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4th May Barcelona. We had prebooked tickets to go La Sagrada Familia, the famous Gaudi designed church, just about impossible to get in unless you book ahead. The last two times we were here it was shrouded in scaffolding and nets but now its nearing completion the end of 2025! The morning we spent walking the streets of Barcelona to some other Gaudi designed buildings, the gorgeous food market and then a stop for a nice cold beer. Had a fabulous day with a guided tour of the inside and outside of La Sagrada Familia, the guide gave a great history of the building without going on and on, our ticket also included tickets to get up the Nativity tower for sweeping views over Barcelona, lift up but you have to do the stairs down, 400 of the most narrow and steep circular stairwell, very scary! Hanging onto the railing for grim death, both Renate and I had jelly legs at the end and our legs are still sore 3 days on. If I knew it was like that I would not have bothered with the Tower. Taxi back to boat after all that. A day at sea then Valletta for
the day, everyone did their own thing getting taxis etc aroumd the island and John and I did an 18000 step walk around Valletta and met Ivan and Renate after their tour around the island. Valletta is one of our fave towns so tracked down our fave coffee shop there, a Sicilian family cafe, fuelled up with a great coffee and wandered all around the place. It was a beautiful sunny day in low 20s...perfect for a long walk.
Next stop Santorini. As we sailed in through all the islands it was so pretty and arriving in the waters just off Santorini it was a spectacular sight with Santorini rising high up above our ship. The cliffs were so steep and baron and perched atop these cliffs was the town of Fira with its white houses. This port required us to tender in to the port, five ships in today, so that alone will swell the islands' population by 6 to 7,000! We had times for our tenders and our ship had tickets for the cable car to get up to the town of Fira.So options were to walk the zig zag path up the cliff, get a dockey or
the cable car! Long queues for cable car about 35-40 mins but worth the wait, ship had informed us at busy times the wait can be up to 2hrs...hell we were hoping that would not be the case. We had plenty of time to explore the town of Fira, decided not to stretch it and do Oiu or other places and glad we did, as Fira is quite big from one end to the other and we walked and walked up hills and more hills. Had a really nice feel about it but far too many people. Were craving for some Greek food and found this devine little giros place in the back streets and sat and enjoyed every morsel of this yummy lamb giros! Lovely shops and lots of villas to rent. Had a lovely day and queued to get our cable car back down, then tender back to ship. Weather was perfect although on the warm side. Back onboard to happy hour and our last dinner together, great dinner but early night as tuckered out with all the walking. To Athens overnight arriving 4am...our disemarkation time 9.15 for bus transfer 10am, six of us Novotel Athenes and Chris
and Jude at Wyndham Grand under a klm away. Afternoon tour of highlights of Athens, we have not had much luck with tours and this was no different! Quite a few from the cruise doing it and our pick up was 1.30, did not arrive til 2pm, hop in, no conversation, no instructions, 15min drive get dumped off at a corner and told to wait! Finally a couple of guides arrived, confused with the number of guests, not enough hearing devices, finally got going about 2.45. After two hrs in Acropolis museum (its full of statues) talking about rocks we left the tour, just too much useless information and a drone of a voice. Luckily the guide had given us our tickets to the Acropolis area so off we went and just got in because our tickets expired at 5pm, 4.55pm IN!! Had a good look around and were meeting Chris and Jude for dinner at 7pm so were able to fit it in. The original group got back to the hotel 7.30 when the time was supposed to be by 6pm. Had another tour booked through this company following day for countryside...CANCELLED...hell no could not put up with this
disorganisation and had a wonderful day walking 19klms around Athens instead. It was a relaxed day seeing heaps. Then met up for dinner which was another great little taverna, beers, more marvellous Greek food and great company. 11th May breaky at hotel and homeward bound 1.55pm flight to Doha. All in all a great holiday with friends, visiting some places we would not normally had gone to eg Mauritius ❤️❤️
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Ernie & Roni
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Hello from Port Melb
Thank you once again Gloria & John for a wonderful commentary of your trip. It was so interesting the places you went to & experienced especially in Africa etc. You have had a wonderful trip & thoroughly enjoyed reading. Always look forward to your travel diaries. Safe travels. Love from us both.