jumarem

13th June 2012

Hi all

No we haven't fallen off the face of the earth, I just haven't been able to blog for a while. As I said in my last edition, we decided to take a cruise leaving from Italy and sailing to Messina in Sicily, Kusadasi in Turkey, Athens in Greece and Chania in Crete. We did have access to wifi aboard the ship but at 65 cents a minute it was way too expensive to try and blog. Anyway here is a quick update of whats been going on.........

We boarded our cruise on Sunday 3rd June in Civitavecchia in Italy. We were all looking forward to a little bit of luxury without the hassle of finding accommodation almost every night and having to pack and unpack all the time (not that I'm complaining of course). Our cabin was very nice with a big porthole window to take in the view. Emily was very excited that her bed actually dropped from the ceiling. We set sail about 5pm and headed toward Sicily. By the time we woke we had already docked in Messina. Unfortunately I was a little unwell that day so we decided not to go ashore but to spend the day relaxing. Em went to kids club and met a girl from the UK named Abbey whom she spent the rest of the day with swimming and joining in Zumba and other activities on board. It was great for her to have some company her own age cause she is a bit over Mum and Dad and is very much missing all her friends at home.
The next day we spent at sea heading toward Kusadasi. The ship had an ice skating rink on board and as well as being able to use the rink for free time skating they also had professional skaters who performed several times during the cruise. The show was very good and we ended up going a couple of times. Em had her first attempt at ice skating and although she found it very difficult she enjoyed it.
On Tuesday we arrived in Kusadasi. We took a tour through a couple of Turkish towns and villages. We tasted some interesting Turkish wines, visited a really interesting felt making factory and took a tour through a Turkish Carpet House and watched a demonstration of how they extract silk thread from silk worms to make the rugs with. I now understand why these rugs are so expensive when you watch the incredibly talented girls who sit for sometimes ten months at a time hand making the carpets one knot at a time.......unbelievable. The Turkish people are very hospitable so we drank a lot of Turkish Tea. In fact at every stop we made, even at the tiny, family run, felt makers the first thing they did was offer tea. I have to add that the felt making was amazing to watch and we were fascinated by the fact that they actually import wool from New Zealand to use in their finer pieces of work.
Back on board that evening we had dinner in the dining room with some lovely people from Canada and then went to the theatre to see a singing group from the UK who sang mostly songs from the sixties and had obviously modelled themselves on the Beatles and the like. Mark and I thought it was quite good but Emily was not too fussed.
Again we sailed overnight and on Wednesday morning docked in Piraeus, Greece. We took a bus into Athens and spent a couple of hours visiting the Acropolis. It was an incredibly hot day, especially at the Acropolis which is perched high on a hilltop overlooking the city. The view was beautiful, especially looking out toward the Mediterranean Sea. Once again it was hard not to be impressed with the fact that these building were constructed thousands of years ago and yet are still standing today. As we have found with most of the ancient sites we have visited, they are constantly undergoing restoration work and while it is obviously necessary, the scaffolding surrounding these amazing structures is a little distracting. In the afternoon we had some free time to wander through the Plaka in the old town area of Athens. We had some lunch and did a bit of souvenir shopping before heading back to the ship.
Friday morning we arrived in Chania on Crete. We decided to go it alone in Chania instead of taking a guided tour with the cruise company. We caught a shuttle bus into the town and just spent some time wandering in and out of the beautiful little streets and markets. Mark decided to have some "foot therapy" at Doctor Fish day spa where he soaked his feet in a tank and let hundreds of little Garra Rufa fish eat the dead skin off his feet...mmm not for me!
Saturday we spent at sea, again taking the opportunity to relax a bit before arriving back in Italy on Sunday and hitting the road again.
By this time we have only one week left in Europe before we head back to the UK, so we decided to head toward France. Unfortunately it looks as though we may not get time to see anything of Spain. Disappointing but I guess we have to save something for next time.....whenever that may be!!
We headed back up the West coast of Italy and stayed in San Terenzo for the night.
As you probably know The Northern part of Italy experienced an earthquake a couple of weeks ago and is continuing to feel aftershocks even now. This meant that we had to do a little back tracking, which we wouldn't have done if we could have used an alternative route up through the quake affected area.
San Terenzo is at the beginning of an area called Cinque Terra. This is a route consisting of several beautiful, ancient towns built on the cliff faces of a very rugged coastline. We spent most of Monday driving through Cinque Terra. We visited a place called Manarola where we had to park at the top of a hill and walk right down into the heart of the town. It was a very steep descent, which of course was fine, but the walk out was a killer. The town came to an end right on the edge of the sea and we had lunch in a little cafe overlooking the cliff face.
We finally crossed the border into Monacco late in the afternoon. We drove onto Nice and spent our first night in France. Tuesday we spent some time having a look around Nice before driving on to Nimes. We spent Tuesday night in Nimes and had hoped to visit the Arena de Nimes this morning. This Southern part of France has a very Roman history and so the Arena de Nimes is like the Colosseum in Rome and despite being smaller is actually much better preserved. Unfortunately due to lots of road work around the Arena we were unable to actually go inside it. Very impressive from the outside though.
After TRYING to see the Arena we headed further into France to a place called Carcasonne. Here there is the most amazing medieval city complete with its own castle and cathedral. We spent a couple of hours exploring before we drove through to Toulouse where we will spend tonight.
In the next couple of days we plan to take a scenic route up through the Dordonge Valley and then further up into the Loire valley and on to Paris.
Well that's a quick catch up of the last 10 days!! Will leave you with some photos and will blog again soon....I hope!