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We arrived in Kusadasi at 7:00 this morning. We booked an Ephesus on your own tour as we had been to Ephesus before. The tour was an audio tour that was very informative. Ephesus is a short drive from the port and while there were threats of showers, it stayed dry, at least until we got back to the ship

Kusadasi in the morning

The Odeon at Ephesus

Curetes Street leading to the library

Celsus Library

Commercial Agora

Theater where St. Paul spoke in Ephesus

Kusadasi Castle from our balcony

Harbor Lighthouse in Kusadasi

The sign on this shop is somewhat typical of shops in the Kusadasi area

We are now on the way to Athens. We will tour using the Hop-on Hop-off buss and hope to visit the original Olympic Stadium and the Acropolis Museum. More tomorrow.

We had a relaxing day at sea yesterday. We have been continuing to explore the Sun Princess and enjoy relaxing on this cruise. One of the new features of the Sun is a forward area called the Sea View Terrace. If you have ever taken a cruise, you know that people are always looking for ways to see where the ship is traveling. We spent a few hours on the terrace and just watched the waves and a few other ships in the distance.

There was an opportunity the learn the spoons. The Irish music duo, Rambling Rovers, taught 85+ of us how to play the spoons. Two of the tunes they used were Irish Washerwoman, a jig, and John Ryan’s Polka. Lots of fun and it was very noisy. We went back to the pub and sat with some folks from Northern California to watch the Rambling Rovers. Also watched them after dinner.

We arrived in the harbor of Santorini early this morning. We were scheduled to start the tendering operation at 7 AM, but the Greek Coast Guard held this up even though the Sun was using local tenders and their barge docks for the ship to tender transfer. I suspect this was because the Sun had not visited Santorini before. People finally started to go ashore at about 9:30 and this ended up creating a large crowd trying to get up the relatively small gondola to the village of Fira at the top of the rim.

Village of Fira showing a small portion of the donkey path to the top.

When we got ashore, there was a very long line and we decided to have lunch at the Taverna at the port and do a little shopping at the port rather than try to get up to the village. Lunch was wonderful, we shared a Greek salad and Linda had Musaka and I had mussels along with some nice white Greek wine.

The line for the gondola (It want a long way behind us as well) from our lunch table

Lunch with a birds-eye view of the line

Open fire roasting of meats at the Taverna

We got back to the ship after a little shopping and we are looking forward to our self-guided tour of the Ephesus in Turkey tomorrow.

Left Messina mid-afternoon to sail around the toe of Italy’s boot toward Corfu. Arrived in Corfu about 9:00 AM this morning. We took advantage of the late arrival to have a leisurely breakfast and the left the ship to board the Hop-on Hop-off bus for a tour around Corfu. We got off the bus at the “Old” Fort to go to old town Corfu. The old town of Corfu is a world heritage site and it was a lot of fun to wander around the narrow streets of Corfu shopping and looking at the buildings. We also had a light lunch with coffee. I had Greek coffee which is pretty thick. We bought some local olive oil and some cumquat marmalade we had the chance to taste, yummy!

The main street through old town Corfu

One of the side streets

The walls of the “New” fort in Corfu

We decided to have a little fun and take a horse drawn carriage back to the ship. It was very relaxing and gave our tired feet a rest.

Linda in horse drawn carriage

View of Corfu harbor from our balcony

We will be leaving for a day at sea soon and then the next day we will be in Santorini. We are looking forward to a relaxing day on the ship.

Last evening we sailed by the volcanic island of Stromboli. We saw a few puffs of smoke from the volcano and saw a beautiful sunset befre we changed for dinner.

Volcano on Stromboli, puff at the top is smoke not a cloud.

Sunset near Stromboli

We arrived at the dock in Messina overnight. We were up and on the tour bus by 8:00 this morning. We decided to take an easy coach tour of Messina to ease into touring on this cruise.

Sunrise at Messina Harbor (view from our balcony). Hills in the distance are Calabria on mainland Italy

Views from our coach tour.

Big lake in Messina where they grow mussels and clams. Man is standing harvesting clams

Strait of Messina, mainland Italy on the right

Here we are in front of Cristo Re church at the panorama point

Sun Princess from the panorama point

Mosaic inside the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta

Cathedral bell tower

At the Cathedral Square, we watched the noon bell tower display. The figures are all mechanically animated with gears, and belts. This is more impresive than the animated clock at the Munich Town Hall.

We are now about to sail to Corfu, where we will tour using the Hop-on Hop-off buses. More tomorrow.

The transfer to the Sun Princess went very smoothly. We boarded early and had to wait until about 1:30 to get to our room. This is either the second or third sailing of the Sun Princess (the first 2 sailings were cancelled!). There are still a few kinks but Princess seems to have worked most of them out. The staff is very happy and the service has been wonderful.

The atrium of our ship

The port was busy with a number of large ferries coming and going. There was one other cruise ship in port as well, the MSC Orchestra. We left about sunset on our adventure.

The city of Civitavecchia and one of the large ferries in port. This is the view from our balcony.

View from our balcony as we left port

Sunset as we left on our adventure

After we left , we got dressed for dinner and went down to O’Malley’s Pub, one of the bars and entertainment spots, to see The Rambling Rovers. They are a fiddle and guitar group from Scotland and Ireland. It was a lot of fun and they played a number of well known tunes. Listened for a while and went to have a nice dinner.

The Rambling Rovers

Today we are sailing towards Messina and about 5 PM we will sail by the volcanic island of Stromboli. We will be sailing by slowly so we should be able to get some good views. More tomorrow after we leave Messina.

Just had breakfast on Tuesday, March 19th. We arrived in Civitavecchia yesterday. It was a planes, trains and automobile type of day. Our very good friend Angi drove us to O’Hare on Sunday to meet or KLM flight to Amsterdam. The flight was very good and Linda and I had a “Barbenheimer” evening. I watched Oppenheimer and Linda watched Barbie. Both movies were very good and we landed on Amsterdam on time. Also, the plane was not full so we had the seat between us empty.

Our first challenge was the long walk from gate F9 to B31 to meet our flight to Rome. The airport in Amsterdam is BIG! It was about a mile and we had a rest while we waited in the passport line about midway to the Rome gate. With the European passport union, you clear customs and passport control in the first place you enter the union. We had a wonderful Dutch latte at a coffee bar near our gate to Rome.

Our plane to Rome at the very grey Amsterdam morning

The flight to Rome was full and we realized that part of the reason was people going to Rome for Easter. Again KLM did a very nice job on this flight and we were just a little late getting to Rome.

We decided to take the train from the Rome Airport to Civitavecchia. Again we had a mile walk from baggage claim to the train station. We definitely got our steps in today. Bought tickets for the train and except for the elevator out of service at the station where we had to transfer, the trip was mostly uneventful. On the stairs with our large luggage, we encountered the first of the very friendly and helpful Italian people we met. A young woman helped me get one of the bags down the stairs.. The elevator to the connecting platform was working and we waited a short time for our connecting train.

Our train to Civitavecchia

The train was full and the aisles were narrow. There were two seats separated and a second kind Italian man gave up his seat for us so we could sit together. The aisle was narrow but people were able to get by our bags. A lot of the crowd on the train got off on a station where there were no visible signs. A third young man told us that this was not Civitavecchia and that our station was three stops later. The train line went along the Mediterranean and it was nice to see the sea.

After we got off the train we got a taxi to our hotel. We took a short nap and then took a hotel van to a very nice restaurant. We met 2 couples who were from Nova Scotia and going on our cruise. The meal was very nice and the wine was good and reasonably priced. Linda and I got some sleep and woke up to a nice breakfast. We will be taking a hotel shuttle to the ship in about an hour. We understand that the Sun Princess cancelled her first 2 cruises but can’t wait to see the new ship. More later.

We will be leaving on St. Patrick’s Day (March 17) for Rome and we will board the new Sun Princess for a 21 day cruise around the Mediterranean Sea. Our flight arrives in Rome on March 18 and we will stay in Civitavecchia before boarding the Sun on March 19.

The first half of the cruise will go in the direction of the arrows toward the east. The second half will be reversed as we will sail directly from our stop in Rome to Gibraltar. There are a few places we have visited before plus a lot a new ports. We are looking forward to a wonderful adventure.

I will try to post something every day, except for the Sea Days. Check back often.

Left Stowe, VT with fog in the mountains. Decided to take the ferry from Charlotte, VT to Essex, NY to see Lake Champlain. We arrived just in time fo the 10 AM ferry. The trip across the lake was about 30 minutes and was very pleasant.

By taking the ferry, we drove thru Adirondack State Park on the way to Niagara Falls. The roads were spectacular. The colors were even better than they were in Vermont.

We arrived in Niagara Falls and had a nice dinner. We took a Lyft to the Falls State Park and had views of the American Falls illuminated. The falls are quite spectacular.

We will be on the way home Tomorrow. We are stopping south of Toledo, OH and then finishing the trip on Monday.

Today was a beautiful clear sunny day. We decided to drive up Mt. Mansfield on the Stowe Toll Road. It was a fun drive and seeing to ski hill brought back some memories of skiing there while in college. The trees are continuing to turn and each day is more stunning.

Took a drive back over the road thru Smuggler’s Notch and then detoured to a Maple outlet for some retail therapy. While there we had some maple creemees, a local sweet similar to ice cream but creamier. After that we headed off to see some covered bridges. The first bridge was the Village bridge at Waterville, VT. While we were looking at the bridge, we met Bill Baker who has a maple syrup company. We sampled some of his product and it was amazing.

The next bridge was the Montgomery bridge. To get to the bridges, we drove thru amazing Vermont countryside. Finding the bridges was an excuse to drive out into the country. The next bridge was the Jaynes Bridge, The sign on the bridge said it was the Kissing Bridge. Of course we had to kiss there!

At the next bridge, the Mill bridge, we met some people from Seattle who were out looking at the same bridges. It also turned out they are staying at the same place we are in Stowe. We also followed them to the Morgan bridge.

After the Morgan bridge, we too a looping route back to Stowe, more beautiful scenery. Tonight we had dinner at the Trapp Bierhall Restaurant. Great food. Tomorrow we will be driving to Niagara Falls. We are going to take a ferry across Lake Champlain to get a view of the lake and trees.

It was an overcast day in Stowe. There are a number of covered bridges near Stowe. Getting to these bridges gets us out into the countryside and on wonderful back roads with amazing views. The closest bridge is the Gold Brook bridge. This is also known locally as Emily’s bridge and is said to be haunted by the ghost of Emily. Nonetheless, it is a lovely small bridge.

We then headed to the Red bridge, To get there we drove on some back roads that reminded me of the roads we dove on in my car rally days. These were narrow and twisty with great views around every corner.

We then went north to the town of Johnson, VT to see their two bridges, the Scribner bridge and the Power House bridge. The Scribner bridge is out in the country again, while the Power House bridge is visible from the state highway.

We next drove west to the village of Cambridge, VT. There are three bridges near this village, the Cambridge Junction bridge, the Grist Mill bridge and the Gates Farm bridge. The Cambridge Junction bridge is long at 140 feet and is located at a small park with an explanation of the railroads in the area, the Grist Mill bridge is located next to a park and the Gates Farm bridge is no longer i use and is in a field near the highway.

Drove back to Stowe thru Smuggler’s Notch. This is a twisting and narrow road over the mountain back to Stowe. Had a final view of Stowe before shopping and lunch.

We are going to go out to see a few more bridges tomorrow and enjoy the Vermont fall colors.