Back to my random thoughts on the places we've been to. We had two days in Lisbon and it was another proper city break. We stayed in a hotel right in the city, which was nice as the last few we've stayed in have been outside the city centre. Admittedly, we were getting a bit tired of cities at this point. We wandered around the city our first night and noted that Lisbon has a lot of big squares. And by a lot, I mean every block or two. And they all have big statues commemorating wars, famous leaders, etc. It got a bit much after a while, I admit, and we kind of tuned out. At one point we saw a bunch of people sitting by the water (next to a big square) so we ... read more

So, out of necessity we picked our first hotel in Lisbon on the basis of in-suite laundry. NO ONE PANIC, it was still a nice hotel. After a couple weeks without laundry, it was very welcome. We spent our first night in the hotel doing a load an hour and hanging it from every possible chair, table and balcony thing we could. The next day we grabbed some breakfast and headed for Cascais, a nearby beach town. It was quite nice, although the walking was slow due to some “dodgy tummyness”. I went for a quick swim in the ocean and it was surprisingly cold. Now having travelled a lot, I am not usually given to whining about ocean temperatures. On this occasion my legs actually started to ache from the cold, it was a short ... read more

There are occasions in life where you find yourself in surreal situations. I think our spa classifies for this category. We arrived at our hotel and couldn't get through the secure gate without buzzing reception, HMMM. The hotel is stunning with amazing views. We went for dinner at the hotel and had the most amazing appetizers and good wine, the mains were a bit of a letdown. We spent some time trying out all 4 of the different pools: 3 volcanic thermal pools and one standard temp. The people in the hotel all seem quite wealthy and keep to themselves. There were quite a few older gentlemen with younger (but adult) female companions, as well as a few men with two women. Because we don’t know the real life stories of anyone here, we have taken ... read more

We got off the cruise ship at 7:15am on the dot, 5 minutes before our last available time. Turns out they're very strict if you want to take your own luggage off and not wait for yours and a thousand other bags. Thank goodness we were able to book an automatic car for our time in Italy as at least we had a way to get to wherever we were going...which we didn't know. But at least we could get there. We drove to Tuscany as we knew we wanted to go there. Ended up in a town called Pistoia, West of Firenze (Florence) where we had lunch and found an internet cafe. €1/hr, gotta love it in the small town. Shane was stressing a bit because we didn't have a place to stay that night ... read more

1. You can wear Royal Caribbean keychains as earrings for that time when you want a big white and blue plastic accessory to compliment your outfit. 2. You can wear a string bikini when you’re in your 80s. You won’t look good but you can wear it. 3. Don’t ever tell people you wish your wife of 4 days had less attitude in front of a theatre full of people. The rest of us will laugh and laugh and laugh. 4. Re: getting burnt. Response we heard someone say to a friend warning her that she’s burnt: “I don’t burn because I’m showering a lot”. 5. Ignorance is bliss. Case in point: “People in Croatia should just learn English to make it easier for us to shop”. 6. It’s ok for young girls to wear stilettos. ... read more