Posts Tagged With: Europe

Our Time in Venice, Italy

Posted on January 5, 2024 by 2btravel

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 | Leave a comment

Our Time in Dubrovnik, Croatia

Posted on January 3, 2024 by 2btravel

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

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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 | Leave a comment

Our Time in Kotor, Montenegro

Posted on January 2, 2024 by 2btravel

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 | Leave a comment

Our Time in Corfu, Greece

Posted on December 30, 2023 by 2btravel

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

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Categories: Europe, Greece, Historical Site, Tours, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site | Tags: Corfu, Europe, Greece, Historical Site, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site | Leave a comment

Our Time in Ancient Olympia (Katakalon, Greece)

Posted on December 29, 2023 by 2btravel

Our ship departed Athens at 6 PM on Saturday evening and it took us the rest of the night and all of Sunday morning to reach our first port of call, Katakolon, Greece as we had to sail around the Greek peninsula.

The included tour at this port was called Ancient Olympia and there were optional tours that included not only Ancient Olympia but a visit to the Magna Grecia olive estate, another where you can learn Greek folk dancing and a Flavors of the Greek Countryside tour. We stuck with the included tour but because we were in the cheaper staterooms we had to settle for the last tour of the day, which didn’t leave until 2:15 PM.

Port of Katakolo(n)

That wasn’t all bad. In Katakolon, the dock is not far at all from a tourist area with several restaurants and loads of souvenir shops. So after our ship docked at 12:30 PM we had time to go into this area and get our souvenirs purchased before the tour. I find it interesting that Viking refers to the port as Katakolon when all the local signage (and even Wikipedia) refer to the port name without the final N. From what I can see online the names appear to refer to the same place, it just seems odd!

Town of Katakolon as viewed from our ship

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Categories: Europe, Greece, Historical Site, River Cruise, Tours, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site | Tags: Ancient Olympia, Europe, Greece, Historical Site, Olympics, Tours, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site | Leave a comment

Ship Review: Viking Neptune

Posted on December 28, 2023 by 2btravel

While this was our fifth cruise with Viking, three of our trips had been on their iconic European longships and the other had been in China on a larger river ship that was basically like the longships, only with more decks. But this would be our first cruise on one of their larger boats. I had done three cruises back in the mid-to-late 2000s on ocean-going vessels. Two of these were quite large boats from Royal Caribbean and Carnival but our Viking ship would be a bit smaller than those. I was curious in the differences between larger boats and versus the longships.

Viking Neptune

The Viking Neptune only launched in November 2022, so it is still quite a new boat. Shortly before our trip I began looking for reviews and found this extremely helpful one from MJ. While she had a different itinerary (it was actually very similar to the Carnival cruise I took in 2008) I thought she did a great job in a very thorough post. She included all the ports of call in this single post so it’s a long one but worth your time if you want even more detail than I provide and/or want to read about the ports on that trip. Continue reading →

Categories: Cruises, Europe, Ship Review, Trip Report, Viking | Tags: Cruise, Europe, Ocean Cruise, Ship Review, Trip Report, Viking, Viking Neptune | Leave a comment

Our Time in Athens, Part III (Kerameikos, Temple of Zeus, Panathenaic Stadium)

Posted on December 26, 2023 by 2btravel

We slept in just a little the next day as we did not have to be anywhere at a certain time but we were still out before 9 AM to try to beat the heat. We still had our 24-hour Metro pass and this is when we learned the closest stop to our hotel was actually only a 4-minute walk away. Crossing Akadimias street we walked down the hill to the next major street and took a right. From there it was just a block-and-a-half to the Panepistimo Metro station, which is on the Blue line. On our side of the street, just in front of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (pictured below) there’s an entrance with steps going down and an escalator coming up. If you need to take the elevator down, cross Panepistimo to the plaza area and you’ll find the elevator there.

We took the train to the Kerameikos Archaeological Site and Museum. It may not have been much faster than walking but our feet were still aching from the previous day and we were in no hurry so that was fine by us. Continue reading →

Categories: Europe, Greece, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site | Tags: Athens, Europe, Greece, Hadrian's Arch, Kerameikos, Panathenaic Stadium, Temple of Zeus, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site | Leave a comment

Our Time in Athens, Part II (Roman Agora, Hadrian’s Library, Ancient Agora)

Posted on December 23, 2023 by 2btravel

After having lunch at the Acropolis Museum we spent the afternoon at three other sites that were close to the Acropolis.

Roman Agora

The Roman Agora, or marketplace, was built around 27-17 BC using funds donated by Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus, known as Octavian, the founder of the Roman empire to fulfill a promise made by Julius Caesar in 51 BC. While the area has not been fully excavated it’s easy to see it followed a common basic layout of a large open plaza surrounded by colonnades on three sides.

Roman Agora

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Categories: Europe, Greece, Historical Site, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site | Tags: Agora, Ancient Agora, Athens, Europe, Greece, Hadrian, Hadrian's Library, Historical Site, Roman Agora, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site | Leave a comment

Our Time in Athens, Part I (Acropolis and Museum)

Posted on December 22, 2023 by 2btravel

It had been 16 years since my only visit to Athens and my friend had never been. As we were trying to figure out what we wanted to see, I stumbled upon the Earth Trekkers site and their post “2 Days in Athens: The Perfect Itinerary for your First Visit“. That post not only gave us a good idea of highlights to hit but it also introduced us to the combo ticket that gets you into 7 sites for just €30. Those seven sites are:

The Acropolis
Ancient Agora (Archaeological site and Museum)
Roman Agora
Hadrian’s Library
Kerameikos
Temple of Olympian Zeus (called Olympieion on the ticket)
Aristotle’s Lyceum

That’s quite a bargain once you add up the admission prices of all these sites. We recommend buying your combo ticket online in advance.

We hit the first four sites plus the Acropolis Museum the first day and sites 5 and 6 plus the Panathenaic Stadium on the second day. We didn’t make it to Aristotle’s Lyceum but after walking 27,000 steps the first day and another 20,000 steps the second day we were OK with that as we were exhausted.

Monument of the Unknown Soldier

Our day started quite early as our timed ticket for the Acropolis gave us entry at 8 AM. So we left our hotel about 7:20 to give ourselves plenty of time for the walk and to get lost. Our path took us by the Monument of the Unknown Soldier which is on the road that travels over the Syntagma Square Metro station. We weren’t there for the changing of the guard but the two soldiers were marching back and forth under the watchful eye of their superior. We paused for just a few moments and realized it was a great time to be able to get photos without any other people around.

Guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

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Categories: Europe, Greece, Historical Site, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site | Tags: Acropolis, Athens, Caryatids, Europe, Greece, Parthenon, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site | Leave a comment

Our Time In Paris, Part 2 (Versailles)

Posted on March 24, 2023 by 2btravel

Return to International Travel – Introduction
Review: SWISS A340-300 ORD-ZRH and Marhaba Lounge ZRH
Lodging Review: Sina Villa Medici, Florence, Italy
Our Time In Florence, Part 1
Our Time In Florence, Part 2
Lodging Review: Park Hyatt Vendome, Paris, France
Our Time In Paris, Part 1 (Louvre, Sainte-Chappelle, Arc, Eiffel Tower)
Our Time In Paris, Part 2 (Versailles)
Our Time In Paris, Part 3 (Catacombs, Musee d’Orsay)
Viking Kari and an Afternoon in Montmartre
Our Time in La Roche-Guyon and Vernon/Giverny
Our Time on the Normandy Beaches
Our Time in Les Andelys and Le Pecq
Lodging Review: Renaissance Republique, Paris, France
Review: Air France A350 CDG-ORD

Versailles

While our Viking cruise offered a paid half-day excursion to Versailles, we decided to do it on our own before the cruise even began. It was cheaper and we could explore at our leisure…and there is a LOT to explore! We bought tickets online ahead of time a few days in advance. Since the tickets are timed, this allowed us to get a morning time to tour the palace and then we had the rest of the day to explore the grounds and the Trianons. Had we waited to buy tickets on-site we would have toured the palace later in the day. Based on our experience I would advise touring the palace either first thing or last thing. The grounds are massive and you will spend a lot of time walking. There are several different ticket options and the one we bought included the palace, the grounds, the Trianons as well as an official guide book. I don’t know if there are other places to get this guide book but we went into the bookstore to get ours. The staff was not familiar with this book but after asking around we were given a book that costs €20 so we thought that was rather a good deal.

Chateau de Versailles

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Categories: Attraction Review, Europe, France, Historical Site, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site | Tags: Attraction Review, Europe, France, Historical Site, Paris, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Versailles | Leave a comment

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Posts Tagged With: Europe

Our Time in Venice, Italy

Our Time in Dubrovnik, Croatia

A Renaissance Garden and Views Tour

Slano

Our Time in Kotor, Montenegro

Our Time in Corfu, Greece

An Unexpected Twist

Exploring on our own

Our Time in Ancient Olympia (Katakalon, Greece)

Ship Review: Viking Neptune

Our Time in Athens, Part III (Kerameikos, Temple of Zeus, Panathenaic Stadium)

Our Time in Athens, Part II (Roman Agora, Hadrian’s Library, Ancient Agora)

Roman Agora

Our Time in Athens, Part I (Acropolis and Museum)

Monument of the Unknown Soldier

Our Time In Paris, Part 2 (Versailles)

Versailles

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