Cruisin‘

I’ve been meaning to write this post for so long already, since it has already been 7 weeks ago when we went on a cruise vacation.

Six years ago, I went on my first cruise with my parents and sister on the Norwegian Jewel on the Western Mediterranean Sea and visited 6 cities within a week: Barcelona, Messina, Naples, Rome, Florence, Pisa and Villefranche-sur-Mer. I especially liked Villefranche – it was a small place close to Nice, but so nice and refreshing.

Villefrance with the "Jewel" in the background

This time, I chose the Eastern Mediterranean Sea and visited Venice and Greek Isles, like Corfu, Santorini, Mykonos and Katakolon (Olympia). The cruise was a good choice, since we had two sea days, so that we could relax on board, but also saw 5 picturesque cities. I have seen views that have literally blown me away, because they were simply so damn beautiful. The reason we picked this cruise was Venice and Santorini – particularly Santorini has been on top of my list of places to see in Europe.

We booked an excursion in Corfu, since we only had limited time, where we could see the highlights. We first went to Perama, where we stopped to take photographs of the famous views of Mouse Island. Then, we continued to Lakones, or “Bella Vista” - I liked the view in Corfu very much, since we could look onto the Paleokastritsa; see mountains in the foggy background, spot vineyards and olive trees. For the rest, we did not have time to explore Corfu town due to the time restriction.

Mouse Island

Beautiful view - Bella Vista

Next was Santorini, where we only arrived in the early afternoon, since it was quite a distance. We had to wait for our turn to get on the tender boats and then again wait for the cable car to get up to the city centre. Once arrived, after taking a few first shots, we took the bus to Oia, where the famous sunsets are taken. It was indeed a gorgeous view from the spot, but I also liked this view very much:

Santorini

Unfortunately, it was sooo windy that we couldn't take any decent pictures without my hair flying around. This is the best I could get:

Windy ..

We missed the sunset, because we were already on the ship when the sun was going down. However, we could enjoy it anyway:

When leaving Santorini ..

After dinner .. having fresh fruit while watching the sunset ..

Next was Mykonos, an island full of yachts and rich tourist, famous for its pelicans (we didn’t spot one), the windmills and “Little Venice”. It was indeed very charming, with its white streets and big cobble stones, but it was very small and a lot of the streets/houses looked the same to me. And we were kinda ripped off for a cappuccino priced €6 – each! Nevertheless, we could benefit from this view whilst drinking it:

One of Mykonos' landmarks: windmills

Our ship and Little Venice behind me

And yes - it was so blue there - blue sky and crystal clear water!

The last greek island was Katakolon, more famous for Olympia. We are not big historic fans, but we felt like having to go, since it was one of the places along the cruise and a historic landmark, but were not blown away by the many, many old stones in a huge park – I know Philistines! It was more like been there, done that – check. The street from the station of Katakolon to the harbor where our ship was located, however, was very pretty and Mediterranean.

Katakolon

Oh and as a proof, I was actually IN Olympia -

We decided to spend one more day in Venice, since we didn’t get to see it when we arrived. Unfortunately, it was very cloudy, but it didn’t rain luckily. Nevertheless, pictures are thus not sooo nice. We took the vaporetto (watertaxi) up and down the Grand Canal and got to see all the “must sees”, like the Piazza de San Marco, the basilica and campanile, the Rialto bridge or bridge of sighs. We had delicious Italian food as well. The only thing missing for me was going up the campanile and having risotto (and maybe Italian dessert). What I didn’t like was that it was so soo crowed. There were tourists everywhere, obviously, but it was a bit too overwhelming – even after spending 6 days on a ship with 3000 other people. 

So peaceful!

Narrow streets in Venice

Bridge of Sighs

Piazzi di San Marco in the evening

The ship itself was fine, there was enough choice of restaurants (there are two complimentary ones and we basically switched from night to night and a various specialty restaurants, where you had to pay an additional cover charge). However, we missed some activities. We didn’t do any sports (swimming, golf, basket ball), go to the casino, but only went to the show every night. We enjoyed the cruising experience anyway and already think about a next cruise :)

at the atrium/lobby of the ship

French dinner at "Le Bistro"

pic of the "Jade"