northwest and set out to experience for at least a bit of time, autumn in Italy.

Aboard this KLM flight we hurtled from Vancouver, B.C. at 35,000 feet above the earth at a speed of 600+ miles per hour. Quite mind boggling, if you think about it. 


We arrived in Amsterdam 30 minutes early, we’d flown so rapidly, but then found no gate available so we actually entered the terminal at the time we’d been scheduled to arrive.
 
From Amsterdam, the land of tulips (as captured in this photo of a wall mural) we caught another flight that would take us to our destination: Milan, Italy.

While my wristwatch reminded us it was the middle of the night Monday  (we’d left home at 8 a.m.), we’d traveled through both space and time to find ourselves 9 hours ahead of that time piece and in the middle of Tuesday.  Amazing when you think about it.


We caught our favorite low-cost airline, Easy Jet, which took less than three hours to get us to our first stop on our journey: Milan. We arrived there 24 hours on the dot from when we’d left home.
I’ll tell you more in future days.  Ciao! for now.. . 

Monday Meanderings: Daydreams,Details, Discoveries

“You love travel don’t you?!” a friend observed over coffee last week. 

Normally, that’s a pretty good observation, but on this particular day my life was segmented into “Must Do”, “Must Finish”, “Must not forget. . .”  and I wouldn't say I felt real smitten with travel.

Travelers know it well.  It’s that time prior to a trip when the mental list whirls around in your head and seems to grow longer, rather than shorter when put to paper.  It is the Details phase of travel. Not our favorite part.

We have spent a leisurely summer at home, devoting hours to planning and pondering, researching and reading about possible fall destinations.  This early phase is one we consider nearly as good as the trip itself: daydreaming about the next potential discoveries.

We let our imaginations soar as we pondered the possibilities on our tiny “Mediterranean” upstairs deck (pictured above). If we can't live in the Mediterranean, we've surrounded ourselves with living reminders of travels in that area: my fledgling  fig tree (Spain), olive tree and geraniums (Greece) and basil (Italy). . . the lavender plants (France) are in our garden. It was difficult back in August when Lake Washington shimmered in the afternoon sun to imagine how quickly we’d be putting autumn details to those summer daydreams. 


With our fall compass pointing finally toward Italy, our reading – both fact and fiction – became focused.   We found some great reads, by the way, and you can see them on the Amazon Carousel on the right hand side of our home page.

As summer has turned to fall, our daydreams have given way to  details, like: 1. Do we have confirmations from every place we are heading? 2. Maps – the paper kind -  gathered?   3. Clothes  (do we still fit our travel clothes?) 4. Are house-sitters and security confirmed? 5.Prescriptions refilled? 6. Have we put on the list everything we need to do to prepare for the trip?

My friend knows me well. We do love travel.  As we move from the daydream to details to discovery phase – we often observe that travel is a stimulant that makes us feel more alive.

I suspect if you are reading this blog, you also love travel. Are you in the dreaming, detail or discovery phase of a trip right now? 

Travel Tuesday: When Twitter Tweaks the Trip

This mini-tale began on Monday with a notice that we had a new follower on Twitter; a newcomer, it seemed, to the social media: Podere Assolatina in Tuscany.  I responded by becoming the eighth follower of their handful of tweets announcing their new web site. 

Since we are heading to Italy this fall, I checked their site (link above).  This agriturismo – between Florence and Rome -- looks charming. Their rates, surprisingly inexpensive. San Casciano Dei Bagni, the town they are near is postcard picture-perfect.

“Too bad we’ve already booked a place in Florence,” I thought as I found myself writing them and asking a few more questions about the place.

I showed the web site to Joel, along with the photos they’d sent in a return email within hours of my inquiry. 

“Too bad we’ve got a place in Florence already,” he said. “Wonder if we could cancel those reservations?"

Our plans had been firm: take a train to Florence, spend three nights there, then a train to Rome to board another to its port town Civitavecchia.

By Tuesday evening we’d cancelled our reservations in Florence and booked a rental car that we’ll pick up in Bologna and use for three days en route to Civitavecchia.

The agriturismo folks haven't responded to my rental inquiry yet, but that doesn’t really matter. . .

By tossing our original itinerary we have the freedom to head out and stay where ever we find ourselves. And in case you are wondering, we didn’t take the car’s GPS option.

If You Go:

Podere Assolatina, Fraz. Celle Sul Rigo, 53040 San Casciano Dei Bagne, +39 331-447-4328

How about you? Have you ever changed travel plans based on some fluke like we did?

Monday Meanderings: Looping Italy’s Boot

The lure and love of  Spain and Greece has become so strong, it was difficult this year directing ourselves towards one of our old favorites, Italy.

Make that ‘difficult’ until a cruise itinerary of the Celebrity Silhouette from Rome to Venice called out, “La Dolce Vita!”



We’ll be living that Italian ‘sweet life’ as well as having some interesting stops as we loop the boot-shaped country, in Malta, Greece, Montenegro, Croatia, and Slovenia.


The Silhouette, with an occupancy of 2,886, is a new-comer to Celebrity’s Solstice Class ships, having been launched in July, 2011.

(For those of you cruise enthusiasts out there, Solstice Class ships were  named the “Best Cruise Ships” 2011 by Frommer’s travel guides.)

We first sailed a Solstice Class ship in the Spring of 2011 and have been smitten with these vessels sprouting a live lawn on their top level since then.

The Silhouette is sporting some new features like an Arts Center, which replaces the hot glass art demonstration studios still operating on earlier Solstice ships.  This Arts Center offers classes as a cooperative project with the Art Center/South Florida.   Don’t think we’ll have time to take a class though as all but one of our 12-days on board will  be at some interesting port of call.

We were pleased to see that Murano, the fine dining restaurant, has been retained on this new ship. But I doubt that we’ll be trying Qsine, the restaurant where you order food and wine from an iPad, that is provided.  (The thought makes these techno-dinos shudder!)

Our stops in each port of call will be full-day visits, arriving at 8 a.m. and not leaving until 5 or 6 p.m.  That kind of schedule also gives us plenty of time to explore the towns and sample some of their food specialties – think Naples, think pizza!

Culture, cuisine, cruising – sounds like La Dolce Vita to me!

Cruising tips:

Cruising is an easy way to see a lot of places in a short period of time.  Admittedly, you get but a taste of each  place, but you can also return for a larger slice of life in the future.

When booking a cruise, be sure to ask about:

* The cost of on-board gratuities and whether they are included in your rate or to be paid separately.
* Whether port charges and possible fuel charges are included in the rate or if they will be added.
* What on-board spending credits or perks (like priority boarding or special on-board events) are included.

Now that you know where we will be off to this fall, do you have any tips for us in any of the ports of call?  Be sure to check out Joel’s “Deal Finder” page to see how he shops to find our cruise deals. Follow us on Facebook or subscribe to have our free posts arrive in your inbox. See you soon!