After a long delay, we're baaack! Sorry to be so long dropping the other shoe and finishing up, but things just had to be prioritized after our return to the US. One of the last places we visited on our world cruise was the coast of northern Italy, where the boot of Italy joins the European body. Venice was on the eastern side of the boot top, and our new destination - Porto Venere - was on the western side. Porto Venere used to be the site of an ancient temple to Venus dating back to pagan times, from which it [View Full Entry]

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We docked at Naples, which is about halfway between the ankle and the knee on Italy's boot. Cruising into the Bay of Naples we were greeted by the sight of a beautiful harbor city with the mighty Vesuvius dominating the view to the south. We were in Naples for only one day. We chose to spend our time ashore seeing the ruins of Pompeii, the town between Naples and Vesuvius that was buried under ashes and volcanic dust in the eruption of 79 AD. Excavation started in the 1700s when Pompeii was discovered and is still going on at several sites [View Full Entry]

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After leaving Venice, we cruised across the top of Italy’s boot to what used to be Yugoslavia, which is now split into several small countries -- Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Macedonia, etc. (“the Balkans”). Croatia is a little country of five million that grabbed most of the lovely coastline on the Adriatic Sea away from the other Balkan countries. Its majority ethnic group is Roman Catholic. It’s said to be more “Italian” than the other Balkans, which tend to have Orthodox and Muslim populations. There is tension between Croatians and their minor [View Full Entry]

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Venice was a blast. We cruised into its beautiful harbor early one morning and were greeted by a strange sight: a large beautiful city busy with foot traffic and boats along its waterfront, but not a vehicle in sight anywhere! Mile after mile of beautiful old buildings seemly perched directly atop the water, interspersed with canals alive with pole-driven gondolas, taxis (motorboats) and buses (larger boats, like a small ferry). The effect was a bit like Catfish Row in Charleston suddenly dragged out into the harbor. After the ship docked in an industrial area, we promptly took a smaller [View Full Entry]

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From Istanbul, we left on a three-night excursion into central Turkey, which lies on the Asian side of the Dardanelles. This was foreign territory indeed, as neither Dick nor I knew anything at all about it. I was vaguely aware that it had some interesting archaeological sites and some biblical cities were in it, but that was about it. We were blessed with an expert Turkish guide named Ahmet, who could easily have passed for a university lecturer. There were about 28 of us on the bus tour, and he set about educating us on Turkey. First, he said, Turkey is [View Full Entry]

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We have been traveling a quite a bit away from the trusty laptop in our stateroom and haven’t had a chance to post a Travelblog, so now that we have a couple of sea days we’ll try to make up for it. After leaving Egypt our ship visited the Greek island of Santorini, Athens on the mainland, and Istanbul in rapid succession. Santorini is a small island with not a great deal to see, but very scenic and lovely. It lies in the Aegean Sea off the southern coast of Greece. In 1500 BC a volcano at the center of [View Full Entry]

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Egypt and Jordan - The Pharaohs, Moses and Indiana Jones We left our ship in Egypt for another four-day overland trip, this time through two countries, Egypt and Jordan. If you look on a map, you’ll see that they lie more or less side by side on either side of the Suez Canal where it empties into the Mediterranean Sea. Israel (much smaller) comes down between the two countries in a wedge that prevents them from having contiguous borders. The still smaller Palestinian territory inside Israel also borders on Jordan. Our first stop in Egypt was Luxor, where we saw temples [View Full Entry]

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How time does fly! We came back to our ship, the Crystal Serenity, from Singapore and then cruised up the west coast of Thailand to Phuket. As we expected, we were warmly greeted by a city struggling to get back to normal. We didn't see much actual destruction as a result of the December tsunami, but there was abundant evidence of an influx of money that is going for construction, new roads and other improvements to the infrastructure that will no doubt undergird future tourism and expansion. Our hosts were anxious to convince us it's business as usual again, and they [View Full Entry]

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Last night we got back from our 4-night overland trip through Thailand, traveling from Bangkok on the coast north to the other end of Thailand (old Siam). The border is several hundred miles away in the mountains where Thailand, Laos and Myanmar (Burma) meet in the “Golden Triangle.” This takes its name from the lucrative opium farming and trade that used to go on in the decades before Thailand did its best to put a stop to it. Nowadays the farmers raise legal flowers and vegetables instead of poppies. Thailand reminded me a lot of South Carolina, with a coastal region [View Full Entry]

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After three days in Beijing, we flew the three hours back to Hong Kong, and that afternoon flew about two hours to Hanoi in North Vietnam. This also is a large city, a smaller (and lesser in nearly every respect) version of Beijing. Here we were greeted by emerald green rice paddies on the way from the airport on either side of a fine expressway. The land is very flat with many rivers and streams which of course for generations have been re-directed through the paddies. After watching the backbreaking work going on in the fields (mostly by women bending over [View Full Entry]

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