Friday 15 June, 2012 Cruise Day What a fabulous breakfast this hotel supplied. The best so far on my journey; eggs, bacon, mushrooms, sausages, fresh fruit, cereal, toast, coffee etc., along with a what must be a usual Greek breakfast; olives, tomato, cheese. The hotel supplied me with a free transfer to the ship. They drove right up to the check-in desk… what service! All aboard The ship is quite small compared to some others in port. The port of Pireaus is an unbelievably busy port and tourism in Greece must be a very big industry. When I booked, I chose the lowest fare which placed me in an inside cabin on level 2 - the first deck under the water line. I unpacked straight away and went off to explore the ship. I have included ... read more

Apologies didn’t get a chance to upload this before I left for Greece, so this bit is a little out of sequence. Wednesday 13 June 2012 (cont’d) Vatican Visit Where do I start? So much to take in… so much history. I pre-booked this tour before I left Australia. The company ‘Rome Walks’ had consistently good write-ups on Trip Advisor. I met my tour group this morning at 10. It was a 4-hour walking tour of the Vatican museum, Raphael rooms and St Peter’s Basilica and I can tell you, didn’t my feet and legs know it by about two thirds of the way around. I’m not going to go on about the history as there’s so much I could write about and it would take far too long. As you can imagine; when you get ... read more

Finding Rodolfo Tuesday 12 June 2012. Today I am on a mission. It was my intention to go to the military archives to see if I could find out some information about my great grandfather. Ultimately I would like to find out the address where he lived when he joined the forces in 1914 so that I may then be able to follow through to find other family members. It's only 8.30 in the morning and I’ve already hit a barrier. My B&B host, Eduardo telephoned the archive library for me. “Tell her she must come back in July” he was told. “There are too many people wanting to access the archives at this time, we’re sorry, but we cannot help for at least another month”. I couldn’t believe it. That’s that then I ... read more

Saturday 9 June cont'd On to Orvieto… we arrived around 7pm to the only walled city I know that you can actually drive your car to your hotel. Bang… we were stopped just 100 meters from my hotel by a pageant. Not to worry the sight of the Duomo was magnificent and quelled any ill-feelings of having to lug luggage over cobblestones and through the crowd. Oh no, she cried, nobody here… all at the pageant! Fortunately it wasn’t a regular hotel (or perhaps because of), it was a monastery guest house. Waiting alongside me at the front door were 9 young priests robed in black. Most of them spoke English and we passed the time with conversation about each other’s travels. They were good –natured and very refreshing. Most were from USA, studying in Rome ... read more

Devastated… I’ve been robbed Saturday 9 June 2012 Still not very bright today, even after a big sleep, but I had to keep moving. Whilst packing this morning I discovered I had two gold bracelets and a gold bangle missing. I couldn’t believe it as I pulled everything apart, unpacked and repacked three times. Now I really did feel sick. I took them off on Tuesday before I had the so called ‘massage’. I hadn’t missed them until now because I’ve been wearing other (less-expensive) jewellery for a few days. But I had to keep moving as one of the other students was arriving at 12 to pick me up. Thank goodness he did because I was in such a state that I didn’t know what to do. He drove me to the police station and ... read more