May 4, 2018


We will arrive in Venice, Italy, after spending a few days in Dublin, Ireland, taking a cruise to Iceland and spending a few days in and around Brussels, Belgium.

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June 6, 2018

    Today was the second and final Sea Day of the cruise. The ship will travel 663 nautical miles sailing back to Venice from Catania, Sicily in the next 37 hours. During the night the ship cruised around the bottom of Italy from the Ionian Sea into the Adriatic Sea.  For the rest of the cruise the east coast of Italy will be barely visible on the port side of the ship.     After breakfast in the dining room, we climbed up to Deck 11 to walk the track for an hour in the wind. The sky was mostly cloudy, but by Captain Vittorio Cantu’s announcement at 10 a.m., we had cruised into more blue sky, but it was windy and about 21°C. Captain Cantu gave the wind speed as about 24 km per hour from the northeast, but combined with the ship’s northern acceleration, it was more like 55 km per hour. The wind stayed strong all day.  Steps 9,196 steps or 6.84 km.     After lunch, we met Linda, Craig, Cindy and Nahed, in the...
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June 2, 2018

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     As we ate an early breakfast, the ship was maneuvering through the shallow waters of the bays leading to Kotor, Montenegro, before 7 a.m. The depth is about 30 meters so ships do not speed. It was only 80 nautical miles from Dubrovnik.  The temperature was about 20°C, a sunny sky with a small breeze.      Passengers needed to be tendered to shore to go on excursions or explore Kotor.  Also tendering its passengers was the ship MSC Musica. Our excursion group was on the tender boat by 7:20. On shore we met our guide, Caroline, who was distributing audio sets to the 46 members of our group.  The first item on the program was a walking tour through Kotor’s Old Town. Kotor is pronounced Caw-tahr. As we waited for everyone to assemble, we watched the smaller cruise ship Silver Whisper dock.  She told us the Hwala is Thank you and Chow is Hello or Bye, a remnant from the rule of the Venetians. ...
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June 5, 2018

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    When we went for breakfast the ship was in the Catania Gulf, approaching Catania, Sicily, Italy to dock. The volcano, Mount Etna, is located near Catania.  It is easily seen from the ship.  It was 228 nautical miles from Naples.  The temperature was about 20°C, this morning, a sunny sky with a gentle breeze.  There was a haze by Mt, Etna making the photos slightly faded looking.      When we boarded the bus, audio receiver sets and earphones were on the seats. The group numbered 44 for our guide, Valadia, to escort.  The tour was in Taormina which was a one hour drive from Catania. The bus drove us through the Sicilian countryside and up about 1000 meters to old town Taormina perched high on the coastal mountains. There were many large blooming bushes along the route, white, pink, dark pink and purple. There were many olive orchards, some trees were planted on terraced slopes. There we...
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