A hawk (?) at the Museu Egizio in Turin, Italy
Europe
Travel Tuesday photo: A Hawk in the Museo Egizio
Categories: Europe, Italy, Picture of the Week
Tags: Egyptian Museum, Europe, Italy, Picture of the Week
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Travel Tuesday photo: Marmokirken
The Marble Church in Copenhagen, Denmark
Categories: Denmark, Europe, Picture of the Week
Tags: Denmark, Europe, Picture of the Week
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Travel Tuesday Photo: The Acropolis at Night, Athens, Greece
The Acropolis at night. Athens, Greece
This photo is from the trip report Athens and a Mediterranean Cruise and specifically Our Time in Athens, Part I (Acropolis and Museum).
Categories: Europe, Greece, Picture of the Week
Tags: Athens, Greece, Travel Tuesday Photo
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Travel Tuesday Photo: Pitti Palace, Florence, Italy
The back of the Pitti Palace overlooking Florence, Italy as seen from the Boboli Gardens
This photo is from the Return to International Travel trip report and specifically from Our Time In Florence, Part 1.
Categories: Europe, Italy, Picture of the Week
Tags: Firenze, Florence, Italy, Pitti Palace, Travel Tuesday Photo
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Our Time in Venice, Italy
Trip Report: Athens and a Mediterranean Cruise
Lounge Reviews: The Club CLT and Centurion Lounge Charlotte Airport
Flight Review: Lufthansa A340-600 Charlotte-Munich
Lodging Review: Academias Hotel, Autograph Collection, Athens
Our Time in Athens, Part I (Acropolis and Museum)
Our Time in Athens, Part II (Roman Agora, Hadrian’s Library, Ancient Agora)
Our Time in Athens, Part III (Kerameikos, Temple of Zeus, Panathenaic Stadium)
Our Time in Athens, Part IV (Restaurants and Observations)
Ship Review: Viking Neptune
Our Time in Ancient Olympia (Katakalon, Greece)
Our Time in Corfu, Greece
Our Time in Kotor, Montenegro
Our Time in Dubrovnik, Croatia
Our Time in Zadar, Croatia
Our Time in Venice, Italy
Flight Review: Iberia A330-300 Madrid-Chicago
As is usual on Viking cruises, they try to sell you on another cruise while you’re on the current one, offering special incentives to do so. My friends and I have a system for selecting our international vacations: whoever has a birthday ending in a 5 or 0 gets to pick the destination. That covers six out of every 10 years, so it works for us. 2025 is my choice and I’d had my eye on Viking’s Passage to Eastern Europe river cruise which runs between Budapest, Hungary and Bucharest, Romania. When we checked with the on-board travel consultant we learned that we could book this cruise for just $25 down and it didn’t have to be paid off until six months before the sailing. That was huge for me as normally the cruises have to be paid off in 2-3 months. So we went ahead and booked this cruise for $25 and that gave us 18 months to pay. When we added in our past-traveler discounts and our on-board booking discounts, that took another $600 off the price. Plus we got shipboard credit for our current cruise and additional shipboard credit for the one we’d just booked. Want to join us? Click on the link at the top of the page for more info.
Since we’d had an overnight port of call in Venice on our previous Mediterranean cruise back in 2008, our original plan was to skip the included tour and just wander around ourselves. That was something we’d really enjoyed doing the first time around. But now we had shipboard credit to spend. We could have stuck to the plan and used the credits to cover crew tips and some small purchases but where’s the fun in that? Instead we used it to book The Island and the Abbey tour, which took us to the island of Murano and then to the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore as we’d not visited either of time in our previous time in the area. Continue reading
Categories: Cruises, Europe, Historical Site, Italy, Tours, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Viking
Tags: Cruise, Europe, Italy, Murano, Tours, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Venice, Viking
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Our Time in Zadar, Croatia
Trip Report: Athens and a Mediterranean Cruise
Lounge Reviews: The Club CLT and Centurion Lounge Charlotte Airport
Flight Review: Lufthansa A340-600 Charlotte-Munich
Lodging Review: Academias Hotel, Autograph Collection, Athens
Our Time in Athens, Part I (Acropolis and Museum)
Our Time in Athens, Part II (Roman Agora, Hadrian’s Library, Ancient Agora)
Our Time in Athens, Part III (Kerameikos, Temple of Zeus, Panathenaic Stadium)
Our Time in Athens, Part IV (Restaurants and Observations)
Ship Review: Viking Neptune
Our Time in Ancient Olympia (Katakalon, Greece)
Our Time in Corfu, Greece
Our Time in Kotor, Montenegro
Our Time in Dubrovnik, Croatia
Our Time in Zadar, Croatia
Our Time in Venice, Italy
Flight Review: Iberia A330-300 Madrid-Chicago
A Curveball
Our only major curveball of the trip happened on Thursday, when we were due to stop in Split, Croatia, a place I’d heard quite a bit about but had never visited. But that plan changed with an announcement on Wednesday evening.
Our final port of call was Venice, or more accurately, Chioggia, which is still part of the greater Venice Lagoon. For many years Venice has been prone to flooding due in part to the fact that many of the buildings are constructed on “land” that is supported by pilings and those pilings have naturally settled into the seabed as the centuries progressed. To combat this a project called MOSE (or in English, Moses – because it parts the sea) was implemented which installed rows of mobile sea gates on the floor of the lagoon. This prevents flooding during high tides and any time the sea level becomes a danger to the city.
Due to an impending acqua alta high tide and compounded by recent rains in the area, the MOSE barriers were going to be raised earlier than planned. If we stopped in Split, the ship would not have time to reach the lagoon before the barriers rose.
At this point I was expecting that we’d just sail straight for Venice though if I’d thought about it I’d have realized there might be issues like if there was a dock available for us, etc. But two days instead of one in Venice wouldn’t be all bad. But Viking had something else in mind. We sailed past Split and instead docked in Zadar, Croatia, which is about an hour-and-a-half (by car) further north on the Croatian coast.
We’d signed up for the included walking tour of Split and paid for an excursion to Ancient Salona & Medieval Trogir but, of course, those were now no longer options. Instead we used the credit from the optional tour for one called Picturesque Zadar Hinterland that was only offered in the morning. Unfortunately it returned us to the ship too late for the only afternoon included walking tour so we just did a quick spin in the Old Town by ourselves.
Picturesque Zadar Hinterland
Novigrad
Our first stop was a scenic overlook of the town of Novigrad where we could clearly see the remains of the castle that once stood atop the hill.
Novigrad as viewed from the Overlook
Categories: Croatia, Cruises, Europe, Historical Site, Tours, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Viking
Tags: Croatia, Novigrad, Tours, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Viking, Zadar
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Our Time in Dubrovnik, Croatia
Trip Report: Athens and a Mediterranean Cruise
Lounge Reviews: The Club CLT and Centurion Lounge Charlotte Airport
Flight Review: Lufthansa A340-600 Charlotte-Munich
Lodging Review: Academias Hotel, Autograph Collection, Athens
Our Time in Athens, Part I (Acropolis and Museum)
Our Time in Athens, Part II (Roman Agora, Hadrian’s Library, Ancient Agora)
Our Time in Athens, Part III (Kerameikos, Temple of Zeus, Panathenaic Stadium)
Our Time in Athens, Part IV (Restaurants and Observations)
Ship Review: Viking Neptune
Our Time in Ancient Olympia (Katakalon, Greece)
Our Time in Corfu, Greece
Our Time in Kotor, Montenegro
Our Time in Dubrovnik, Croatia
Our Time in Zadar, Croatia
Our Time in Venice, Italy
Flight Review: Iberia A330-300 Madrid-Chicago
On our prior Mediterranean cruise in 2008 we’d also had a stop in Dubrovnik so this was our second visit. My friend enjoys gardens and such so we’d signed up for the included city tour in the morning and the afternoon tour called A Renaissance Garden & Views. Apparently not many people signed up for either the morning or afternoon session of this optional tour because they combined us into a single morning tour and swapped out our city tour tickets for one in the afternoon.
A Renaissance Garden and Views Tour
Slano
We drove about 45 minutes northwest from the port, on a road bordering the Adriatic, until we reached the small town of Slano. Here the terrain slopes down from the hills above to the sea.
Beginning in the 14th century this area became a significant commercial port with two shipyards, salt warehouses and markets for salt, livestock and grain. The name “Slano” means “salt”.
It’s hard to get lost in Slano
Categories: Croatia, Cruises, Europe, Tours, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Viking
Tags: Croatia, Europe, Ocean Cruise, Tours, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Viking
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Our Time in Kotor, Montenegro
Trip Report: Athens and a Mediterranean Cruise
Lounge Reviews: The Club CLT and Centurion Lounge Charlotte Airport
Flight Review: Lufthansa A340-600 Charlotte-Munich
Lodging Review: Academias Hotel, Autograph Collection, Athens
Our Time in Athens, Part I (Acropolis and Museum)
Our Time in Athens, Part II (Roman Agora, Hadrian’s Library, Ancient Agora)
Our Time in Athens, Part III (Kerameikos, Temple of Zeus, Panathenaic Stadium)
Our Time in Athens, Part IV (Restaurants and Observations)
Ship Review: Viking Neptune
Our Time in Ancient Olympia (Katakalon, Greece)
Our Time in Corfu, Greece
Our Time in Kotor, Montenegro
Our Time in Dubrovnik, Croatia
Our Time in Zadar, Croatia
Our Time in Venice, Italy
Flight Review: Iberia A330-300 Madrid-Chicago
On the Tuesday of our cruise we checked off a new country, Montenegro. The country’s name comes from the Venetians mangling the Serbian words “Crna Gora” for “black mountain”. The mountain in question is Mount Lovćen which was covered in dense evergreen forests. Over the centuries this area has been controlled by the Illyrians, the Slavs, the Serbs, the Venetians, the Ottomans, an independent country, occupied by Austria-Hungary during WWI, part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia then after WWII one of the republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, then the smaller Federal Republic of Yugoslavia along with Serbia and finally regaining its independence in 2006.
Continue reading
Categories: Europe, Historical Site, Montenegro, Tours, Trip Report
Tags: Europe, Historical Site, Montenegro, Tours, Trip Report
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2023: The Year in Travel
Another year has passed and I’m just thankful I got through this one without injury. I cracked my tibial plateau while on my European trip in 2022 which meant I didn’t get to ski but for a few hours this year but I still went on the trips I had planned and had a very good time anyway.
The Year in Travel – 2023
January
My first trip of the year was a visit to Winter Park, Colorado, a place I hadn’t visited in nearly 30 years. I was so looking forward to it because I really couldn’t remember much about it and had only been skiing a year when I visited last time. Sadly I spent an hour each day rehabbing my knee instead of skiing though I did get to go tubing one day.
I enjoyed a quick non-stop flight from Memphis to Denver on United and we took a bus right to the lodge. We stayed slopeside at the Zephyr Mountain Lodge where the location of your room can make a big difference.
Zephyr Mountain Lodge Slopeside Building
photo from Planet of Hotels.com
Categories: American Airlines, Autograph Collection, Award Travel, California, Colorado, Condos, Croatia, Cruises, Europe, Greece, Hotel, Iberia, Italy, Lufthansa, Mammoth, Marriott, Montenegro, North America, OneWorld, Ship Review, Star Alliance, Tours, UNESCO World Heritage Site, United, United States, Viking, Winter Park, Year in Review
Tags: Autograph Collection, Award Travel, California, Colorado, Croatia, Greece, Iberia, Italy, Lufthansa, Mammoth, Marriott, Montenegro, OneWorld, Ship Review, Star Alliance, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Viking, Viking Neptune, Winter Park, Year In Review
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Our Time in Corfu, Greece
Trip Report: Athens and a Mediterranean Cruise
Lounge Reviews: The Club CLT and Centurion Lounge Charlotte Airport
Flight Review: Lufthansa A340-600 Charlotte-Munich
Lodging Review: Academias Hotel, Autograph Collection, Athens
Our Time in Athens, Part I (Acropolis and Museum)
Our Time in Athens, Part II (Roman Agora, Hadrian’s Library, Ancient Agora)
Our Time in Athens, Part III (Kerameikos, Temple of Zeus, Panathenaic Stadium)
Our Time in Athens, Part IV (Restaurants and Observations)
Ship Review: Viking Neptune
Our Time in Ancient Olympia (Katakalon, Greece)
Our Time in Corfu, Greece
Our Time in Kotor, Montenegro
Our Time in Dubrovnik, Croatia
Our Time in Zadar, Croatia
Our Time in Venice, Italy
Flight Review: Iberia A330-300 Madrid-Chicago
An Unexpected Twist
After we returned from our shore excursion in Ancient Olympia we were informed that one of our shore excursions for the following day had been canceled. Our excursion was to take us about an hour away to hike Mt. Pantokrator and then to visit Old Peritheia, Corfu’s oldest village that was once a hideaway from pirates. We had been proactively booked on the afternoon included tour, which was Panoramic Corfu & Old Town Walking Tour. While we hated to miss seeing cool sites, our feet were actually not all that upset. We heard it had rained in the area the day before we arrived and can only speculate that it made the conditions unsafe for the hike. As someone who was injured last year when an excursion took place in the rain instead of being canceled, I was fine with the way it was handled.
But that meant we now had a significant amount of shipboard credit to spend. We decided to make the best of it by getting massages in the Nordic Spa. We were able to schedule them for first thing in the morning, giving ourselves plenty of time before our afternoon tour. It was a very welcome treat after all the walking we’d done in Athens over the prior few days. The tour was scheduled to last 5.5 hours so our credit was enough to cover a one-hour massage and a little bit of the tip.
Exploring on our own
It was about a 200-yard walk from our ship to the Cruise Terminal. We didn’t notice it at the time but there are actually buses that run between the cruise terminal and the ships, so if that’s too far for you to walk, just wait for one of these free shuttles. Once you reach the cruise terminal you’ll exit through the building and then you can catch one of Viking’s shuttles into downtown. Unfortunately we didn’t pay attention that these shuttles were available so we just set out walking. There is not much in the immediate area of the cruise terminal other than a small row of shops across the street. But we just followed the trickle of people both from our ship and the giant one docked next to us and headed east along the coast road.
Port in Corfu
Categories: Europe, Greece, Historical Site, Tours, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site
Tags: Corfu, Europe, Greece, Historical Site, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site
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