Day 36, 14th May -Cinque Terre, Italy
We were booked onto an excursion today to go by boat and visit 3 of the 5 villages of the Cinque Terre. We had a decent size ferry from our royal carribean ship with an inside and open outside.
The 1st village was Monterosso al Mare, the largest of the 3 we were visiting. It was unfortunately raining and the usual dodgy characters came out of nowhere to sell umbrellas and rain ponchos of course! We had checked the weather beforehand and had an umbrella and the ponchos we were given years ago at a concert and never used. Had to laugh when we opened them, they had ‘Optus’ on the back & ‘Yes’ on the front- lmao🫤. Anyway they did the job and didn’t cost us €5 each like some paid there.
The tour guide walked us round the streets and into a couple of churches. One was striking with its black and white horizontal stripes. The weather got pretty cold and miserable so we went down to the quaint restaurant where we had an included lunch, it was so toasty and warm.
It was great as Helen and Barry were on this excursion too, so we are doing well at accidentally being in the same places together! It was Mother’s Day and Helen’s birthday as well, so I spoke to the tour director and asked her if we could all sing happy birthday to her and they bought her out a big slice of cake too!👏😊.
They served us traditional handmade pasta with pesto…it was so divine and very different to what we have at home. Then we had wedges with herbs and swordfish, very soft fish (sorry swordfish!) and lastly a madeira type slice of cake with a dark drizzle of something between honey and balsamic. All very enjoyable.
Back onto the ferry and round to the next village of Riomaggiore, again the lovely coloured villages houses whose colours are unesco heritage protected - this village has the only protected harbour of the five. There were also bright coloured rowboats all tied up in the port - so, so pretty. We wandered round and bought a gelato each then sat outside as the rain had cleared then back onboard for a 3rd time and 30 mins to our last village Porto Venere. This village had walkways filled with stores like handmade pasta and a lot of lavender products and another beautiful fort, with some stone arched windows which made for lovely photos - we also saw through the arched windows, Lord Byron‘s grotto where he used to swim when he lived in the village and went to see Shelley – another English poet for drinkies!
There was also a sole man playing a saxophone by the fort walls and we stopped and had a quick dance, just for memories sake!!
Onto the boat for the last time and tried not to do the nodding dog falling asleep as we were sitting inside and it was warm and sunny. We were back onto the big ship by 5:30pm, which was leaving at 6pm.
We went back up with sore feet - 16,500 steps today!! and packed the last of our bags as we are up and out at the crack of dawn tomorrow. We grabbed some dinner (the last supper!) in the windjammer cafe and then down to the centrum, where we found Helen and Barry and watched the farewell from the staff. It was an ‘International staff flag ceremony’ where the fantastic cruise director Eric from Meeehheeecoo! called out every nation on staff and someone carried their flag, some stopping to dance along the way. It was great. Then into bed, setting the alarm for 5:40am as we have a 6:45am transfer off the ship along with a tour before dropping us at the airport for a 6:30pm flight to Athens. We have 3/4 of a day there before flying on again to Corfu.
Day 37 - 15th May . Disembarktion, Vatican City, the Coliseum & flight to Athens Greece
Up at 5:40am and got ready, needed a hot shower as pretty tired after the last few days adventures! We had put our bags out last night as they take them downstairs and out through immigration before we get there, so we just had backpacks. Down to the theatre and waited about half an hour and they took us off the ship – grabbed our suitcases and found our coach. What a difference to the complete mess when we were on quantum of the seas trying to get off through massive queues, it was complete chaos.
Enchantment of the Seas had it down pat! A funny – not funny story I read later on the Enchantment fb page, where someone was saying they had put their bags out the night before, got on the bus transfer after getting off the ship and they were waiting at the airport 1 1/2 hrs away for their bags to turn up?! I had to ask politely if they were serious and would they ever leave an airport without their luggage? I don’t understand that one but apparently they had to pay €140 to get a taxi to drop their bags into the airport while they waited for it – lesson learned I guess….
Our Italian tour guide Giorgio was quite funny – really all over the place but good at his job and extremely positive in any problem solving situation for passengers. He would’ve had adhd as a kid for sure!
We drove into Roma no problems and parked under the smallest city in the world – Vatican City, where we met our other guide who took us through St Pauls basilica. Spent about 1 1/2 hours in there and again makes me think about the incredible opulence of religion. When we left and went back to the coach 2 women were missing and it took quite a long time for the tour guide to find them. In the meantime the bus battery had gone flat so the poor driver was trying to get it started which he did manage to, but then when the missing women finally got on board, we had missed our slot and overstayed the car park, so Georgio had to go and find someone and pay more to get out as the barrier wouldn’t come up and we were blocking the other buses waiting to get out.
There was also a very loud 40 something black woman from New Jersey in our group who had the voice of a megaphone and had been extremely over the top, yelling all the time inappropriately at the Vatican and then when the 2 missing women were finally found and got on the bus she yelled put ”Shame on you!!!!” which was kind of funny but nobody else would’ve said it! Quite a few people had asked this woman to quieten down throughout our tour as she would bellow in everyone’s ear and thought she was really funny, but she wasn’t after a while! We have heard quite a few Americans, especially from NY speak very loudly!🤨
Next we were on to the Coliseum - even though I have been there before it is a real wonder of the world and a bucket list tick, tick, tick for me! The last time we were there Danni was 10 years old, so I wanted to take a similar photo as we had the last time, but we wouldn’t have been able to sit up on the wall like we did back in 2007. It’s like Stonehenge - things become more and more off-limits, but I still got a good photo. The tour guide spent a lot of time telling us stuff but not where we could see the inside of the Colosseum, which was a bit of a pain as of course that’s what we all wanted to see.
One thing we noticed this trip is the incredible amount of people everywhere in every country – the crowds are absolutely shoulder to shoulder compared to previous trips we’ve had to Europe. Very hard to get photos without people in the background now. But it is just the way it is :-).
The tours should’ve ended at 3:30 pm, but for some reason we were dropped to the airport at 2pm which was a bugger as we weren’t flying out until 6:30 pm and we would’ve liked more time at the Coliseum and many others would’ve liked more time at the Vatican – not sure why they did that?
But anyway we got to the airport – very hot and airless in there and was so long until our flight, we couldn’t check in so we went upstairs to a fantastic Italian restaurant that serves the most amazing pizzas they were cooking as fast as they could get out! We got some buffalo mozzarella, sliced tomato and basil as a starter which they bring out in big round wedges– so moist and delicious. As we hadn’t eaten all day and it was 2pm Graeme was keen to get two pizzas – he told me he had seen them and they weren’t that big. He was wrong – we ended up with two full-sized pizzas! Thank goodness they were very thin and we could leave quite a bit of the crusts. Man they were nice washed down with a cold beer too😃.
Went back down and were able to check in our bags after about 1 1/2hrs. Through immigration and wandered around the shops for a bit. It was extremely hot and stuffy everywhere in the airport apparently– the girl in duty-free said it was really bad all the time, not good when you always have a lot of neck pain and headaches. We bought some Disaronno which is an amaretto cherry liquor we discovered on the ship. It was €16.50 and also bought a small bottle of real cream lemoncello – just a small one as we have to get it drunk pretty quick, to keep the weight down on our bags for the next 2 flights.
By the time we finally got on the plane at 6:50 pm, we were glad to be getting going. The plane was completely full and although felt quite squashed, we had plenty of legroom on Aegean Air. The flight was just under 2hrs - I really suffered with my vertigo again even though I had taken the medication that helps a little. I ended up asking for a cup of ice and I just sucked it which didn’t help with my retracted eardrums or the spinning, but helped to cool me down a little and the cabin attendant turned the temperature down,which was great.
We landed and our bags came quickly then we were out to the pick up area where I had booked a return transfer €98. I think it is a company who pays taxis.
30mins driving like the clappers while also reading her phone! with Helen The driver, at the wheel! we got to our hotel – the Athens Gate hotel no problems, as there was basically zero traffic at 10 pm.
Headed up to our room on the 6th floor – I had booked a room with a view of the Acropolis and Parthenon, which we had forgotten about in our tiredness, but what a beautiful view - standing on the balcony of your room in the dark, holding an amaretto liquor and looking up at it, all back lit !!! That is a memory maker :-) :-).
We had showers and then into bed as we were pretty shattered by this time, been up 19 hrs, but a nice way to end it.
We would really recommend this hotel as it is absolutely in the heart of Athens, the Parthenon, parliament (changing of the guards ceremonies), the Plaka and every other major tourist attraction. Makes it worth the $420 pn price tag, especially with that view!
Day 38, 16 th May. Athens Greece
We had set an alarm for 8am as thought we might oversleep otherwise! Up and to brekky which was included in the room price. I had delicious Greek yoghurt over cereal with peaches- the 1st ones this trip!!!! So nice. Graeme had of course, bacon, eggs and toast- he has missed a hot breakfast on the ships as we mostly had continental to our room if we had it and the food in the windjammer cafes wasn’t often not, very hot when it should be. The hotel is packed with mainly British and Americans from the accents and a lot of early retiree ages.
We got a map from the very helpful hotel staff and got going as we only have about 5 hrs in Athens before flying on to Corfu. It was meant to be a high of 22c today but it got hot and sticky pretty quickly, especially as we climbed up the hill of the Acropolis with the white marble reflecting back its heat. Soooooo many people, it was a slow walk in big queues actually inside the grounds, rather than waiting to enter. €20pp entry.
Views on the way up and also out to the city are amazing, hard to believe you are seeing. The Parthenon building started in 447 BC and I think was completed about 432 BC. There is a lot of restoration atm, so the whole front was encased in scaffolding and a bit internally as well.
We walked around up there for quite a while, then back into a mammoth queue to head back down, but it moved ok- was hot though and everyone was sweating. Think it was 28C with very high humidity.
We walked down towards the Plaka and stopped at a little cafe in a lane to have a cold drink and a piece of delicious baklava with ice cream. Graeme looks up - and there across the road is Zorbas restaurant, a little quaint restaurant we were taken to on our 2007 tour, where we had also eaten, drank and danced out into the Plaka with a rose in between our teeth - Danni still remembers it 16yrs later!!!! What the heck - how could we accidentally find it without trying and with so many streets and lanes everywhere?! That’s one for coincidences 🤩👏🍀.
We continued on down the Plaka and stopped to buy another evil eye glass hanging charm that is said to ward off bad spirits and keep you safe, got one with Greece written on it as the other one we have is Turkish. It was interesting, I was talking to the shop owner when she was talking about them and I said how Dad had accidentally broken my other big one and I could only get another large one posted from Israel! She said that if you break one, it actually sends bad spirits away completely?! So that’s good if we had any haha.
We wandered round a while, then headed to the Athens museum. It was mainly original and remakes of the friezes and statues – was quite good and €15 entry per person helps towards these restorations.
Walked back to our hotel and got ourselves ready to go – they have a really nice lobby area. You can relax in while you’re waiting for picked up. Funnily enough we got Helen the crazy taxi driver again. Graeme had to use his passenger side ‘air brake’ when she was reading her phone looking down while driving 120 km an hour on the highway and someone stopped dead in front of her– Crazy driving. They also use their horns a lot as part of the custom of driving just like in Turkey, although turkey was a lot more aggressive at it.
Dropped off at the airport and no problems getting through everything, although they questioned one of our bags as we had pre purchased an extra bag, knowing that we might be overweight. The check in girl thought it was a problem, but luckily I had copied all the paperwork and could show them. For some reason they made us take the duffel bag over to a special baggage area …flew the same airline yesterday and had no problems?!
Anyway onto the plane and then waited a while, as there was a connecting flight that was running late they were waiting for, but at least they had the aircon going while we were sitting on the tarmac. Like last trip years ago, they had taken us from the boarding gate to the plane on a bus, squashed in like sardines! The flight was only one hour and I was really good with my vertigo this time – was chewing on peppermints hard out to help clear my eardrums.
Got our bags after quite a long wait and then out to find a taxi - €18 to our accommodation at Locandeira BnB . The taxi driver dropped us one street over by accident, so we had a bit of lugging our suitcases over cobblestones – I found a hairdressers that was open and asked if anyone in there spoke English, and luckily the husband of someone did, and they were able to tell us it was the next street over – they are such tiny little pedestrian streets. We had been sent the information about getting into our accommodation as the owner was going to be gone home for the night, we got in and oh my goodness – lugging 2 suitcases, a duffel bag and 2 backpacks up three very steep sets of stairs with sharp angles on them – our arms certainly felt it as we were on the top floor! But we have a lovely room as the only one available was a family room, so we have lots of space up in the eaves of the building. Very boutique style. Love it!
We were pretty hot and sticky, so had a shower each and then into a very soft and comfortable bed for the night :-) what a day 🫶.
3 comments:
Action-packed days after your two big cruises.
Great blog as usual and fantastic photos
Ah my kind of place, fresh pasta 🤤. I can almost taste the food in your pictures!
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