And The Rest of the Cruise...

We left Sofia and flew to Nice, spending two nights and visiting our favorite Socca vendor as well as our favorite bakery for French belly-busters and coffee.  Then we moved over to Monaco where we spent one night at the Hotel Columbus (if you're a Formula 1 fan, you know about it).  Next day it was time to board the Seven Seas Mariner and head out for several stops before crossing to Brazil.  Here are a few highlights:

The Hassan II mosque in Casablanca, the largest mosque in Morocco:

This ornately carved building is the courthouse in Casablanca and it's an eye-popper:

Agadir, Morocco features beaches and wildlife attractions.  Here are a couple of views from the top of the old city.  Yes, that is a camel.  One of many provided for the tourists to ride.  The old city, by the way, was destroyed in an earthquake in the 1960's and never rebuilt.  It is considered to be a cemetary since many people were killed in the quake and remain buried there.

 

After Agadir, we visited Las Palmas, an island belonging to Spain.  This place is really nice:

And then on to Cabo Verde, which was held by the Portuguese.  Guess why they call the mountain in the background "George Washington Peak".

A little fun while at sea.  Our master fruit-carver did a demonstration out on deck, and the bartender at the pool bar took over from there...Pati thought the duck was so cute she wanted to steal it!

Crossing the equator required the solemn King Neptune ceremony, presided over the the King himself and his court.  The way this is done, on Regent anyway, is several "pollywogs" (folks who have not yet crossed the equator by sea) are covered in various types of colorful food and then tossed into the pool, thus becoming "shellbacks" (those of us who have crossed).  Everyone is then invited to "kiss the fish" in celebration of the passing.  They do bring a whole fish and lots of people do kiss it!

Welcome to Salvador de Bahia in Brazil!

They are very proud of this elevator, built to connect the lower part of town with the upper:

The Golden Church was certainly worth seeing.

Finally, we arrived in Rio de Janeiro.  We took advantage of a city tour offered by Regent because it took us up to see the famous Christ the Redeemer statue.  Here's a view from the trip up to the top via rack train:

But alas.  As our guide put it, "he's in his feather bed today and he's not coming out".  Up in the clouds, we couldn't see the view of the city...but then the city couldn't see us, either.  Here, however, is what we could see!

What a fabulous trip!  Next came the 14-hour flight home from Rio via Atlanta.  The smart thing was that we upgraded to Business Class.  Ahhh, airport lounge with free food and wine.  Not so bad after all.   

Family!

We finished up the first cruise and we can definitely recommend Seabourn.  The smaller ships don't offer too much to do onboard, so visiting ports is perfect.  The food was excellent, the entertainment was fabulous, and folks were friendly.

Leaving flooded Venice behind, we flew to Sofia, Bulgaria to see Jeff, Sherry and the boys.  While we were there, we left the kids with a sitter and had an adults only trip to the smallest town in Bulgaria, Melnik.  Melnik is also known for its production of the type of wine that bears its name.

Before checking into our hotel, we drove up to a local monastery and took a quick look around.  The gardens were beautiful:

And the views of the sandstone cliffs were excellent:

Once we'd checked into our hotel in Melnik, we began the wine cave crawl.  First stop was literally a cave, complete with bats.  We ducked the bats and enjoyed a pitcher of the "Six Fingers" family wine.  The guy who owns the vinyard does, indeed, have six fingers.  For a total of eleven.

The hotel used to be a favorite stop for the Communist Party leaders, and the room we stayed in was said to be reserved for the area Party chairman.  The room was absolutely huge, with a king bed, sofa and two chairs, and a bathroom bigger than most European hotel rooms we've stayed in.  It had one drawback:  there was a party going on downstairs.  Right under our room.  Until about 2:00 a.m.  Actually, we'd had enough wine that we didn't even hear it and went right to sleep.  The hotel had a room that contained lots of Party memorabilia.  Gordon borrowed a hat and made a new friend:

Here's the view of Melnik from our hotel room window.

Melnik wine salesman/guard...

When we arrived back in Sofia, we took the kids to the park, and the Big Brain worked hard to convince Leo (age four) that jumping on the trampolines would be fun.  Much to our surprise, he decided to try it and had a ball.  Wanted to go back the next day and do it again!

Here's three generations: Gordon, Jeff, Leo, Isaac, and Bruno the dog in a typical pose...

Jeff and Sherry, holding up well in Bulgaria:

 

Pula and Return to A Flooded Venice

Pula, Croatia is a place where a person could spend some time!  Pretty little town with lots of shops and the ever-present collection of ancient churches.  The big thing here, though, is the best-preserved Roman amphitheatre outside of the Colisseum in Rome.    Check it out:

We were intrigued, so after we walked around town a bit, we ventured inside.  It's actually cut into a hillside, so seating on the cut-in side is intact and one can walk around on it.

The next morning, we arrived back in Venice, where we spent the night before disembarking.  We wanted to stay out of the crowds, so we took a back way that we'd discovered on the first visit...we left the San Basilio Terminal on foot and circled west past the main port, only to discover that there were NO (zip, zero, zilch) big cruise ships in port!  Good, we thought, we'll walk back over into the main part of town and it won't be so crowded.  It wasn't, but we found another surprise:  flooded.  No matter which way you went, you were cut off by a flooded sidewalk.  Apparently the combination of high tide and a storm fixed Venice up but good.  Rubber boots were in demand and vendors were selling them on the sidewalk.  Here's one view of water over the banks:

We weaved our way back to the ship...we thought.  Actually, we wound up about 500 feet from it.  The area was flooded and we had to backtrack all the way through town (dodging flooded sidewalks again) around to our original path.  Well, we wanted the exercise!  Here's what the area looked like from the terminal dock, once we finally got back there.

Only the folks with the rubber boots were making it through.  We thought that it was improving that night, but found in that in the morning, it was actually worse.  Glad we saw Venice at the beginning of the trip!

Split and Zadar

Split, Croatia is best known for its town center, Diocletian's Palace, which dates back to the 4th Century AD.  Sitting directly on the bay, the palace was built for Emperor Diocletian's retirement.  Most of the walls are intact, it covers a huge area, and it actually IS the old town.  We understand that at one time, it housed about 9000 people.  Apparently, tourists who are wandering around town ask where the palace is, not realizing that they are actually in it!

There are four entrances and a "full" basement, which now houses museums and shops.  Below, we are inside the palace near the eastern entrance:

Leaving the palace area, we wandered along the waterfront for a ways, and came across a sign that made us laugh, but seriously, this says it all.

Got it.


In Zadar, we were docked right next to two of the town's interesting attractions, the Sea Organ and the Sun Salutation.  The Sea Organ looks like part of the seaside promenade, but underneath lies a series of ceramic tubes, similar to a pipe organ.  Wave action forces air into and out of the tubes, creating musical sounds.  The Sun Salutation (also called Greeting to the Sun) looks like a helicopter pad as you approach it, but it's really a solar panel with a light show.  The day we were in Zadar was overcast, and the evening was a lttle drizzly, so our photos do not do it justice.  Take a better look and listen to both of these at:   http://goeasteurope.about.com/b/2010/06/13/zadars-sea-organ-and-sun-salutation.htm

Farther up the promenade, we came across this guy:

Zadar sits on a peninsula, and it is possible to walk all the way around, so of course, we did.  We also visited the center of town with its 9th Century St. Donatus church and associated ruins.

Back onto the ship and we're off for the next stop!

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Dubrovnik!  And rain!

We were actually fortunate.  It quit raining about the time we arrived at the dock and held off for the rest of the morning.  Dubrovnik, outside the old city walls, is modern and busy.  We walked through the modern part, which is very nice, from the dock over to the old town.  The old town in completely surrounded by a huge wall and the thing to do in Dubrovnik is walk the wall.

The town itself is composed of a main promenade with connecting alleyways.  Many of the alleys go about a block and then begin to climb toward the walls.  Steeply.  The area is filled with shopping and restaurants and is always crowded with tourists, but it's really a neat place.  You can find more information online.

Here are some views from the ramparts:

Here you get an idea of just how tall those walls are!

Another view, this time from the other side of town, looking out onto the Adriatic.

Seriously beautiful.



 

Corfu and Brindisi

When we arrived at Corfu, Greece we ran across some friends of ours!

Yup, it was Seven Seas Mariner and we'd be aboard in about two weeks.  It was a pleasant day in Corfu so we walked around town and finally went out to the inevitable fort.  Actually, there are two of them, one inland and one in the bay.  Below, a view of the inland fort.

And here, a view of the town from the bay fort, which now contains a music school:

Our next stop was Brindisi, Italy.  Sorry, but there's not much to say about Brindisi.  We did find a really lovely courtyard at the museum, so here's our one picture of Brindisi, just so it won't feel left out.

Our next four stops would be in Croatia, and these are what we really came to see so we were definitely looking forward to them.

Next Stop: Kotor, Montenegro

Kotor, Montenegro sits at the very end of a fjord.  Originally, the town was built on the shoreline (this still exists) and extended up the mountain.  About halfway up, a church and a small village (the church is still there, but the village is just foundations).  At the top, Fort St. John to protect the village from the Turks and others, who apparently liked the priviledged location and were continually trying to take over.  To discourage attack, the ramparts contain not just the town, but the entire mountainside and fort.

We were told that there are something like 3,200 steps from the town up to the fort.  Yes, approximately that...but we made it.  Here's a view from part of the way up (that's our ship at the dock, the other one is one of the Princess fleet):

And from the top:

A view of Fort St. John from the path:

At the end of the day, everyone went out on deck to sip adult beverages and watch the sailaway through the fjord.

Imagine how much work it took to build this little church!

Next we are on to Corfu, Greece and Brindisi, Italy.

Fall of 2012 - Venice, To Begin

Several years ago, we booked an Adriatic cruise on Regent that they canceled because the boat broke down.  This year, Seabourn was doing pretty much the same cruise using their 200-passenger Seabourn Spirit.  We had already booked passage from Monaco to Rio de Janiero on a 17-day cruise with Regent that was leaving about 10 days after the Adriatic cruise.  It just seemed like a good idea to take both cruises and visit Jeff and the gang in Sofia during the stretch.  So the six-week odyssey began.   

We blew Pati's American Airlines miles on Business Class tickets to Venice.  Had a great trip even though we had to go through, oh, deliver us from, London's Heathrow.  We spent a couple of days in Venice, walking around and occasionally getting lost.  The view from the Academia Bridge was fabulous, in spite of the haze.

There were several HUGE cruise ships in port, and it was wall-to-wall tourists at Piazza San Marco.   We did get a few photos of  the church itself, though.

It really was amazing how many people were in town.  We laughed when we were hauling our luggage over the one bridge between us and the bus station...the school kids (teenagers and university students) travel in packs and they're like herds of buffalo.  The herd never travels directly over any bridge, it moves diagonally, aimed at the exit point nearest the destination.  Hapless tourists with baggage are completely irrelevent, and run over.

We enjoyed this shop window so much, and wished we had a means to get a couple of these masks from Venice to our apartment in Nice for Carnaval!

Gordon made a talented new friend:

And then it was time to sail!  Here's our suite aboard the Seabourn Spirit, complete with champagne:

We puzzled over why the flowers in the room were in a peanut dispenser.  OK, that's an inside joke.  Cruise with Regent to understand.

Leaving Venice on the ship, the scenery was great.  A couple of examples.

The second one is, of course, the Piazza San Marco, full of people as usual, but beautiful!

Saying so long so Venice, we watched the sunset and headed for the bar while Captain Steig headed for Kotor, Montenegro.