Mike2009
Michael Kelsen Joined: August 8th 2009
Logged in: October 18th 2009
Logged in: October 18th 2009
Wife and I are going on a Eastern Med cruise.
Travel Blog Posts
Roman Forum
October 12, 2009 We awoke a little late in the morning of our only full day in Rome. Our plan for the day was not well thought out but the first stop was the Roman Forum. We have been before but without a guide and we didn follow all the ruins. Our hotel was perhaps a 15 minute walk away and we covered the ground quickly. The lines were long at the Colosseum but we passed them by to get to the Forum entrance. The audio guides we used had excellent stories and narration but really poor directions and at times we were not sure we were looking at the right stuff. We probably spent three hours touring this site and halfway through the skies opened up with a downpour. This was the first real rain ... read more
Pantheon
October 11, 2009 Our travel plans to Rome got thrown for a loop as there was a train strike planned for today. Luckily, I was able to secure a last minute seat on the Princess bus to the city center for Judy and me. We said good bye to all our new friends and boarded our bus for the 100 minute ride into town. Traffic was very light probably due to it being Sunday and we got to the train station in no time at all. After a short taxi ride, we were at the Hotel Raffaello. Our good luck continued as the receptionist informed us that our room was ready. We dropped our bags in the room and headed off to the Borghese Museum for our tour at 1500. Along the way we stopped at ... read more
Isle of Capri
October 10, 2009 After two days of not having to wake up at a specific time, it was difficult for Judy and I to make it down to the tender at 715 to head to Sorrento. The ship used their own lifeboats this time and they can surprisingly get 103 passengers in just one of them. We were over to the mainland in no time and met up with our guide Antonio. This is the one and only shore excursion we purchased through the ship. We only did it because we did not want to get stranded over on Capri because the hydrofoil was full or the seas to rough to get back. The tour costs twice what it should and was terrible. Our guide contributed little to what we were seeing and was basically useless. ... read more
Sunset over Sicily
October 8-9, 2009 We needed these next two days at sea to recover from Egypt. Our only goal was to get some laundry done but we learned our lesson from trying to do it ourselves last week. The ship was offering a laundry special for $20 all you can stuff into their paper laundry bag. Sure it is pricey but all our dirty clothes fit in there and we didn't need to spend 2 hours in the launderette and hang all clothes all over our cabin to dry them out. On the second day at sea, we went to alert red. Seems many passengers have gotten sick probably from not following directions on what not to eat or drink in Egypt. We were not allowed to serve ourselves any food and had to have a crew ... read more
Pyramids of Giza
October 7, 2009 Breakfast in Egypt was a little more mainstream with pancakes and eggs. Dalia and Kamel met us as agreed at 8 a.m. for the short ride to Giza and the pyramids. There are three main pyramids here and six smaller ones for the wives. We arrived early enough to beat most of the tour buses and get the overlook mostly to ourselves for the classic pyramid pictures. Dalia posed us in several ways and shot a bunch of pictures. She then lead us to one of the camel owners and negotiated a ride for us and more pictures. Never pay the guy until you get off the camel or the price can go up! After some explanations from our guide, we had 45 minutes to wonder the pyramids on our own. It was ... read more
Citadel Mosque
October 6, 2009 We arrived in the early morning in Port Said at the entrance to the Suez Canal. Judy and I fought our way through the street vendors in the port to find our tour guide, Dalia, holding our name on a sign. She was a young women in her early 30s who spoke very good English and was quite knowledgeable about her country and its history. She lead us over to our van where we met our driver Kamel. He spoke no English and took directions from Dalia, which it didn't appeared to us he enjoyed. Women in Egypt are very oppressed by the men. The van sat 11 but it turns out we were the only tourists in it, our own private ride. One has to travel in an armed police escort from ... read more
Dead Sea
October 5, 2009 Everyone was up and ready to go from breakfast at the appointed time. Breakfast can be a little strange in foreign lands and Israel did not disappoint. They offered some strange breads with packaged spreads with Hebrew labels that we had no idea what they were. They had some strange fruits as well and when we asked were told told they were melons. Not much help there. Anyway, we filled up on anything familiar and loaded up in the van for our trip into the desert. It only took us about 5 to 10 minutes to leave the relatively green countryside of Jerusalem, where it snows in the winter, to pass through a mountain tunnel to pop out on the other side in a brown desert. Quite a change in a climate in ... read more
Mount of Olives
October 4, 2009 We gained an extra hour of sleep last night as either Israel does not observe daylight savings or they set their clocks back last night. Either way, we were up in plenty of time to have a sit down breakfast and find our tour car with time to spare. Gill, our tour guide from Avitours, is in his 50s, served in the army in a special forces group like the green berets, is a part time volunteer police officer and is now a full time tour guide. He's a stocky guy with a beard and what we would learn to be a strange sense of humor. Everywhere we went he knew the folks and talked to them like he was running for office. We had joined another group of four for our two ... read more
Sunset from Ship's Deck
October 3, 2009 Today is a day at sea for us as we sail to Israel. Judy and I did our laundry this morning on the ship. Four washing machines for 800 passengers doesn't work well. The laundry room does not open until 8 a.m. but I showed up 30 minutes early and still was second in line. THe attendant opened the room a little early and we all grabbed the machines and got started. One lady came in at 8 a.m. and got upset because it opened a little early and no machines were available. Then we discovered one of the four dryers didn't work and anarchy ensued. People were jockeying for the remaining dryers all on the verge of an international incident. After completing the laundry, we headed to the spa to use the ... read more
Judy Working the Clay
October 2, 2009 Fortunately in Kusadasi Turkey, the cruise ships can dock without tendering. This makes it much easier to get off the ship and starting doing stuff. We easily found our guide from Trans Balkan Tours for a day long tour of the nearby sights. Our driver, Hassein, showed up with a nice mid sized car and the four of us took off for the home of the VIrgin Mary. Although still contested today, most believe that the Virgin Mary lived about 15 km away from the town up in the hills at this small rock house. It had fallen over long ago but had been rebuilt to look like the original. There were 50 or so tour buses already there at 830 in the morning but surprisingly they kept the line moving and we ... read more
