Last night we packed and left our suitcases at 11pm outside the cabin in readiness for the ‘Luggage Fairy’ to spirit them away. We were supposed to vacate the cabin by 8am which meant an early breakfast with a 7am wake-up. We expected breakfast to be very busy but we had no trouble finding a… Continue Reading

We didn’t berth in Livorno until 10am and by then Sue and I had breakfasted and were up on deck watching the proceedings. Another lovely blue sky day with a flat calm sea. The ship eased into its moorings among the many large and small ships of this very busy port without a hitch. The… Continue Reading

What lovely sleep. No hurry to get up, and no-one rushing to catch an early departure excursion to disturb our slumber. After recovering from the shock of a searchlight of a window and eyes focussed, another lovely cloudless day was revealed. Little islands began to slowly slip by on a flat calm sea. Where were… Continue Reading

With the clocks going forward one hour we were unlikely to have a lie in and it proved so. Those who had booked excursions were up and about rattling doors and talking in corridors thus ensuring that those not on a trip were awake. Peeling back the blinds we were surprised that we were sharing… Continue Reading

Yesterday, we noticed that on the mountain tops in the distance there was snow, yet we had a lovely warm day. Today we expected Kalamata to be cold and cloudy as forecast, yet we woke again to clear blue skies and it was warm (20 degrees by lunchtime). We had a full day in this… Continue Reading

Another slow start to the day. Looking out of the window we didn’t have the stunning view of a medieval castle to peruse, we faced acres of uninspiring tarmac covered with stacks of containers of all colours. The ship’s excursions had long since departed by the time we emerged onto the quay to board our… Continue Reading

What a wonderful day. It began when we opened our blinds and there was the castle of Rhodes resplendent in the sunshine with the Greek flag flying proud. I had been to Rhodes before, with Nan, Sarah and Jamie. Sue and Charlotte had stayed at home because of the scheduling of the British examination boards.… Continue Reading

We entered the port of Limassol on a lovely warm spring day. We watched the town slip into view through our little window on the world and then went up for breakfast. Through the restaurant windows we could see that we had berthed next to another cruise ship, the ‘Spirit of Thomson’. Just before 8am… Continue Reading

Through our window on the world we spied a flat calm sea, a few hundred metres away a misty desert landscape and lane markers slowly passing aft. A variety of commercial shipping at anchor began to drift by as we readied for breakfast. It seems we are special as we have a little tug accompanying… Continue Reading

During the night we headed south leaving the Gulf of Aqaba before entering the Red Sea again and continuing our journey north towards the Suez Canal. We slept soundly throughout.  At 7.30am we woke to a clatter and banging outside the cabin door. Later, on leaving for breakfast we discovered that the maintenance crew were… Continue Reading