Jills Journey

Sunday, November 13 - Colon, Panama Arrived at this busy port at 6:30 a.m. under cloudy skies. Heard last night that it has rained hard here the last couple of days. The disembarkation process was very speedy after our last breakfast in the dining room. Shortly after 8:00 a.m. we were collecting our luggage dockside, then looking for "our friend, Mario", who Fred had made advance Internet arrangements with for transport to Panama City for $20 each. It was a small bus for 12 passengers and we headed off a half hour later, over semi-flooded roads after the bus filled with other cruisers who had also reserved ahead online. While we were waiting, Fred phoned our condo accommodation contact to advise of our arrival in Colon, only to find out that there was some problem with ... read more

Sunday, October 30 We were up, packed, fed and away by 10:00 am. We drove to the cruise ship terminal in Palma hoping to drop our luggage off so we could use the car to sightsee before taking the car in. We arrived at 11:30 only to find that the clocks had gone back an hour for daylight savings, and it was actually 10:30-- two and a half hours before we could check in. Despite the time, we were able to send our luggage on board and check in. Before boarding, we drove back to Palma, parked and did some sightseeing. We walked along the mallecon in the warm sunshine looking at the yachts, ships, boats, etc. There were lots of huge private yachts. It makes you wonder how people can afford them. Soon we came ... read more

Saturday, October 22 We had to leave House Tereza early because we had to drop off the car rental in Dubrovnik by 10:30 am. It was great having the GPS system to find both the apartment to drop off the luggage, and then the Imperial Hilton Hotel to drop off the car. After I dropped off the car, I walked back through the old town of Dubrovnik to the apartment--about a kilometre. Our place is up the hill from the entrance to the old town--about a 5 minute walk. We met our host and started to unload the car. We were carrying luggage up the stairs, turned a corner, then up more stairs, more corners, and more stairs! Finally we got the apartment after nearly 70 stairs! We then turned around to go back for the ... read more

Thursday, October 13 We left Zadar at 8:00 am and motored for 30 minutes to the town of Preko on the island of Ugljan. From there we biked south, across a large bridge to the island of Pasman. We continued our undulating ride south along the coast to the town of Tkon where we had to load the bikes in a hurry as the ferry was due and we were using its slip. We left the dock heading south to an unknown (by us and the crew) town because the weather was changing and the proposed destination might be too windy to stay there. Eventually, we cruised for 3-1/2 hours back to Primosten where we spent the night. We wandered the town, this time going along the seawall out around the north part of town. There ... read more

Thursday morning after arriving in Split, we left the ship to find our apartment. We found the gate door entry at Solurat 22 quite quickly as we knew what area it was in. It's situated about a block from the water on a hillside so it has a view of the water from the garden patio. Next, we went through the Old Town including the Palace of Diocletian. We returned to the ship for our last cruise lunch, packed the last items in our bags and disembarked. The cruise ship continued on to Venice without us as we must board our next cruise in Trogir, next to Split, on Saturday morning. On the dock, I flagged down a taxi which took Fred, Maureen and our considerable amount of luggage, to the apartment. Jill and I walked ... read more